I’m an old white gay man - which means that usually, these days, I’m profiled as non-threatening, and left alone by cops. But I’ve certainly had to deal with violent anti-gay cops and cops who treated me badly over the years. It’s been about 7 years since the last time I was called a “fucking faggot” by a uniformed cop, who thought that was an appropriate response to my walking on a sidewalk near him, and about 15 years since I was last physically pushed around by a cop. Yes, I’ve also seen cops do good things and defuse violent scenes - but I don’t trust cops I don’t know any further than I can spit. They have to demonstrate they can be trusted before I can relax around them. Black and Hispanic friends and acquaintances have, of course, had many more bad interactions with cops who were both racist and homophobic.
Being gay has been educational - I don’t think I would have noticed as many of the pervasive incidents of racism around me if I hadn’t been sensitized to that kind of crap by being the target of similar crap.
