Thread by @NBCNews

New York has repealed its “walking while trans” law, a decades-old loitering law that has disproportionately affected transgender women of color, who have long been advocating for its repeal.
#NBCNewsThreads - @NBCOUT (1/6) nbcnews.to/3cTiJup

@NBCOUT Passed in 1976, Section 240.37 aimed to prevent loitering “for the purpose of engaging in prostitution.”
Advocates say the measure was incredibly vague, allowing police to remove people — specifically LGBT people and trans women — who they deemed “criminal.” (2/6)

Trans people face higher rates of violence from police, particularly if they are sex workers.
Attorney Richard Saenz says many people stopped under the statute have “faced police violence, including misgendering, being verbally assaulted, sexually assaulted.” (3/6)

In 2008, Bianey Garcia was stopped by police after leaving a club with her boyfriend.

“I didn’t know that the NYPD can stop me and arrest me just for being me, for dressing sexy, for wearing clothes that doesn’t, you know, apply to my gender,” Garcia said. (4/6)

For the last three years, Garcia and other activists at Make the Road New York, a grassroots, immigrants rights organization, have advocated for the repeal of the so-called walking while trans law. (5/6)

Garcia “cried like a baby” when the law was repealed, but says she fears police will use “other excuses” to arrest people in her community: “We need to implement laws to protect transgender people from police harassment, not only in New York, but also in other states.” (6/6)