ALBANY — A group of transgender people and crime victim advocates have been meeting monthly with Albany police and law enforcement officials to rewrite protocol and procedures and devise training for officers intended to preserve the dignity of transgender people who are arrested.

The group has been discussing thorny issues surrounding the arrests of transgender people, including how body- and strip-searches should be conducted, how to handle confinement in police lockup and how to identify transgender individuals if they present and define themselves as female but their driver's license categorizes them as male.

The group is working against a backdrop of pervasive fear and mistrust of police on the part of transgender people. A recent national survey found that 29 percent of transgender people said they had been verbally harassed by cops.

Precise numbers are hard to come by because many transgender people remain underground due to social shunning, workplace discrimination, harassment and violence when they go public.

Experts have estimated there are about 700,000 transgender individuals in the U.S., or 0.3 percent of the adult population. In the Capital Region, there are an estimated 300 transgender people, based on the caseload of a local endocrinologist who specializes in transgender patients. Of those who identify themselves as transgender, a majority have taken some steps to transition from one gender to another, including hormone replacement therapy, voice modification training and gender reassignment surgery.

"The Albany Police Department has made huge strides on this issue and they're working in a positive way with community-based organizations such as ours to reform their procedures," said Tandra LaGrone, executive director of In Our Own Voices, a not-for-profit organization in Albany that serves people of color who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, or LGBT.

The collaboration followed an August burglary arrest of a transgender woman who was identified in early police reports as a man, with the pronoun "he" used in a news release that was distributed to local media. The arrest of the 45-year-old was further complicated by the fact that the suspect was a volunteer at In Our Own Voices and spoke publicly as a transgender woman in transition before she was charged with third-degree burglary and petit larceny. An investigation found that she allegedly stole a television from the group's Lark Street offices in March.

"That was the spur to look at our policies and to work with our partners in the community," said Assistant Chief Brendan Cox, who has attended the group's four meetings at the request of Chief Steven Krokoff. "The issue came to a head with that incident, we reached out and said help us figure out what we need to do and let's fix it."

"Police want to change their protocol and to improve their relationship with the LGBT community. We're making good progress," said the group's leader, Katherine Romero, a social worker and LGBT crime victim assistance coordinator for In Our Own Voices.

Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple and District Attorney David Soares also have been attending the meetings.

The group has been studying transgender protocols and policies already put in place by police departments in New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles and may pattern their efforts on those cities.

"There has been a sea change around the country on transgender rights, and Albany police are now at the forefront," said Christopher Argyros, transgender rights organizer of the Empire State Pride Agenda, who is a member of the group. "I wouldn't say this is trailblazing, but we hope the Albany plan could become a model for other police agencies across upstate New York."

Argyros said the larger challenge is to foster a feeling of trust. "There is a history of distrust between transgender people and the police because they feel disrespected and harassed and don't report crimes to the police," Argyros said.

"Unfortunately, transgender issues are still the last frontier of awareness for police," said Phillip Burse, director of LGBT victim services for In Our Own Voices. The group provides services to about 3,500 people annually. Reports of crimes, most commonly domestic violence, rose from five incidents in 2002 to more than 15 this year, Burse said, and many crimes continue to go unreported.

Among the dozen or so transgender people who attend a support group at the Lark Street offices, all have shared anecdotes of being a victim of a crime, including sexual assault, domestic violence or harassment.

In addition to revising protocol for intake, booking and detaining transgender people after arrests, the more challenging issue of how and where to house transgender inmates at the Albany County jail and at state prisons will take longer to work out, LaGrone said.

More immediate plans are to create and distribute a Know Your Rights brochure for transgender people in the coming months and to begin awareness and sensitivity training for new police recruits, perhaps in the spring, Romero said. Revising the police handbook's protocol and policies likely will take longer because a thorough legal review is required.

"It's all about building a new and positive relationship between the transgender community and law enforcement," Romero said.

"We have a diverse community in Albany and our job is to make sure we recognize and respond to that," Cox said. "It's our duty to treat everybody fairly and equally, with respect and dignity as human beings."

pgrondahl@timesunion.com • 518-454-5623 • @PaulGrondahl