Today, the SPD unveiled an 18-minute-long training video on transgender issues that all officers will be made to watch. Then they'll be tested on it. It's well done, with in-depth interviews with several transgender men and women about their lives, their encounters with police, and how to treat them with respect (including what pronoun to use).

Worth watching whether you're a conservative, Fox News-addicted Seattle cop or an evangelical grandma:

Danni Askini, a transgender woman, candidate for the State House, and Director of the Gender Justice League, describes what happened when she and some friends were attacked by someone: "When officers arrived at the scene, the first question then asked us was if we were engaging in sex work... The police officers did not believe that I was the executive director of an organization... Their narrative of us as transgender women was that we must be sex workers."

While some departments offer training on how to treat transgender people, Seattle is the first and only police department to include a training video featuring transgender people speaking for themselves, according to officer Jim Ritter. The department's policy on how to interact with transgender men and women with respect went into effect in January.

Ritter, an out gay officer, oversees the Safe Place program launched in the wake of a rash of hate crimes on Capitol Hill last year. He said community reporting of hate crimes has gone up since the program launched (he didn't have exact statistics on hand). And he believes officers are taking the attacks more seriously, responding faster, and that word is spreading in the "criminal community" that Seattle isn't a city where you can get away with a hate crime without going to jail.

The message of the video, Ritter said, is "The transgender community has always been here in Seattle. They are deserving of the same rights as anybody else. And they want to live in peace like all the rest of us do."

Also today, Mayor Ed Murray signed an executive order mandating transgender training for all front-line City of Seattle staff. The Office of Civil Rights will be developing the training and guidelines in consultation with the Pride Foundation. Murray said the order is a "response to this attempted return to the cultural wars"—a reference to efforts by Republicans to overturn common sense human rights policies that ensure transgender people aren't blocked from using the bathrooms of their gender identity where no gender-neutral bathroom is available.

This post has been updated.