Chuck Stewart, Ph.D.

 

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APPENDIX F Comprehensive Program and Instructional Model for "Training on Socially Stigmatized Communities"

by Chuck Stewart, Ph.D., University of Southern California, School of Education, Department of Administration and Policy, 1995.

Often "diversity training" is something "done" to students, perceived as punishment and attempts to instill guilt. Sexual orientation training is one of the newest additions to cultural awareness programs in law enforcement, is probably the most controversial, and unfortunately falls into the same "diversity training" trap. Too often, training on gay and lesbian issues originated in response to lawsuits and complaints resulting in community trainers who sometime berate police officers for their alleged prejudice. However, many of the issues brought up by sexual orientation training challenge conventional thought on diversity training and point toward a reassessment of overall program goals and perspectives.
Gay and lesbian culture is often ridiculed for not being an "authentic" culture, and therefore it should not be afforded the same treatment as other cultural groups. Students frequently complain that "sexual orientation training," or "alternative lifestyle training" is really "homosexuality training" in disguise. Also, questions are raised as to why sexual orientation training receives so much time and emphasis in comparison with other minorities. Each of these concerns point out that it is not anything inherent in groups to warrant diversity training, but that particular groups are stigmatized by social and institutional processes. Law enforcement has often historically been a conservative function of the state and reinforces cultural norms. The legal protections and social norms concerning gays and lesbians are in flux. As such, police organizations are caught between their historical position as oppressors of gays and lesbians with enforcing the new more protected status afforded gays and lesbians by recent changes in law. Thus, law enforcement organizations are faced with overcoming historical forces where they have been partially instrumental for reinforcing gay and lesbian stigmatization. "Diversity training," "cultural awareness training," "multi-cultural education," or "human relations training" are not actually issues of cultural difference, but should instead be viewed as issues of overcoming the stigmatization of particular groups. With this perspective, I propose that training on persons who do not conform to the heterosexual norm be titled, "Training on Sexual Stigmatized Communities."
All organizations need to examine their employee and customer population to ascertain which groups it reinforces stigmatization and then address those issues through multiple strategiesincluding training. Presented is an instructional model that provides the framework for a highly effective learning experience available for overcoming stigmatization. Although the content is explicitly on sexual orientation within law enforcement, other stigmatized groups could use the same teaching strategies supplanting sexual orientation content with their own issues. The overall term I suggest for this training is "Training on Socially Stigmatized Communities."
Goals: A clear set of goals is an essential first step. Vague goals such as to "sensitize" or "increase awareness" do not aide in developing a coherent program, and smacks of political correctness. Particularly, the term "sensitize" should be avoided because it implies that persons are not sensitive to other people needswhich is highly offensive to law enforcement personnel who frequently save lives, provide assistance to people in need and are often the first persons to arrive at situations of medical emergencies. Goals need to emphasize how learning about homosexuality will benefit the organization, agency personnel and interactions with customers. For example, in law enforcement, goals could include: (1) Police personnel will obtain a better understanding of the agencies commitment to non-discrimination for gays and lesbians, (2) Exploring personal thoughts and feelings about homosexuality will facilitate self-awareness of the issues and help police personnel identify where they are in agreement and/or conflict with the agencys non-discrimination policy, (3) Accurate information on homosexuality will assist police personnel to replace negative stereotypes they may hold, and help resolve personal conflicts with the agencys non-discrimination policy, (4) The effect of homophobia and heterosexism on the workplace environment and interactions with customers will be explored, and (5) Strategies for overcoming homophobia and heterosexist behavior in the agency and with customers will be developed by students and police administrators in support of identifying appropriate police behaviors. These are suggested goals, but each law enforcement agency needs to customize their own goals, keeping them specifically targeted toward overcoming the stigmatization of gays and lesbians. Homophobia reduces worker effectiveness and subjects an organization to potential lawsuit. It is in the interest of the organization and its members to eliminate homophobia and to accept gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgenders as equals. Employees who cannot or will not adhere to these goals should be encouraged to change or quit law enforcement.
