From the historically-transphobic-then-not-so-transphobic-but-during-the-2007-ENDA-debacle-more-transphobic-than-not Bay Windows: thoughts from Susan Ryan-Vollmar on what the future agenda for Mass Equality should be.
First task for the new MassEquality should be passage of the trans rights bill
A proper conclusion and a blunt title.
Props to Susan.
[T]he issue that looms largest over all others is trans rights. The disparities in legal protections enjoyed by lesbian and gay citizens and the Commonwealth’s transmen and women is shocking. As MassEquality gears up for its future, surely passage of the trans rights bill should be priority number one.
House Bill 1722 would add gender identity and expression to the state’s anti-discrimination and hate crimes laws. It’s currently sitting in the House Judiciary Committee, where many expect it will have a hearing in early next year.
That’s good for some elaboration. Now, for a bit of a problem.
It will be a steep road to passage. We’re not likely to see the massive groundswell of support that helped protect civil marriage rights. That’s because everyone understands marriage — even those who have no desire to marry. But some of our most ardent allies in the State House will begin this debate by asking what a transgender person is. It’s up to all of us to answer that question and to make sure lawmakers understand the vital need for this legislation.
It may well be up to all of ‘us’ - but, to bastardize a famous truism, some of ‘us’ have a more equal duty in that regard than others, namely those who are allowed to make a living advocating on LGBT matters.
If, in 2008, “some of our most ardent allies in the State House will begin this debate by asking what a transgender person is,” then WHY? Why might that be? Why, by this point, have all friendly Massachusetts legislators not had it pointed out to them that in 1981, eight years before Massachusetts enacted a gay-only rights law, it enacted legislation recognizing the reality of transsexualism?
Yes, a transsexual birth certificate statute is not the same as an employment anti-discrimination statute - but it is an act of the legislature expressing understanding of the main legal aspect of the lives of the people who most need that 1989 gay-only travesty rectified. It is something to point to when asking legislators to rectify that 1989 transphobic atrocity.
But, pointing it out requires anyone doing such pointing to implicitly reject the Aravosis-Capehart-Crain-Carpenter ‘trans people didn’t bother showing up until a few years ago’ narrative of gay rights history.
And that, they will not do.
Its a sad reality, but many of those who claim to want that 1989 law rectified would rather see the current state of affairs remain in place than admit that, had it not been for gay-led transphobia of years past, there would be no impediment to trans-inclusion at any level.
