Is a legislative civil rights victory a victory if the protections are incomplete?
Thursday, April 14th, 2011
BY AUTUMN SANDEEN
http://lgbtweekly.com/2011/04/14/is-a-legislative-civil-rights-victory-a-victory-if-the-protections-are-incomplete/Recently, I was looking at a copy of Equality Maryland's State Senate Whip Count for HB 235 – a Maryland bill that will provide housing and employment antidiscrimination protections based on gender identity. I received the whip count from a source that leaked it – it seemed very apparent to me that someone at Equality Maryland wanted this whip count to be public. And, that someone-who-wanted-it-public wanted it public because of something Dana Beyer said to Washington, D.C.'s Metro Weekly,
"Senator Thomas Miller (D-Calvert and Prince George's Counties) told us that if Equality Maryland could show him the votes on the Senate floor, if we get out of this committee, he will expedite our Senate vote."
[...]
Many transgender activists are very, very unhappy with HB 235. Previous versions of this gender identity bill in the past four years included protections not only for employment and housing, but for public accommodations, too. Many transgender Marylanders are pro-HB 235 because housing and employment protections are perceived as a step forward. Many other transgender Marylanders (and many transgender activists across the U.S.) are against the bill because it didn't include public accommodation protections. These activists saw the stripping of public accommodations from the bill as an unacceptable compromise to pass transgender specific civil rights legislation.
