Delaware's Senate will vote today, hopefully to protect people from discrimination based on their gender identity.
Puerto Rico voted to protect people from discrimination on the basis of their gender identity and sexual orientation last week and Governor Padilla has signed the bill into law.
And the Bat-shit Republican John Kavanagh has withdrawn his bill targeting transgender people for abuse in Arizona.
Details on the inside.
A bill in Delaware to prohibit discrimination against transgender and other gender-variant people cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday and is expected to be voted on in the Senate today.
The legislation extends the protections of the states existing nondiscrimination bill to transgender Delawareans, and people who dress or live as the sex opposite their birth sex or both or neither sex or who undergo medical treatment to change their gender. Current discrimination law bans discrimination based in several characteristics in employment, housing, insurance, and public accommodations. The new bill would add gender identity to the list of characteristics.
If the bill is passed, Delaware would become the seventeenth state, along with the DIstrict of Columbia, to offer protection from discrimination to transpeople.
Throughout my entire life I struggled with who I really am. For the longest time I carried it deep inside and tried to move on, in reality I thought about my true gender identity every waking hour. I kept it inside and dealt with the pain because I was afraid of discrimination and the fact that my government would not be there to help me.
--Sarah McBride, 22
I’m terrified to tell my employers and peers, and take the steps I need to live as myself. I’m afraid to lose what few job opportunities I can find.
--Brandywine Hundred resident Matthew Riley, 22, who was born a female but identifies himself as a man
Opponents, which always come out of the woodwork when laws to assist transgender people are introduced, argued that the bill would offer protection to sex criminals who would use the law to obtain access to restrooms, changing rooms, and locker rooms of the opposite gender for nefarious purposes.
This bill makes no legal distinction between someone who is transgender and any other person who claims to be the other sex, including predators, exhibitionists, peeping toms.
--Jordan Warfel of the Delaware Family Policy Council, the main group lobbying against the bill
Warfel submitted an online video that shows a young girl walking into a playground bathroom, followed by a man with sunglasses and a beard, with the words, "Is this what you want for Delaware?"
Deputy Attorney General Patricia Dailey Lewis called Warfel's argument "offensive and exploitative of children and the people who work to protect them." Lewis said that the vast majority of sex crimes involving children are committed by individuals known to the victim.
We do not have one known case, one reported case, of a transgender individual attacking a child.
Family Policy Council President Nicole Theis said the legislation is "bad policy" because it could be abused by criminals, even if their have been no problems to date.
There’s nothing in this legislation that would stop that. There’s nothing in this legislation that would prevent a predator who wants to express themselves as a female from having access to all of those public accommodations.
When you create the environment for trouble, that’s what you’re going to get. Just because it hasn’t happened yet, it doesn’t mean it’s not bad policy. Just because an accident hasn’t happened at an intersection, do we still remove all the traffic signs and traffic lights?
--Theis
There is nothing in any law now that would prevent the scenario Theis describes. And it is true that this bill doesn't address it either, because it is not a predator prevention act. It's a bill to expand the legal protections of gender-variant people.
Zack Ford at ThinkProgress has more about Focus on the Family's attempts to kill this "bathroom bill."
Terms like “biological male” are used to paint a false picture of who trans women are and what their experience in society is. Trans women are women — they not only identify as women, but they are perceived as women as well. Likewise, plenty of trans men are only known to the people who know them as men.
--Ford
Sen. Margaret Rose Henry (D-Wilmington East) said she is hopeful that the bill has the required 11 votes to pass the Senate.
It’s a fairness issue and it’s an issue of discrimination that we want to stop. So I think once our colleagues realize and hear some of the testimony tomorrow or Tuesday – whenever the bill goes on the agenda – that we will have enough votes to pass it,
--Sen. Henry
Meanwhile in Puerto Rico, last Friday Governor Alejandro Harcia Padilla signed into law civil rights protections against discrimination for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and transsexual people. The law will protect LGBT people in employment, housing, government services, public accommodations and private entities. The bill also protects same-sex couples under Puerto Rico's domestic violence law.
The original measure also banned discrimination in commercial transactions, property rentals, public transportation, and some other circumstances, but those clauses were removed at the demand of religious groups.
The Latino Commission recognizes the leadership of legislators and Governor Padilla with this step in the right direction to ensure the equal rights of all Puerto Ricans.
--President Guillermo Chacon, Latino Commission on AIDS
Finally, in Arizona, Rep. John Kavanagh (R-Bathroom Police) announced yesterday that
he will drop the bill aimed at forcing transgender people to use the bathrooms, locker room, and showers associated with their birth sex.
Senate Bill 1045 would have prohibited local governments from passing ordinances that could subject businesses to lawsuits or criminal penalties if they forbid a transgender person from using a restroom.
Originally, Kavanagh’s proposal would have made it a crime for a person to use a bathroom, locker room or dressing room that’s not designated for the sex listed on his or her birth certificate. He revamped the bill after critics felt it extended the reach of state government into bathroom stalls.
Kavanagh promises to bring the bill back next year.Kavanagh claims he is dropping the bill because there is little time left to address it because of Gov. Jan Brewer's refusal to sign bills until there was progress on a budget. Truth is that it was unlikely to make any headway in any event. Moderate Republicans were reported to be "apprehensive" and conservative lawmakers were reported to be concerned that it did not go far enough to prohibit local laws protecting LGBT people from discrimination…or might endorse a legal definition of transgender. Some conservatives refuse to acknowledge that transgender people exist.
Gay-rights advocates and transgender residents said the bill would have given business owners the right to discriminate against those who appear too masculine or feminine. They said it could create unintended consequences by broadly defining “gender identity or expression.”
It makes me rest easier in that we’ve got another six to seven months to educate people. I don’t think anybody but Kavanagh had a belief that it was a truly needed bill.
--Rebecca Wininger, Equality Arizona
Arizona lawmaker Rep. John Kavanagh (R) has tried to enshrine discrimination against transgender people into law, because he believes that trans people’s bodies can be psychologically traumatizing to others.
--Ford
Update: Attorney General Beau Biden releases supportive video: