It’s like these showers are a site of fraternal bonding. I’m not just showing off I like the idea of sexuality at the gym. The couple of guys showering around me look as though they like seeing a show. I like putting on a show, and for the most part, the other people at my gym seem OK with it too. I’m making sure things are clean down there. I take a handful of the shower gel that the gym supplies in buckets and start lathering up. The endorphins, the steam - it’s relaxing. I walk into the locker room, throw my clothes off and head to the showers. I’m finishing my workout at my neighborhood gym. The city’s Pride Month culminates in a massive march marking the anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, when a crowd of hundreds of people fought back against a police raid on a gay bar in Manhattan.It’s a Tuesday. The Port Authority terminal serves roughly 200,000 riders per day at its location on 42nd Street, including commuters and people arriving in the city on long-distance trips from all parts of the U.S. In addition, the Port Authority agreed to designate single-stall, gender-neutral restrooms at the bus terminal and make it easier for people to find complaint forms on the authority’s website.Īttorney Seth Spitzer, also representing the plaintiffs on behalf of the law firm Winston & Strawn, called it “a just outcome for which we simply should not have had to fight so hard.” The training for officers will be performed in conjunction with the Gay Officer’s Action League. In an email, a spokesperson for the authority, which also runs area airports and seaports, said it hasn’t conducted the patrols in several years and is committed to proper standards of conduct at all its facilities. Port Authority officials have denied any misconduct by officers. Under terms of the settlement, Holden will receive $15,000. Mejia,” Molly Griffard, an attorney for The Legal Aid Society, which represented the plaintiffs, said in a statement. “This kind of blatant homophobia has no place in policing, and the reforms achieved in this lawsuit aim to safeguard against future abuses like the ones experienced and challenged by Mr. The Manhattan district attorney’s office dismissed the charges against Holden. Both men said they were falsely accused - and both were ultimately cleared. Police arrested Holden and Mejia on charges of public lewdness, claiming they were spotted masturbating. The two named plaintiffs, Cornell Holden and Miguel Mejia, had similar experiences at the bus terminal in 2014, according to the lawsuit.īoth described standing at a urinal and having a plainclothes officer stand at the urinal next to them, then step back in an apparent attempt to see their hands and genitals. Many had claimed the charges were baseless, brought by officers who targeted men using the restrooms if they perceived them as gay, largely to inflate their arrest statistics. The settlement, announced on the first day of Pride Month, resolves a lawsuit brought by people arrested as a result of the patrols by the Port Authority Police Department. Under a legal settlement entered in federal court Tuesday, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey will give its new police recruits LGBTQ+ sensitivity training for the next three years and only reinstate the so-called public lewdness patrols at the Port Authority Bus Terminal if approved at the highest levels.
NEW YORK (AP) - The police agency that patrols New York City’s main bus terminal has agreed to stop sending plainclothes officers into its public bathrooms to try and catch people propositioning strangers for sex, a type of sting long criticized by activists as a discriminatory relic of an era of crackdowns predominantly aimed at gay men.