By Greg Lee
KESQ News Channel 3
RIVERSIDE, Calif. — The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department took a big step towards the LGBT community on Thursday. The state’s second largest sheriff’s department announced the addition of a policy addressing how the jail and corrections department interacts with the transgender community.
It’s estimated that there’s 6,000-9,000 people in Riverside county who identify themselves as transgender. It’s a small community and one that there’s little information about, even considered by some conservatives. “Gay and lesbian is about attraction to people of the same sex,” said George Zander, the Coachella Valley field manager for Equality California. “Transgender is about a gender identity.”
For the last year, Zander’s put his focus on changing the way the sheriff’s department interacts with the transgender community. “We want to make sure that they’re treated with dignity and respect when we encounter them in our patrol operations and our corrections operations,” said Riverside County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Raymond Gregory.
Full story: Sheriff’s department adds transgender policy