NYPD refutes claims of new pronoun requirements for officers

The New York Police Department will not require its officers to display pronouns on their uniforms, despite social media posts claiming otherwise. The department told AFP the memo circulating online is not authentic, and there is no mention of the supposed policy in its employee manual.

"TO PANDER & SERVE: NYPD says effective January 1, all members of the department must display their 'pronouns,'" says a September 12, 2024 X post with thousands of interactions.

The same claim has circulated elsewhere on X, Facebook, TikTok, Telegram and Gettr.

The posts include an image of a typo-riddled "Finest Message," which the NYPD uses to quickly disseminate information and instructions to officers across the city (archived here). The memo format references "New York's finest," a nickname for NYPD officers.

"Effeective (sic) January 1, 2025. All uniformed members of the service will be required to affix and display the new pronoun breastbar while in uniform," the supposed message says.

"Pronouns will reflect member's peffered (sic) gender as imputted (sic) and approved in centralized personnel resource (CPR) system."

The purported memo spread the same day police commissioner Edward Caban announced he was stepping down from his post as head of the NYPD amid a federal corruption investigation into the city's leaders. A follow-up post from the account that originally published the message about pronouns criticized Caban and reiterated the claim.

The supposed memo says it was issued on the "authortity" (sic) of Detective F Knight in the NYPD's operations division. The department's employee database does show an officer with that name in the unit.

However, an NYPD spokesperson told AFP the image is "not a real communication" from the agency and contains "false information."

The NYPD outlines its uniform and equipment policies in its employee manuals, which are regularly updated online. However, guidance for patrol officers and administrators does not mention displaying or identifying one's pronouns (archived here and here).

The manuals do ask officers to refer to members of the public with the pronouns "appropriate to the individual's gender identity/expression as expressed by the individual" and prohibits "discourteous" or "disrespectful" remarks to arrestees.

In New York City, it is also illegal for employers to discriminate based on gender identity or expression. The city's human rights commission issued guidance saying individuals have the right to "be addressed with their preferred pronouns and name without being required to show 'proof' of gender" (archived here).

AFP has debunked other claims about US politics here.