News Item

NEW YORK CITY EXTENDS RIGHTS TO TRANSGENDERS

In the New York Harbor stands the Statue of Liberty, with an inscription engraved on its based that says, "give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses...." For years, Lady Liberty has stood as a beacon of welcome and caring for even the most persecuted among us. With his signature on April 30, Mayor Michael Bloomberg put the finishing touches on extending New York City's Human Rights Ordinance to cover one of the more persecuted classes in America.

On Wednesday, April 24, New York's City Council voted 45 to 5 to extend civil rights protection to transgender and gender-variant people in the nation's largest city. This action makes New York City the largest jurisdiction in the United States to guarantee the civil rights of transgenders, and more than doubles the number of transgenders covered by such laws.

The bill was the culmination of three years of effort by the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA), other transgender groups and activists, and LGBT and straight allies.   New York City Council's action came one day after Tacoma, WA, enacted civil rights protection for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Tacoma had previously voted to guarantee civil rights for lesbians, gays and bisexuals in the 1980's, but the measure was repealed by a referendum. This year, LGBT advocates made the measure transgender inclusive.

Transgender protection was also enacted in Erie County and Allentown, PA, earlier this year.

The New York legislation was first introduced in the City Council in  2000 and was quickly endorsed by more than half the members of the Council. Over 200 trans people and allies turned out for a public hearing last May, but the measure was not brought to a vote in the full council because of opposition from then-Speaker, Councilman Peter Vallone, and Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani.

Both Giuliani and Vallone left office at the end of 2001 because of  term limits, and the measure was reintroduced in January, 2002, under the primary sponsorship of City Council members Bill Perkins, Phil Reed, Margarita Lopez and Christine Quinn.

"Fighting for your rights allowed me to understand my own humanity better," said council member Lopez. "Those people who made the decision long ago to not allow this bill to be heard need to question if they were representing their humanity."

At a public hearing before the Council's Public Welfare Committee on  Tuesday, April 23, Carrie Davis, a counselor at the LGBT Community Services Center and a founding member of NYAGRA, testified, "Many people feel it is their privilege to judge me on my appearance. I have been denied jobs, I have been denied housing, I have been denied services, I have been harassed and abused. I have been beaten and raped and I have had my children taken away from me."

Paisley Currah, associate professor of political science at Brooklyn  College and a NYAGRA founding member, said, "With this law, the City  Council is sending a very clear signal to employers, to landlords, and to owners of public accommodations that this kind of discriminatory behavior is now illegal. And as the largest jurisdiction by population in the U.S. to ban discrimination against transgender people, it might have a positive spillover effect elsewhere because it suggests to legislators in other cities that transgender inclusion will eventually become the norm in human rights laws."

State Sen. Tom Duane, meanwhile, recognized a driving force behind the  legislation: Sylvia Rivera, the firebrand activist who died in February. "She struggled hard but she couldn't be here today," said Sen. Duane of Ms. Rivera, a veteran of the Stonewall Rebellion. "In my heart, I will always see this as Sylvia's bill."

The states of Minnesota and Rhode Island and almost 40 municipalities  now have civil rights laws protecting transgender people. More cities are expected to follow the example of New York, Tacoma, Erie County, and Allentown this year.

The National Transgender Advocacy Coalition (NTAC) wishes to highly commend the Mayor and the City Council of New York for their insight in passing this needed legislation. Most especially, NTAC wishes to congratulate NYAGRA, the New York Transgender Coalition (NYTG Coalition) and all transgender activists and advocates on a job well done. Lady Liberty stands a little more proudly tonight.

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NTAC, the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition, is a §501(c)(4) political advocacy coalition working to establish and maintain the right of all transgendered, intersexed, and gender-variant people to live and work without fear of violence or discrimination.