Friday, May 20, 2011
A Moment of Celebration in Connecticut
Post by Jennifer Levi, GLAD Transgender Rights Project Director
http://blog.glad.org/2011/05/moment-of-celebration-in-connecticut.htmlElated.
I don't know how else to describe how I felt. Last night, after five-and-a-half excruciating hours of hearing the Connecticut House of Representatives debate the value of transgender people's lives and whether we are worthy of the law's protections, the chamber voted on HB 6599, a transgender non-discrimination bill. I ran upstairs to the viewing gallery to try to count votes being cast and projected up on the board. I knew we had to get to 76.
About three hours earlier, we had narrowly defeated a bathroom amendment that would have carved out exclusion from the law's protection for transgender people in bathrooms (Don't they know we have to go, too?). That vote was 62-65. We needed more than 65 to get this bill passed. Way more. Eleven doesn't mean much in cents, but it's a big lift, a huge lift, in votes. I didn't know how many we'd get on the bill, now up for a vote. I started to count.
