This year again, the Transgender Law Center organized the California Transgender Advocacy Day (CTAD), and Monday, Aug. 12, approximately 50 trans citizen lobbyists, family members of trans youth and adults and trans allies from across the state lobbied legislators in Sacramento for legislation that positively impacts trans citizens.
There were three bills advocated for by the CTAD lobbyists for this year. These were AB 420 (Disruption and Defiance: Reducing Grounds for Harsh Discipline in public schools, author: Assemblymember Roger Dickinson); SB 716 (the Sexual Abuse in Detention Elimination Act of 2013, author: Sen. Ricardo Lara) and AB 1121 (Gender Identity: Petition For Change Of Name, author: Assembly Majority Leader Toni Atkins).
AB 420 addresses the issue of LGBT youth, as well as youth of color, being currently more likely to be suspended or expelled from school because of “willful defiance” policies – approximately 40 percent of all suspensions are for “willful defiance.” The Transgender Law Center reports that under these school policies trans youth are often targeted and suspended for things such as wearing clothing that matches their gender identity.
Basically, “willful defiance” is defined broadly, and under these policies even elementary school students are suspended or expelled for a single offence of swearing in class or failing to turn in homework. This law will prevent LGBT youth from the sometimes capricious suspensions. AB 420 provides common sense solutions to the problems that the ill-defined “willful defiance” policies create.
SB 716 would implement policies for California that mirror the federal Prison Rape Elimination standards. The act would impact trans people who are detained in all confinement facilities due to criminal charges or convictions. The act aims for more safe and humane treatment of prisoners and would prevent certain kinds of mistreatment and outline policy and procedures that would reduce the number of sexual assaults in prisons. It would also allow for the evaluation of trans prisoners as individuals, taking into account a detainees gender identity and where the particular detention circumstances would be humane and safe.
AB 1121 further updates the policies of the Vital Statistics Modernization Act I wrote about in a recent column. This act would change the current court process for changing one’s name to reflect one’s gender identity to an administrative process. It will also remove the requirement for trans people to publish a fictitious name advertisement in local news publications as part of the name change process.
The combined costs to fulfill these requirements currently are usually in the $800 range. Eliminating court fees for gender identity related name and legally documented gender changes to administrative fees, as well as removing the publishing requirement, will significantly reduce the costs involved with these court processes and provide needed privacy to those who don’t want to advertise their name and gender changes – especially for trans people in smaller California communities.
AB 1121 was authored by our own assemblymember, Assembly Majority Leader Toni Atkins. Her authorship of this bill speaks powerfully about her support of not only trans people like me in her district, but of trans people across the state.
As the citizen lobbyists at the Transgender Law Center event were getting ready for afternoon state assemblymembers and senators, news came that California’s governor, Jerry Brown, signed a bill into law for the benefit of trans public school students.
Trans people obtain civil rights and protections in our state because many of us organize, build relationships with city, county and state legislators, and we lobby. The governor signing AB 1121 into law is an example of the success of these efforts, and hopefully we’ll see this kind of success for the CTAD lobbied bills in the near future.
