Questions arise over FW trans ordinance
Posted on 17 Dec 2010 at 12:03am
Double negative included in addition to protections adopted last year could bar trans from using gender-specific restrooms
DAVID TAFFET | Staff Writer
http://www.dallasvoice.com/questions-arise-fw-trans-ordinance-1056769.html (http://www.dallasvoice.com/questions-arise-fw-trans-ordinance-1056769.html)
FORT WORTH — A double negative in one sentence of an addition to the nondiscrimination protections in the Fort Worth ordinance would enshrine one form of bias against transgenders.
Proposed Section 17-48 (b) says "It shall not be unlawful for any person or any employee or agent thereof to deny any person entry into any restroom, shower room, bathhouse or similar facility which has been designated for use by persons of the opposite sex."
Fort Worth assistant attorney Gerald Pruitt confirmed that, as written, the clause allows anyone to deny a transgender person presenting as one sex entry into a restroom if that person has not completed transition.
QuoteThe word "not" may have been placed in the sentence by mistake. If so, these additions have not been adopted yet and may be changed before the city council votes on them.
Kind of a major mistake really.
It completely invalidates the whole intent.
need to know if the 'not' was included verbatim as resolution was formulated or added by a transphobic typist.
I wasn't at the FW Council meeting, so I don't know what happened there. "Tori" comments that she was there and did not think it was accidentally included.
Recently, I was at another meeting in the same geographical region where a different Board debated a similar proposal, and the word "not" got inserted right before it passed to go forward to be voted on the next week. None of us could tell at the time because the board member who proposed the change cut his mic off and said it so only the people at his end of the table could hear the proposed change. Then a vote was called and it got entered. Other board members were outraged when they found out what they had actually voted on. It got amended back out the next week becasue of press coverage leading to a lot of people showing up at the meeting to protest it.
So beware of the crookid #$^@#$. It goes on.