Instructor(s): Who are the ideal instructor(s) in a police environment? Psycholinguistic educational theory believes that instructors need to be the kind of persons students want to become. Consequently, different kinds of instructors are needed for different kinds of audiences. For recruit classes, appropriate instructors should be masculine acting (new police go through a hyper-masculine identity stage), no-nonsense yet easy-going, gay and lesbian police officers (both genders need to be present) who are well respected for their professionalism, have a sense of humor and are well liked. For middle managers, instructors need these same qualities but must be a rank above the students. At the highest levels, many police chiefs take a more academic view of themselves and policing (many have graduate degrees) and instructors should have years of police experience, academic credentials and again be well respected.
Obviously, finding open gay and lesbian police personnel with these qualities, along with experience as teachers, is difficult for all but the largest law enforcement agencies. Thus, some other combination of persons could be used to meet these needs. Sexual orientation training requires: (1) at least one person who is skilled in classroom techniques and group processing skills; (2) a subject-matter expert; (3) at least one gay male police officer and one lesbian police officer preferably from the academy or agency where the training is being conducted who are willing to share their life stories; and, (4) all these people must be gender conforming (emphasizing a masculine demeanor), well respected and well liked. Heterosexuals may be instructors, but two officers who are gay or lesbian need to be present to share their experiences. Hopefully, the teaching team will contain persons of color, disabilities (caused while on duty), etc., to demonstrate that gay culture encompasses much more than just gay white males. It is also instructional to have a police officer who is the heterosexual parent of a gay or lesbian child.
If inappropriate persons are used on the teaching team (or panel), strong student resistance often results. Even if teaching skills and content are excellent, students will report negative teacher evaluations that puts pressure on program administrators to take action. Administrators need to work with the teaching team to obtain a balance in training skills and appropriate role models. Similarly, panels made up of community activists are notoriously ineffective because these are not the kinds of persons law enforcement personnel identify with, and in fact, represent some of the very people with whom police have historically come into conflict.
Psycholinguistic Education Perspective: For learning to occur, the information must be comprehensible, meaningful, and modeled by teachers in an authentic manner. In both teaching and administering, effectiveness of the process is directly related to the serious social obligations precipitated between participants. It is the meaning associated with the social obligations that allows for learning to occur. The greater the social obligations, the greater the exchange of information, skills, attitudes and behaviors. The effectiveness of the information exchange is related to the skill of the teacher or administrator to model the knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviors in a comprehensible, meaningful and authentic manner. People form social obligations with other people they see themselves becoming. Learning occurs between people who choose to be like each other. "You learn from the company you keep."
In this context, instruction needs to start with exploring students understanding of gender, sex and police work (Moll refers to this as Funds of Knowledge). Self-awareness activities help facilitate the first step. This prepares students to receive comprehensible information on the processes of gay and lesbian stigmatization, i.e., overt homophobia, institutional homophobia, societal homophobia and internalized homophobia. However, this cannot be irrelevant information. Instead, the information must be kept meaningful by relating it to student self-identity as law enforcement personnel . For example, trying to explain sexual orientation variance using the Shively and De Cecco (1993) tri-continua model based upon gender identity, social sex-role, and sexual orientation to persons who find Kinseys bipolar model unbelievable, would not be an effective place to start. Similarly, a deep analysis of the biological component of sexual orientation is possible only with persons familiar with genetics and biological brain research. Furthermore, much of the recent research and literature on sexual orientation is based on advanced feminist theory and many of the concepts are foreign to all but the educated elite.
Assisting students to greater levels of understanding requires meaningful information they will use, i.e., authentic learning. Real problems of gay and lesbian stigmatization experienced between police personnel and with the community allow students to use (practice) their newly gained understanding and to extend their knowledge to a personal level. Scenarios or role-playing activities are effective for authentic learning.
Finally, making summaries and seeking closure on each sub-topic helps students relate their newly gained knowledge to the goals of the training.

