Maryland Police Chief Refutes Trans Rape Rumors

Maryland's Baltimore County is currently weighing discrimination protections for transgender residents, but opponents are spreading rumors about cross-dressing men raping women in a nearby county that enacted similar protections.

Neal Broverman

Neal Broverman is the Editorial Director, Print of Pride Media, publishers of The Advocate, Out, Out Traveler, and Plus, spending more than 20 years in journalism. He indulges his interest in transportation and urban planning with regular contributions to Los Angeles magazine, and his work has also appeared in the Los Angeles Times and USA Today. He lives in the City of Angels with his husband, children, and their chiweenie.

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Neal Broverman

January 20 2012 3:30 PM EST

November 17 2015 5:28 AM EST

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Maryland's Baltimore County is currently weighing discrimination protections for transgender residents, but opponents are spreading rumors about cross-dressing men raping women in a nearby county that enacted similar protections.

According to The Baltimore Sun, conservative opponents of Baltimore County's proposed transgender rights bill are saying that since Montgomery County established protections for transgender people in 2007, four women have been raped by cross-dressing men in public restrooms. Montgomery County police chief Thomas Manger recently set the record straight.

"Since this law has been in effect, we have had no reported rapes committed in restrooms by men in women's clothing," Manger wrote in a letter to Baltimore County councilman Tom Quirk, a lead sponsor of the antidiscrimination bill. Read more here.