Slantitized

From a Metro Weekly piece by Yusef Najafi about the HB 235 hearing yesterday at the Maryland Legislature:

Currently, Baltimore City and Montgomery County provide protections against discrimination on the basis of gender identity with regard to housing, employment and public accommodation. But longtime Maryland activist Cathy Brennan, who supports the legislation to prohibit discrimination statewide, points out that people are often unaware of these local protections.

”It’s not well known that there are local municipalities that already have these protections, and that’s why you need a statewide bill to help raise that awareness,” she said.

Why couldn’t Yusef have at least pretended to be a journalist and asked Brennan why it is that there’s a need for a trans-specific bill in Maryland in the first place?  Or what her position was about how trans-inclusive Maryland law already was in 2001 and how many people who testified yesterday blew holes in that position?  Or what it was that she called people who in 2001 took the principled position of opposing the gay-only rights bill because it left out those who actually most needed civil rights protections?

I’ll post more analysis of the hearing later – I would have live-blogged it, but the video feed kept cutting out on me – but I thought I’d pass along this observation from Alyson Meiselman: “EQMD had the audacity to LIE at the hearing about 2001 legislative session. Twice!”