‘It’s Not Like We’re Going to Jump Them’: How Transgressing Heteronormativity Shapes Police Interactions with LGBT Young People
| Date | 01 December 2011 |
| Published date | 01 December 2011 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1473225411420526 |
| Author | Angela Dwyer |
Youth Justice
11(3) 203 –220
© The Author(s) 2011
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DOI: 10.1177/1473225411420526
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‘It’s Not Like We’re Going to
Jump Them’: How Transgressing
Heteronormativity Shapes Police
Interactions with LGBT Young
People
Angela Dwyer
Abstract
This paper explores how visibly transgressing heteronormativity shapes police interactions with LGBT
young people. While research provides evidence about how sexually and gender diverse bodies can be
abused in schools, policing is overlooked. Interviews with 35 LGBT young people demonstrate how bodies
transgressing heteronormativity (that is, non-heteronormative bodies) mediate their policing experiences
in Queensland, Australia. Drawing on Foucault, Butler, and others, this article suggests police interactions
and use of discretion with LGBT young people was informed by non-heteronormative bodies discursively
performing queerness in ways read by police. The article concludes noting tensions produced for youthful
LGBT bodies in public spaces.
Keywords
embodiment, heteronormativity, lesbian gay bisexual transgender (LGBT), police, queer
Introduction
Extensive literature has documented problematic relationships between young people and
police (Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC), 2009; Carrington and Pereira, 2009),
with many highlighting how young people from diverse groups are most impacted in terms
of ethnicity for example (Collins et al., 2000). Interestingly, only limited research has
focused on sexuality and/or gender diversity. Police have recently worked towards building
better relationships with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities, but
remnants of a less satisfactory history of policing LGBT communities may influence rela-
tionships conducted contemporaneously (Tomsen, 2009).1 More importantly, a burgeoning
Corresponding author:
Dr Angela Dwyer, School of Justice, Faculty of Law, Queensland University of Technology, GPO Box 2434, Brisbane,
Queensland 4001, Australia.
Email: ae.dwyer@qut.edu.au
420526YJJXXX10.1177/1473225411420526DwyerYouth Justice
Article
204 Youth Justice 11(3)
literature documents extensive victimization experienced by sexually and gender diverse
young people (Hillier et al., 2005; Stonewall, 2007) that may lead to contact with law
enforcement (Remafedi, 1987).
This article begins to explore the intersection between sexuality and/or gender diver-
sity, transgressing heteronormativity, and embodiment, and examines how this shapes
police interactions and discretion. It reports on outcomes of a research project document-
ing how LGBT young people experience policing in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
Informed by Foucault, Butler, and other queer criminologies (such as Tomsen, 2009), the
focus is on the role of bodies that transgress heteronormativity, in this article termed non-
heteronormative bodies. Non-heteronormative bodies destabilize heteronormative expec-
tations about sexualities and genders. Heteronormativity refers to how heterosexuality is
normalized and invested with the power to define all other sexualities as marginal and
abnormal in contemporary Western culture (Jackson, 2003). Non-heteronormative
embodiment, then, implies a multiplicity of bodily practices that destabilize heterosexual
sexualities and/or genders.
Interviews with 35 LGBT young people in Brisbane highlight how non-heteronormative
bodies visibly perform discourses of queerness for better and worse, and how this can
shape police interactions and use of discretionary powers. The article initially overviews
relevant literature and outlines the poststructural methodological framework. Discussion
then moves to how LGBT young people’s discussions inscribe young bodies as queer and
therefore non-heteronormative particularly in terms of visibility. Following this, analysis
focuses on how young non-heteronormative bodies visibly perform queerness in ways read
discursively by police. According to LGBT young people in this study, being read as a vis-
ibly queer body matters and policing interactions and discretion may be informed by this.
They highlight how queer bodies may be visible in public spaces in ways heterosexual
young people may not be, and public space is where most police interactions happen. This
is further complicated, according to participants, when enacting queerness intersects and
collides with being visibly youthful, visibly at-risk, and visibly risky in public spaces. The
article concludes with suggestions for further research and notes the power of visibly non-
heteronormative bodies to influence policing – including their discretion not to interact
with them in the first instance.
How Being Visibly Diverse Matters for Policing Young People
Recent research about young people and police suggests their interactions are problematic
at best (Carrington and Pereira, 2009; CMC, 2009). Research literature indicates young
people experience police harassment and mutual disrespect (Deuchar, 2010; McAra and
McVie, 2005), and their social activities are criminalized by police (Crawford, 2009).
Australian youth justice processes, for example, reflect the punitiveness demonstrated in
the United Kingdom and elsewhere (Goldson, 2009; Muncie, 2008), with young people:
• more likely than adults to be represented as offenders and victims in police statistics
(QPS, 2008) and recorded crime statistics (Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS),
2008; Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC), 2009);
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