.c2.Training Program

Once training goals have been developed between the agency and instructor, the training team is assembled and training commenced. This section outlines an effective training program on sexual stigmatized communities. An effective training program requires a minimum of 4 hours, as so much of the program involves individual and group activities. Self-awareness takes time, and putting that into practice takes even longer. Reduced time allotments severely impact the effectiveness of the program. A 50-minute lecture on homosexuality designed to sensitize employees to the issue is impossible and reinforces the perception that the information is not important. Ideal class size should not exceed 15 students per instructor. Remember, effective teaching requires serious social obligations to be established between students and instructors, which are impossible when class size becomes too large or time allotment is too short.

Introduction

It is imperative that program administrators, or preferably the police chief, introduce the instructors and stresses the importance of the sexual stigmatization training. Homosexuality is not a deficit and should not be referred to by negative terms. For example, administrators have been known to say, "We dont know what causes it," "These people deserve respect just like the rest of us," we need to "learn how they think," "there are no known facts about sexual orientation," or "Ethnicity, race, and sexual orientation are sometimes used to fog the issue and are scapegoats to evade performance issues and that there are only 2 or 3 [categories of people] heteros, homos and bisexuals." These comments only promote heterosexism and continue the stigmatization of gays and lesbians. Hopefully, the program administrator will have made pre-training preparations by personally meeting with each of the students to emphasize the importance of the training to the agency. It is best if administrators keep their comments in line with the established training goals and share a personal experience (such as witnessing a gay bashing) that underscores the terrible oppression gays and lesbian experience and the departments commitment to overcoming prejudice.

Goals of Training and Safe Environment

Instructors need to state verbally and/or write on the board the goals of the training. Since sexuality, and in particular homosexuality, is such a sensitive issue in our society, students experience much anxiety. Instructors need to acknowledge the anxiety level of the room by commenting that the primary source of this anxiety is generally ascribed to a lack of information we received about sex while growing upthat our sex education classes in school were inadequate (or lacking completely) and that homosexuality was either hidden (no books in the school library) or painted with negative stereotypes. Anxiety about a taboo subject is expected and hopefully the training will raise student understanding and lower their anxiety.
For students to attain self-awareness about their feelings, attitudes and beliefs on homosexuality, the classroom environment needs to be safe for students to ask questions and share feelings. Ground rules for sharing help facilitate open discussion. Therefore, instructors need to verbally state, and/or write on the board instructions such as: (1) "There are no stupid questions;" (2) "Even though we may disagree with someones comments, allow the person to finish;" (3) "Avoid put-downs;" and, (4) "We will agree to disagree."

Self-Awareness

3. Continuum Choice: Four blank flip chart papers are placed at the front of the room, spaced well apart. A scenario is read to the class and four possible responses are written, one on each paper. One student at a time is asked to come to the front of the class and stand in front of the paper that best reflects his or her beliefs and to give their reasons for the choice he or she made. These discussions bring up many of the issues of stigmatization. Scenarios could include, "In the police agency, how would you describe the acceptance of gays and lesbians or the discussion of homosexuality? Would it be very accepting, somewhat accepting, somewhat hostile, very hostile (these four choices are the responses written on the flip chart paper)." A couple of scenarios should be used.

All of these activities generate much discussion, with many of the negative stereotypes and myths about gays and lesbians emerging. The Self-Awareness Scenarios activity handles larger groups well and provides a safe-anonymous atmosphere. The Continuum Choice activity gets students up and moving with good visual reinforcement, but it can be intimidating for many students to participate. The Forced-Choice Value Clarification activity balances between these other activities. Instructors are encouraged to try all three and see which best compliments their teaching style. Remember, the purpose of the activity is for students to become aware of their own feelings and beliefs and for non-homophobic responses to be modeled. If the group displays intense homophobia, try to minimize this and reinforce gay-friendly attitudes and behaviors. You want to make homophobes feel isolated and out of touch with the norms of the group.
At this point of the training, students have gained a better awareness of their own beliefs and feelings about homosexuality. Also, many questions regarding sexuality have emerged. Before work applications can be discussed, basic information on sexuality needs to be given to make the process of stigmatization of gays and lesbian comprehensible.

