The Time is Now for Transgender Rights Across New England
April 14, 2009
http://www.glad.org/current/news-detail/%20the-time-is-now-for-transgender-rights-across-new-englandThe message is clear – transgender citizens should have nothing less than full and equal civil rights. The broad support for this message was abundantly evident across New England last week, as hundreds turned out for lobby days on transgender rights legislation in both Connecticut and Massachusetts; the New Hampshire House voted to pass transgender non-discrimination legislation on a motion to reconsider; and legislators in Rhode Island – where non-discrimination legislation already exists – held a hearing on a bill that would add gender identity to the state's hate crimes law. (Maine and Vermont have also already passed transgender-inclusive non-discrimination laws in 2005 and 2007, respectively.)
Further evidence of this building momentum for transgender equality is the full-force organizing seen by the opposition this legislative session – which held competing lobby days in Massachusetts and Connecticut for the first time, and has worked to drum up anti-equality hysteria by characterizing transgender rights legislation as dangerous "bathroom bills." (for a response to these erroneous arguments, see The Truth About An Act Relative to Gender Based Discrimination and Hate Crimes - It's a Civil Rights Bill)
