CIVIL RIGHTS FOR 'GENDER IDENTITY' ON CITY AGENDA
Summary: Portland is likely to approve expanding protections for transgendered people, a move some object to
At **, he left an Eastern Oregon tire shop to become a woman. He believed he had been one for much of his life
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At **, she is ***** *** *****. She lives and works in Portland, installing tires on big rigs.
She has a fire-mist-red stock-class sedan in her garage with the engine pulled, and a pile of 11 racing trophies nearby. She has had to work at making gentle gestures with her hands and speaking softly. She shivers easily now.
And she will be among a contingent of transsexuals appearing before Portland's City Council this morning. At the request of Mayor Vera Katz and Commissioner Dan Salzmann, the council is set to vote on expanding the city's 1991 civil rights ordinance to include "gender identity" as a protected class.
If the council approves the ordinance -- and it is expected to -- Portland will join Minnesota and 26 other local governments, including Seattle and Benton County, Ore., that have passed laws barring discrimination against transgendered people in jobs, housing and access to restaurants, shops and bars. The law allows victims of discrimination to file state civil rights complaints and lawsuits.
The *hristian *oalition of Oregon is opposed. Director *** ***** says Katz is needlessly embroiling the faith community. He worries about declining morals, and thinks transsexuals are putting their will ahead of God's. He also worries about the effect on "the small Christian businessman or the businessman of faith" forced to hire a cross-dresser.
The ***** ***** Foundation, an advocacy group for transsexual civil rights and health care, thinks the law doesn't go far enough. Director******** ****** ******** says exceptions that allow employer dress codes and require only "reasonable accommodations" for transgendered people could backfire, giving employers a legal hook to discriminate. The proposed law is "a hoax," she says.
The ordinance is written broadly: The people it is designed to protect would range from the relatively small number of transsexuals who have had sex-change surgeries to those discriminated against because others simply think they dress, look or act like the opposite sex. Some cities have laws that protect transsexuals but exempt people who cross-dress.
The city points to reports from San Francisco and Boulder, Colo., as well as a local Metropolitan Human Rights Commission report four years ago, to justify the ordinance. Those reports include testimony, mainly from transsexuals, of discrimination and violence. Discrimination against transgendered people, particularly against men who dress or act like women, is disproportionately violent, according to crime data compiled by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs.
For ***** and seven other members of the **** **** **** who gathered recently at a Portland club, an expansive ordinance is appropriate. Many transsexuals want surgery -- estimates range as high as 225,000 waiting for the operation in the United States. Others don't, including many women who identify as men and face a less reliable operation.
Some transgendered people are 100 percent out, "presenting" as the opposite sex full time. Others stick with their biological sex at work and at home, shifting only in the off hours, some by choice, some for fear of ridicule and discrimination.
***** came to Portland with 14 years of experience at a truck stop tire shop, planning to live as a woman around the clock. But as *****, she hesitated to apply for a job. "I was sitting at home before the interview and I had on women's tennis shoes, jeans and a blouse, and I thought, 'Maybe I can go a little longer without working,' " ***** said. "I almost berated myself into putting on the plaid shirt, the cowboy boots and the big belt buckle, but I said, 'I can't do that. I have to start over.' "
No comments from co-workers ***** said she hasn't heard a negative comment on the job, despite working in a nearly all-male shop. "But I still have this fear that no matter how hard I try I will lose my job because of this, and we shouldn't have to have that fear."
As a boy raised by his grandparents in rural Idaho, ***** said he began to feel that something was off about age 4. When he and his cousins played hide-and-go-seek, he would go to his grandma's closet and hide inside a black dress.
He learned to run a treadle sewing machine and a laundry press. And he subbed in for no-shows at his grandma's weekly pinochle game, enjoying the camaraderie of a dozen women. But he also hunted and fished, bagging deer and antelope, and took up auto racing as a young adult, all activities ***** hopes to continue as a woman. "I do know considerable about cars," she says.
The American Psychiatric Association's diagnostic manual defines transsexualism as a "gender identity disorder," a less severe diagnosis than in the past that still rankles some transgender activists.
According to San Francisco's Human Rights Commission, the prevailing scientific view is that the condition stems from a blend of genetic, hormonal and social factors, a mix of nature and nurture.
"This is not something I chose to do," ***** said. "Who in their right mind would expose themselves to the potential loss of every friend, every family member, to, as people say, make a spectacle of yourself?"
***** said he was certain by 30 that he identified as a woman, not a man. He had managed to learn of the potential for surgery through furtive trips to the library. But he had custody of a son by a previous marriage. At that point, ******** says he was drinking too much and was "a very angry person," but didn't want to come out because of the ridicule his son, now grown, would face in a small town.
***** came to the city a year-and-a-half ago to test out living as a woman, and then moved permanently in January. She is taking hormone treatments and trying to save money for sex-change surgery, which can cost $10,000 or more. People have been uniformly respectful, she said, whether on the job, in stores or at restaurants.
[edit]edited name by beth[/edit]