Sexual Orientation Research / Overcoming Stereotypes

One police administrator commented, "research is selected to fit a persons paradigm." Another academy dean said, "No accurate information [exists] on what causes it." Indirectly, these men implied that research presented in sexual orientation training is nothing more than selectively chosen statistics attempting to legitimize homosexuality.
There is much research on human sexuality. Historically, sexologists were interested in sexual "deviance" and selected homosexuality. Because of the heterosexual norm, early research was skewed toward "proving" the deviance. Particularly before the 1970s, when sex researchers looked for homosexuals to study, they went to bars, mental hospitals and jails because that is where "they" could be found. Is it no wonder they found this subpopulation to have higher incidences of alcoholism, mentally disorders and criminal behaviors? Early researchers typically did not challenge the assumptions that their subpopulation accurately represented the gay and lesbian population. This problem still exists today because of the difficulties in definitions and finding a population that is neither homogeneous nor wants to be identified.
Two major camps have evolved around sexual identity. The essentialists believe that genetics and biological forces are responsible for sexual, affection and gender identities. Constructionists believe that social forces are the responsible agents. Although these two camps are often presented as competing paradigms, they are actually complementary having ardent supporters in each camp acknowledging the influences of the other.
Most instructors of sexual orientation, either in police or business arenas, take an essentialist perspectivesaying that sexual orientation is not a choice. This is a simple answer that limits discussion and removes sexual choices from moral consideration. However, it is incorrect. The often-quoted Kinsey study, biological twin study and paternal brother study, are used as evidence that approximately 8 to 10% of "mankind" is homosexual. These studies attempt to say the research is universal, but it is not. Their measurements were made in societies that hate and condemn homosexuals, places where gays and lesbians have a vested interest in staying hidden. If 10% of "mankind" is homosexual, then in other cultures the same percentage should be found. That is not the case. There are whole societies in which everyone engages in homosexual relationships from about age 8 to age 30, at which time they are expected to get heterosexually married and bear children (although they may continue homosexual behaviors). In these cultures, homosexuality is institutionalized for everyone, and the Western concepts of sexuality make no sense. Cross-cultural analysis is important and demonstrates how sexuality is contextually based. (Two books I would recommend; [1] as a general textbook on human sexuality Blumenfeld, W., & Raymond, D. 1988. Looking at gay and lesbian life., and [2] for a cross-cultural analysis Williams, W. 1986. The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture.)
Human sexuality is vastly complex. It is this complexity that makes it inappropriate to attempt a serious discussion of sexual orientation research in a short workshop environment. Instead, a truncated list of the major myths regarding homosexuality may be addressed. These myths will emerge from the self-awareness activities and the subject-matter expert can provide limited information. The most common myths include: all homosexuals are confused about their gender, carry AIDS, are sexually promiscuous, are emotionally unstable, became homosexual due to some childhood trauma or some parental influence, that lesbians are man-haters, and, gay males make sexual advances on heterosexual men. Students should be encouraged to take college classes on the subject and/or conduct their own readings. Instructors need to provide reading lists and/or distribute topic papers for students to take home and read on their own.

