Image: Trudy Mothus, November 11, 2018, Quesnel, British Columbia.

I have been told, and I have read, that I am violent. I have heard that I am an agist, a misogynist, a homophobe, a disablist, a classist, and an atheist. I am accused of being prejudiced and racist, and worst of all, sexist. In the same breath, I have been discriminated against, belittled, lied to, passed over, assaulted, and injured. These injuries will be with me for the remainder of my life. 

I have fought hard for the rights of women to be free from violence, whether that is at the hands of an intimate partner, or at the hands of an unknown sexual predator. It did not matter to me where the women were born and raised, what colour of their skin, or the beliefs they had: what mattered was that their freedom to live a good life had been taken from them in moments of abuse. Even though our society has deemed the perpetrator of such violence to be unacceptable and unlawful, I ensured that I treated the offender with respect because at some point in their life they were most likely a victim of violence themselves. I have spent hours every year ensuring that the people of my communities have the space within our cities to celebrate their identities, to demonstrate their grievances, and to parade without the risk of being harmed. I have put my life at risk, and I have hunted monsters, in order to ensure the safety of the people in my communities, only to have those monsters released back into our communities by our criminal justice system. I have spent countless hours talking with and trying to convince some of our most vulnerable people in our communities to take a helping hand, whether that occurred by seeking out warmth and a hot cup of coffee, or seeking the aid of mental health workers. Sometimes I failed: I did not get there soon enough. This will also be with me for the remainder of my life. 

People are often of the belief that when I pull them over on the side of the road for a traffic infraction, I am going to use violence on them. I have never used violence on anyone for a traffic offence. I have been accused of stopping someone because they were black: funnily enough, I couldn’t even see them through their window tint before I stepped up to their lowered driver side window. I have been accused of arresting someone because they were homosexual: I arrested them because they had assaulted and physically injured their partner. DeGagne (2020, p.261, 271) surmises that “Black, Indigenous, and LGBTQ2S people are more likely to experience harassment, violence, sexual assault, and death at the hands of police… Anti-racism activists argued that the exclusion of police from the [Pride] parade was a matter of safety for Indigenous, POC, and Black LGBTQ2S people who had experienced police harassment, violence and criminalization”. These statements from DeGagne lead her readers to believe that, because police are present, they will inevitably, and without cause, inflict violence on any BIPOC people that they come across. Furthermore, such statements assume that all police officers are homophobic, racist, discriminatory, and dehumanized. I am being told that I will be violent and that I am not human. These beliefs I must challenge for the remainder of my life because of irresponsible assumptions and opinions. 

I am a woman. I am a mother of daughters. I am pansexual. I am short in stature yet powerful. I am a police officer. All these identities, when held in isolation, are thin representations of who I am. When combined together, these identities form an intersectional frame of who I am (Fraser, 2020). I am a police officer who treats others with respect and understanding: I am a helper and a listener.  Yes, I also hold the authority to remove one’s freedom. I did not become a police officer because of the power and authority that comes with the responsibilities of protecting and serving my fellow citizens. I became a police officer because I wanted to help protect women and marginalized people who experience discrimination and violence, and I wanted to seek justice for the victims of crimes.  Most importantly to me, I wanted to do my part to make the police universe within Canada fully inclusive of women. 

Inclusivity of any kind has not been my experience. Women in policing continue to be sexualized and discriminated against by their coworkers, the general public, and academics writing irresponsible text. A change needs to occur in social attitudes about sex and gender (Craig, 2020). I may not see such change within my life time. My daughters may not see such change within their lifetimes either. Gendered people face such issues and grievances in their lives every day simply because they are not men. We are not thin! We are thick (Fraser, 2020), we are intersectional, and we are human. I am human: I am not violent. But, I have been violated and dishonoured.