Mass. GOP Ticket At Odds Over Trans Rights
by Kilian Melloy
Tuesday Apr 20, 2010
http://www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=&sc2=news&sc3=&id=104779The recent election of Republican Scott Brown to fill the vacancy left by the demise of famously liberal Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy notwithstanding, the state is still generally liberal on social issues. Republican challengers to Massachusetts Gov. Patrick Deval are uniformly pro-marriage equality and pro-choice, but they have found one GLBT issue that might energize a conservative base more interested in economic issues than social controversies: a bill that offers anti-discrimination protections to the state's transgendered residents.
Conservatives have launched attacks against such legislation in a number of states, characterizing it as a "bathroom bill" that would give rapists, child molesters, and peeping toms access to facilities reserved for women. Despite such rhetoric, cities in Montana and Florida have passed anti-discrimination ordinances relevant to transgendered residents. In Maine, the issue was exploited by groups seeking to scrap Maine's human rights legislation outright.