1. Gay Lifestyle Activity: Two large circles are drawn on the chalk board. A heterosexual student is asked to share how he/she spends his/her day. The instructor draws lines cutting the circle into segments representing the number of hours devoted to each item. For example, sleeping consumes approximately 8 hours each day, so approximately 1/3 of the circle is marked off (in pie cuts). Once the entire 24-hours are blocked off, one of the homosexual officers shares his/her daily activity. Invariably the circles are very similar. The instructor could emphasize that time spent with family is approximately the same, but that gays and lesbians are usually more involved with friendship networks and "extended families" than biological ones. Much laughter occurs during this activity when it is realized that "sex" usually consumes not more than 15-minutes each day, if that, regardless if the person is heterosexual or homosexual.
In presenting the sexual orientation research, it is important to keep in mind the training is not a comprehensive course on human sexuality but aimed at reducing homophobia in the workplace. It presents information on the subtle and not so subtle ways in which society stigmatizes and reinforces oppression, leading to important group discussions on these issues. The instructor needs to guide the sexual orientation research questions, showing how homophobia is linked to racism, sexism and processes of stigmatization.
It is during this section that the most discussion and debate occurs. There is always a contingent of people who challenge the accuracy of the research, some vehemently so. In particular, some students claim the research presented by the instructor is "biased" (similar to the comments made by program administrators). One trainer was observed to bring along about 15 academic books and indicated that a majority of the authors were heterosexual. This does not appear to overcome the objections since these students are entrenched in their belief and no amount of data or research will change their minds. (Not surprisingly, none of these students have ever read on the subject.) Debate often brings the class to a halt and is counter-productive. If this occurs, instructors must end the stalemate by stating something like, "I agree with your right to disagree, but we must move on. This is accurate information on homosexuality and you are encouraged to conduct your own research and study." To respond to religious objections to homosexuality, I suggest saying, "Some religions are anti-gay, others are neutral, and still others have special roles for homosexuals as religious leaders. Because the U.S. legal system is based on separation of church and state, you as a public employee cannot impose your religious beliefs over the other people you are working with or the diverse community you serve. If you cannot take a neutral stance, you should consider some other line of work other than law enforcement."

Personalizing Gays and Lesbians

3. Gay Cops, video from 60-Minutes with Mike WallaceThis is a wonderful 20 minute segment of interviews with gay and lesbian police officers, FBI agents and others.
Having fellow officers share their stories is the most effective method of personalizing information on homosexuality. THIS IS A NECESSITY. If this is not possible, a video of police officers needs to be made. The other two activitiesFamous Gays and Lesbians and Gay Cop videoshould only be used as optional enrichment activities.

Just How Bad Is It For Gays and Lesbians in Our Heterosexist Society?

Sharing personal life stories presents evidence and opens discussion on the various ways gays and lesbians are oppressed and stigmatized. Most people are unaware of how difficult it is to be homosexual in a heterosexist society. Students often complain that gays and lesbians are seeking "special rights" and that we have a secret "gay agenda." What we want is the bashing, the firings, losing our children in custody battles, losing our housing, and the hatred thrown toward us to stop. Our "gay agenda" is to obtain the same rights and considerations afforded all people.
This section of the training gives information to show that discrimination against gays and lesbians continues from a multitude of social, institutional and legal forces in our society, and these forces have a direct impact on the workplace. The training needs to show how this discrimination harms efficient operation of the department and that it is a major reason why the department is firmly committed to ending discrimination. When police spend their energies hiding, or being worried about discrimination, they cannot do their job well.

