Hi all,
Wanted to post a copy of testimony i will giving to the Maryland Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee tomorrow, March 3rd. Still trying to get the most basic addition of gender identity included in anti discriminations legislation here in our State. Hope this is a good example for anyone else to use, and we will also be having House hearings as well in the following weeks, although dates have not been determined yet.
Please attend or contribute in any way possible, and please keep up the pressure in whatever state or city you live in as you are able. Please see attached links for Equality Maryland and links for standardized letters to our various legislators as well.
~ Level the Playing Field ~
---------------------------------------------------------------
Maryanne A. Arnow
Germantown, MD 20874
Statement on Workplace Discriminations, in favor of Senate Bill 583, Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, Mar. 3rd, 2010
My name is Maryanne Arnow, an openly transgender woman, native of Maryland, and resident of Montgomery County of 39 years. Maryland is my home, one that I have the deepest love and respect for. I am married 15 years to my best friend and woman that I love more than the air I breathe. I am a trained and skilled professional Chef and business consultant.
Since change of my "gender identity" more than Seven years ago, I have experienced professional and social discriminations to the staggering extent that no fellow citizen should ever be subjected to for one single moment, much less one single day in their entire lives. The daily reality for me is to have to expect to face baseless cruelty and an ongoing utter lack of the simplest of human respects or decencies, from far too many that choose to judge, but utterly without any true personal knowing.
This occurs not only for me, but many openly Transgender citizens of our State, and in every social and professional context. The lives of fellow citizens and constituents, my own included, hang in the balance as you weigh these questions. A single stroke of your pen can save lives, improve our social economy, and change many lives for the better.
Change of gender is often met with abhorrence, rejection, and a pervasive refusal of professional acknowledgement. This applies to the mainstream workforce that I have attempted to re-enter literally dozens of times since making a legal, permanent, and clinically-supervised change of gender. I face blatant discrimination from my own Maryland-based health insurance carrier in issues pertaining my marital status, which should remain legally unchanged, as we are both still the same two human beings that swore our vows together 15 years ago.
As of this moment that you see me here before you today, I have no State or Federal civil recourse whatsoever, should any employer or housing provider choose to discriminate against me, but for no reason other than stereotypical misperception, based on nothing more than appearance alone, and no matter how disgustingly inaccurate.
This is a staggeringly difficult issue to overcome, and full of false, dangerously inaccurate, and negative misrepresentations regarding people such as myself living and working in everyday society. Having no provision of even the most basic of employment or housing rights protections at either the State or Federal levels continues to make these problems seem almost insurmountable, and there seems no end to the delays in other's finding the courage to go beyond stereotype to look at the people, and understand what we truly face.
I need to be given reason to hope, that we as a people have matured and grown socially, yet still hold true to the original abiding concepts of same civil rights as any others, no matter of race, religion, sex, or social standing.
I need hope that our amazing democracy still means what I grew up believing it could mean. There is critical human and historic importance that you, as policymakers and the elected navigators of our legislative waters, find the strength to rise above social difference, and simply, do what is right for your fellow human beings, as it has been written in many forms before today.
Equal civil and human rights for all citizens should never be taken for granted, nor ever be deprived of a single fellow citizen of our State or our country. Not ever again. Please help us, and be those known for making our State and country a stronger and fairer place to work and live. Do this, by simply choosing equal and inalienable human value. Protect those suffering the daily horror of unspeakable discriminatory experiences, and act on the real exigent need of establishing such protections as you must now reasonably consider.
I truly thank you all for your invaluable time, and your consideration of this most genuinely urgent matter. I ask for your support and resolution in fairness, to those which truly know no fairness, and for no other social reason, than simply being ourselves.
Most Sincerely and Respectfully Yours,
I am,
Maryanne A. Arnow
http://equalitymaryland.org/
