Is a legislative civil rights victory a victory if the protections are incomplete?

Recently, I was looking at a copy of Equality Maryland’s State Senate Whip Count for HB 235 – a Maryland bill that will provide housing and employment antidiscrimination protections based on gender identity. I received the whip count from a source that leaked it – it seemed very apparent to me that someone at Equality Maryland wanted this whip count to be public. And, that someone-who-wanted-it-public wanted it public because of something Dana Beyer said to Washington, D.C.’s Metro Weekly,

“Senator Thomas Miller (D-Calvert and Prince George’s Counties) told us that if Equality Maryland could show him the votes on the Senate floor, if we get out of this committee, he will expedite our Senate vote.”

The whip count indicated that there were at least 27 votes for the bill. It only takes 24 votes to pass a bill through the Maryland State Senate, and 29 votes to invoke cloture – although the Senate President can get a bill to the Senate floor with less than 29 votes.

Since I have a document to tell me the votes are there for passage, there likely will be a vote on the bill. And since Maryland’s House of Delegates has already passed HB 235, this bill will likely go to Democratic Governor Martin O’Malley – who is expected to sign the bill into law.

Many transgender activists are very, very unhappy with HB 235. Previous versions of this gender identity bill in the past four years included protections not only for employment and housing, but for public accommodations, too. Many transgender Marylanders are pro-HB 235 because housing and employment protections are perceived as a step forward. Many other transgender Marylanders (and many transgender activists across the U.S.) are against the bill because it didn’t include public accommodation protections. These activists saw the stripping of public accommodations from the bill as an unacceptable compromise to pass transgender specific civil rights legislation.

And this is why public accommodations were stripped from HB 235. There is something called the “bathroom bill” meme, and the message of the meme is that if you allow trans women (who they usually refer to as “men in dresses”) in to women’s public restrooms, then these trans women will engage in predatory behavior. Trans women allegedly will engage in leering, peeping, assault and rape of “real” women in public restrooms if trans people have public accommodation protections.

Of course the main promoters of the “bathroom bill” meme are people on the religious right.

So, anti-HB 235 transgender activists see stripping of public accommodation antidiscrimination protections from the bill as a legislative endorsement of a significant form of discrimination. Public accommodation protections are far more than just being about bathrooms – for transgender people, public accommodation protections include being able to buy a hamburger and a cup of coffee at a coffee shop without being turned away for being transgender.

The other reason many transgender activists are disappointed with HB 235 is because they think the stripping of public accommodation protections sets a bad precedent for upcoming antidiscrimination bills. They worry, with good reason, that Massachusetts and New York (which currently have gender identity antidiscrimination bills in the works) may see legislators in those states following Maryland’s lead.

And of course, there is this thought from Martin Luther King Jr. from the black civil rights movement,

“Why don’t you do it in a gradual manner?” Well, gradualism is little more than escapism and do-nothingism, which ends up in stand-stillism. We know that our brothers and sisters in Africa and Asia are moving with jet-like speed toward the goal of political independence. And in some communities we are still moving at horse-and-buggy pace toward the gaining of a hamburger and a cup of coffee at a lunch counter.

Now is the time to get rid of segregation and discrimination. Now is the time.

But, of course, many trans people like me see housing and employment antidiscrimination protections as an improvement. I supported the bill for that reason. If this bill becomes law, there will likely be trans men and women who will be able to move out of the street economy – economic empowerment has importance.

I do worry though about swallowing the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. If HB 235 becomes law without public accommodation protections being passed in that state in the next few years, then I believe we in the trans community will have lost too much.

There is debate in the trans community. The question will be asked that if should HB 235 become law, is it a real victory for the trans community or just a partial victory. The partial victory is also a partial loss to the “bathroom bill” meme.

With my mixed feelings, if HB 235 becomes law, then I know I won’t be throwing a victory party.