3. Stereotype Activity #3: "Lesbian Invisibility": Four pieces of flip chart paper or four columns on the chalk board are used. At the top of the first column is written "Heterosexual Males," the second column "Homosexual Males," the third column "Heterosexual Females," and the fourth column "Homosexual Females." Students are asked to participate by providing synonyms and adjectives for each of the categories. Variations of the same word are not allowed (e.g., once you have mother, grandmother is repetitious). (Note: the suggested order of solicitation isHeterosexual Male, Heterosexual Female, Homosexual Male, Homosexual Female.) Words similar to Stereotype Activity #1 will be obtained. Students will discover that our language reinforces the following stereotypes: heterosexual males "good," powerful and unemotional; heterosexual females "good," weak and emotional; homosexual males "bad," weak and emotional; and, homosexual females "bad," and strong. Students will be lead to conclude: (a) Heterosexual males (particularly white males) maintain their social dominance by assigning words that keep minorities submissive; (b) Even though heterosexual females are perceived as "good", they are maintained as submissive to males by assigning them emotional, unstable, and weak qualities; c) Although homosexual males could be part of the "male dominance", they are perceived as "bad" and assigned emotional, unstable, weak qualities similar to that of heterosexual females; d) The column for homosexual females is not as long as the other three columns. This is always the case! Sociologists explain that heterosexual males could be threatened by homosexual females who are perceived as being strong and who do not need them. Our culture has thus solved this problem by making lesbians invisible. To acknowledge a minority is to empower it. Our language has few terms to recognize homosexual females. This is known as Lesbian Invisibility; (e) There are no positive synonyms for homosexual males; (f) Homosexual females have only one positive or neutral termLesbian; and, (g) AIDS has been attached to all homosexuals.
The previously mentioned activities have proven to be quite popular, but instructors should be warned that many of the male students will become quite boisterous, trying to out yell each other. Such behaviors can generally be interpreted as attempts to prove to peers that they could not possibly be homosexual. These activities run the risk of reinforcing anti-gay sentiments if the class gets out of hand and too vicious. Try to keep stereotype activities brief. Also, invariably you will be asked about your own sexuality. If you attempt to avoid answering this question, they will assume you are not heterosexual. This could be very threatening to your self-esteem if you are heterosexual or a closeted homosexual.
Once the charts are completed, the instructor: (a) gives more information regarding the origins of some of the words and research to discount the stereotypes, and (b) leads the class in further discussion regarding the stereotype for gay males as feminine and the stereotype for lesbians as masculine, thus reinforcing the myth that gays and lesbians are gender "confused." The instructor must get the students to question the necessity that all people must conform to only one gender role that is considered "appropriate" for their sex. Other conclusions can be reached about the use of language to control gays and lesbians (see "Lesbian Invisibility" conclusions in Stereotype Activity #3).

6. "Shared Weekend Activity": Because of the historical, social, religious and legal restrictions gays, lesbians and bisexuals have experienced, most find their survival is dependent upon staying in the closet. This means that many gays, lesbians and bisexuals do not share most aspects of their private lives with their family, friends, or co-workers. However, it takes much effort to learn how not to share since it is culturally acceptable to pry into each others lives. For example, on Monday morning at work, the first thing employees do is share with each other what they did on the weekend. They tell what they did, where they went, who accompanied them, etc. Gays and lesbians are faced with: (1) either telling the truth and possibly be subjected to social rebuke or worse; (2) lie and use the opposite gender when telling their story (metaphorically known as "Monday Morning Pronoun"); (3) tell their story by making it gender neutral; or, (4) avoid telling anything. In this activity students are randomly paired and told, "For three minutes, you are to tell your partner everything you did this past weekend. However, you are not to indicate the gender of the person(s) you interacted with. That means that you cannot use their name or any other proper noun, and no pronouns such as he/she/him/her. The other partner is to keep track of how many times you make a mistake or each time you use the word we by raising their finger for each mistake. If you make more than three mistakes, your partner is to stop you and ask, Who are we?" After three minutes are up, the students switch roles and start again. When the second three minutes are over, have a couple of students share with the class how difficult it was to share their personal life under these conditions and discuss the psychological implications resulting from a lifetime of hiding.
The most important activity is the first activity. Instructors sharing personal stories emphasizing the pain of growing up gay in a heterosexist society is very powerful. This continues the personal contact between instructors and students and allows for a law enforcement emphasis.
Institutional Homophobia: At this point of the training class, a short lecture on the connection between stigmatization, oppression, sexism, homophobia and heterosexism should be given to tie in the stereotype activity and internalized homophobia. (See Pharr, S. 1988. Homophobia: A weapon of sexism.) Again, many people are unaware that gays and lesbians can still be legally discriminated against in most states and cities throughout the U.S. and at the federal government level. Even when there are legal protections, they are often limited and still do not afford equal protection for people who are not heterosexual. A very concise listing of the legal status of homosexuality in the United States is presented in Hunter, N. D., Michaelson, S. E., & Stoddard, T. B., 1992.

