Toni Atkins is the Democratic State Assemblymember representing the 76th Assembly District. In February, she submitted the Gender Nondiscrimination Act (AB 887), which is sponsored by Equality California and the Transgender Law Center. According to the Transgender Law Center and Equality California, AB 887 seeks to strengthen employment, housing and other civil rights protections for our broader lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community members.
“California’s non-discrimination laws guarantee equal protection under the law for all people,” said Atkins in the TLC press release. “It is critically important for employers, housing authorities and everyone to have clear guidance on how these protections are implemented.
“AB 887 takes existing protections based on gender identity and expression and enumerates them as protected categories in non-discrimination laws. In addition, the bill clarifies that gender identity and expression are included in the definition of gender and sex in all California codes.”
“‘Existing non-discrimination laws are confusing and vague for employers, housing authorities and others who bear the responsibility of ensuring that the laws are enforced,” added Equality California Executive Director Geoff Kors. “This bill would reduce the harms caused by discrimination by inserting language into state law that is direct and easily understood. In addition, by being clear about what the law requires, it will reduce litigation and costs to employers, landlords, and others.”
How AB 887 would accomplish this is by enumerating gender identity and gender expression in the state’s list of protected classes. This would clarify for employers and landlords the legal protections transgender people already have under the state’s definition of gender. (The state’s definition of gender changed with 2003s AB 196, which became law Jan. 1, 2004.)
Transgender people can be very thankful to Equality California, the Transgender Law Center and our progressive state legislators for the state of our civil rights in California.
This is in stark contrast to what’s happening in Maryland this year.
Between 2007 and 2010, legislation that provided employment, housing and public accommodation protections based on gender identity were submitted to the Maryland State House of Delegates’ House Health and Government Operations Committee. In four years, the bill never made it out of committee. Now in 2011, HB 235 made it out of committee, but only covers employment and housing – public accommodation was stripped from this year’s bill.
I’ve been told by some reliable sources in Maryland that public accommodations was stripped from the gender identity bill because the legislators didn’t want to deal with “bathroom bill” arguments against the bill – the “bathroom bill” meme developed by the religious right that portrays transgender women as bathroom predators of children and “real” women.
HB 235 has divided the transgender community in Maryland: There are those who believe employment and housing protections based on gender identity is an improvement over existing laws in the state; and there are those who believe that the bill minus public accommodation protections is inadequate, and sets bad precedence for future transgender civil rights protection bills across the country.
The bill, after much effort by Equality Maryland, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the Maryland Black Family Alliance and the ACLU of Maryland, passed the House of Delegates by a margin of 86-52 – an impressive vote margin.
Under normal circumstances, the bill would have gone to the Maryland’s Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee (JPR) for a hearing, a vote and then a vote on the Senate floor. The chair of JPR is liberal champion Sen. Brian Frosh (D-District 16), a publicly avowed supporter of the bill.
However, there is some weird history there. Senator Frosh has previously shown a great deal of hostility to this bill, going back to 2007. There are allegations that he killed the bill that year, and that he refused to bring it up for a vote in subsequent years despite committee support for it. Veteran equality activists, including former Equality Maryland (EqMD) Executive Director Dan Furmansky, have called Frosh the biggest threat to the bill in the Senate.
HB 235 went to the Senate Rules Committee – the only one out of more than 90 House bills that passed the House of Delegates by March 25 that went to that committee. The send to the Rules Committee is understood by political insiders in Maryland as the death knell for the bill.
In California, we’re working to see our employment, housing and public accommodation protections based on gender identity and expression strengthened, and in Maryland they’re seeing a community divided over a less than desirable gender identity civil rights bill – and even the weakened gender identity bill will probably not pass into law.
I’m so thankful for the civil rights protections we have for transgender people in California – all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the United States deserve the kind of protections we have for the broader community in California.
