Julie Callahan is a retired police officer, detective, and district attorney investigator with a law enforcement career spanning four decades. She worked as a police officer and detective with the San Jose Police Department (CA) for nearly 30 years and then as a district attorney investigator with the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office for almost ten years. Most of her career was spent working on high profile criminal investigations.
Julie transitioned genders while working at the San Jose Police Department in 2001; twenty years into her career. In the scheme of things, her transition went better than most and she attributes this to a combination of support from the Chief of Police, strong management techniques in setting expectations, and developing a strategic transition plan before she notified the agency of her intention to transition.
TCOPS
Julie was part of a research study in the late 1990’s along with about two dozen other transgender law enforcement officers from the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and the United States. The study included those officers that identified as transsexual or crossdressers. When the study was completed, the participants were afforded the opportunity to contact one another via an email chain. The members of that group were the founding members of the Yahoo Group called TCOPS which stands for the Transgender Community of Police & Sheriffs. The group focused on peer-support, education, and advocacy. TCOPS changed platforms in 2010 and became a Facebook group and updating our name to TCOPS International to reflect the 36 countries that are represented within our membership. We also broadened our membership criteria to include LEOs and LESPs that identify as transgender, crossdressers, gender non-binary, gender-fluid, genderqueer, gender non-conforming, gender questioning individuals, or any LEO or LESP that has had to deal with gender identity issues.
Today, we are aware of over 6,000 transgender LEOs and LESPs. TCOPS International continues to support our members through our stand-alone secure social media platform, www.TCOPS-International.org. We provide peer-support, transition planning workshops and other services for any LEO, LESP, or law enforcement organization asking for help planning a transition or better understanding transgender issues. Our peer-support and related groups are FREE of change. Lastly, we do consult with public safety organizations, departments, and agencies and ask them to cover expenses and not our time.