Points-of-Contact

1. Point-of-Contact: Employees come in contact with gays and lesbians at two levels: interpersonal in the work environment, and with the customer. Situations that need to be covered in interacting with customers include: (a) traffic stops, burglary, robbery (sexual orientation has virtually no impact in these situations unless civilians share the information or officers make inappropriate remarks or actions due to gay and lesbian stereotypes); (b) lewd conduct and prostitution (sexual orientation has a greater significance here due to the historic misuse of these laws used to harass homosexuals); (c) hate crimes (sexual orientation is very important since gay-bashing is the nations number one hate crime); (d) domestic violence (sexual orientation is very important since studies show that in gay or lesbian domestic violence cases, officers arrest the wrong person 80% of the time due to gender role stereotyping); (e) civil disobedience (gay activism and protest demonstrations were significant during the 1980s and are expected to continue into the 1990s); (f) bars (police have historically harassed gay bars more than non-gay bars); and, (g) death and injury reporting (officers are frequently the first persons to report a death or severe injury to the victims significant other and the hidden nature of many gay or lesbian relationships are important considerations determining officer conduct). The work environment also includes many gay and lesbian police personnel. Here, the situations that need to be included for discussion are: co-workers coming out, AIDS hysteria, rumors and witch-hunts, and inclusion of gays and lesbians in office social functions.
The specific content of the Points-of-Contact needs to be closely defined by the law enforcement agency. The agency should designate a committee to evaluate police behavior in context with gay and lesbian issues. To make the blanket statement, "we treat everybody the same," ignores the problem and perpetuates heterosexism. Everyone can not be treated the same because the differences are real; heterosexism is so institutionalized that the discriminations and oppressions against gays and lesbians are virtually imperceptible. Ignoring those differences can lead to injury, complaints and lawsuits. A series of Points-of-Contact behaviors were included in the curriculum developed by the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Police Advisory Task Force which may serve as a good starting point from which other agencies can develop their own. It must be emphasized that agencies need to analyze their particular conditions and develop their own Points-of-Contact.

Strategies for Overcoming Homophobia

1. Police Scenarios: Each agency should develop their own scenarios based upon complaints or lawsuits filed against them. One set of scenarios was developed using an ACLU report on homophobia found in a police agencies. Another set of scenarios was adapted from the Modified Attitude Towards Homosexuality (MATH, Price 1982) placed in police situations. Yet another set of scenarios was obtained from nation-wide reports of situations where the lack of understanding about gays and lesbians turned otherwise innocuous police situations into deadly confrontations. All of these scenarios included situations such as: (a) father reports a teenage runaway, (b) drive-by name calling, (c) domestic fight, (d) beating in a public park known for sexual activity, (e) gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, transvestite officers coming out, and (f) rumors about co-workers.
The group utilizes the information they have learned to develop strategies for overcoming homophobic and heterosexist behaviors, i.e., to achieve the training goals. These are shared with the class and the instructor processes them through discussion to reach consensus if possible. To relate the list of strategies to the training goals, the strategies should be categorized under reactive and proactive responses. Under reactive strategies, measures such as educating co-workers about AIDS, citing agencies anti-discrimination policy, and other reactions to a homophobic remark are frequently mentioned. Under proactive strategies, personal responses and agency responses are possible. Personal proactive strategies often include talking positively with co-workers, openly celebrating gay pride month, and using inclusive language (i.e., encouraging employees to bring their spouse to police social function excludes gay and lesbian partners or significant others). Agency proactive strategies include explicit non-discrimination policies and others to be discussed at the end of this article.

Closing

Working on police scenarios in which homosexuality is a significant factor allows students to transfer what they have learned to an authentic setting. This reinforces social obligations with other members of the class and allows for these connections to continue on the job and in the agency.
Closure: Instructors need to summarize the experiences and relate them back to the training goals. Instructors need to make summary statements at the conclusion of each topic.
Meeting Local Gay and Lesbian Police Organization Members: If students have not already met members of the local gay and lesbian police organization, they should do so before they leave.
Evaluation: Evaluations are needed to get feedback regarding instructor and course content effectiveness. Unfortunately, most course evaluations are nothing more than popularity contests and do not give the kind of information needed to properly assess training effectiveness. The agency needs to create an evaluation form that probes deeper than a simple rating system. It is important to ask for written statements about what parts of the training stood out in their minds, whether these were negative or positive experiences, and why they were significant to them. Similarly, students should be asked to list three things they think would improve the training. It is important to involve students in making the training better.
Resource Materials: Homosexuality is a "hidden knowledge." In school, when sex education is taught, if homosexuality was mentioned, it usually occupied one-half page under sexual deviance. Schools and libraries did not (and still often do not) have books on homosexuality. Many times, this training will be the first time an openly gay person has talked to police officers about homosexuality. The anxiety level of participants indicates the lack of knowledge possessed by students. Law enforcement agencies are encouraged to provide written resource materials to all students not just bibliographies, but actual articles of academic research is desirable. The cost of duplicating materials is trivial when compared to the costs of having out-of-service officers involved in training. Short, concise topic papers, including points-of-contact and community and national police organizations, are available through the curriculum published by the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Police Advisory Task Force (see address below).

.c2.Recommendations to Overcome Police Homophobia

c. Research has shown that the most effective way to overcome prejudice is to expose a person to people whom he or she admires and who represents the discriminatory class. Rotating open gay and lesbian officers into partnership with heterosexual officers helps to reduce prejudice between the two groups.

Closing Comments

The training on sexual stigmatized communities and program recommendations presented here are proven strategies. It is inexcusable for law enforcement agencies not to implement effective programs for overcoming homophobia within their agency. We need to get away from the all too common community panel who are asked to conduct sexual orientation training and simply share their coming-out stories for two hours. Sexual orientation training needs to be conducted by competent and knowledgeable personnel, including gay and lesbian officers. The agency must become vested in the goal of overcoming homophobia. If an agency does not have competent staff with adequate skills to conduct training on sexual stigmatized communities, it would behoove the department to hire expert trainers who are willing to use the recommendations suggested by this researchincluding paying the costs associated with duplication of handout materials, etc.. Funds budgeted for effective training on sexual stigmatized communities are well spent allocations benefiting the agency, officers and the public.
.c2.RESOURCES

Assessment Inventories

(Modified) Attitude Toward Homosexuality Scale (MATHS). Price, J. (1982, October). High school students attitudes toward homosexuality. The Journal of School Health. p. 469. Price modified the ATHS as described in MacDonald, Jr., et al., 1973. Measures beliefs and attitudes toward homosexuals and homosexuality.

Index of Homophobia (IH). Hudson, W., & Ricketts, W. (1980). A strategy for the measurement of homophobia. Journal of Homosexuality, 5(4), 357-372. Measures feelings toward homosexuals and about homosexuality.

Homosexuality Knowledge Index (HKI). Sears, J. (1991). Educators, homosexuality, and homosexual students: Are personal feelings related to professional beliefs? p. 50, in Karen M. Harbeck (ed.), Coming out of the classroom closet: Gay and lesbian students, teachers and curricula. New York: Harrington Park Press. Measures knowledge level on homosexuality.

Attitude Toward Homosexuality Scale (ATHS). MacDonald, A.P, Jr., Huggins, J., Young, S., & Swanson, R.A. (1973). Attitudes toward homosexuality: Preservation of sex morality or the double standard? Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 40(1), 161. Original measure on beliefs and attitudes toward homosexuals and homosexuality.

Books/Curriculum/Activities

Williams, W. 1986. The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture. Boston: Beacon Press.

Video


This checklist is a summary of the elements required to obtain the most effective training on sexual stigmatization. Student activities are written with italicized typeface.