TransMaryland a Maryland transgender advocacy organization has come out in opposition to House Bill 235 as written without public accommodations provisions despite it being promoted by Equality Maryland.From TransMaryLands Event "Contact your legislator":
Right now in Maryland the rights of 1.5 million Marylanders in Baltimore City and Montgomery County are assured. 3X that amount are NOT protected.
Baltimore City and Montgomery County has legal protections for their transgender citizens. The rest of the state's transgender population deserves the same level of dignity and respect afforded to ALL of our citizens. They are denied the basic rights others carry, simply because they ...were born with a gender incongruent to their physical self.
HB 235, introduced last month does NOT provide full protection under the law!
MD HB235 at introduction.
Please contact your Legislators TODAY! and tell them you DEMAND a Gender Identity Anti-discrimination Act with protects Transgender Marylanders are the SAME level as Race, Color, Religion, Sex, Age, Disability, Marital Status, Sexual Orientation, or National Origin. The current bill DOES NOT provide this!
Click here to find your legislator
[Sample letter]
Hello[YOUR LEGISLATOR'S NAME],
My name is [YOUR FULL NAME] and I live in your district at [ENTER YOUR ADDRESS].
I am writing to urge you to vote for A Gender Identity Anti-Discrimination Act which protects Transgender Marylanders are the SAME level as Race, Color, Religion, Sex, Age, Disability, Marital Status, Sexual Orientation, or National Origin by INCLUDING PUBLIC ACCOMMODATIONS. This bill is important to me because I believe that ALL Marylanders deserve protections and respect, regardless of their gender identity.
Only by passing FULLY protective GIADA can Maryland truly be called the Free State, where everyone is treated equally.
Thank you!
Only through FULL protections can our rights be upheld!!
This bill will establish transgender Marylanders as second class citizens, subject to only partial protections and send a message National, that the same unequal treatment is acceptable.
It is through your simple phone calls and emails that YOUR voice can be heard. It is the most sacred and intimate responsibility of freedom we possess.
Facebook Event page
TransMaryland on Facebook
transmaryland.org
2 comments:
I don’t know if I should be honored or insulted. Equality Maryland started pouting this morning and unfriended me on their Facebook. Perhaps it was the fact that I questioned their wisdom in holding a fund raiser at a sex toy shop. It might have been that I pointed out the lack of African Americans pictured among their white staff at their offices in a city that is 64% African American:
http://www.equalitymaryland.org/about/staff
Or it may have been the result of you good folks publishing the truth in “Not a Pot to Piss in: Maryland anti discrimination bill without Public Accommodations provision.”
http://planetransgender.blogspot.com/2011/02/not-pot-to-piss-in-maryland-anti.html
Others had been posting about the fact that their posts had been removed for asking the wrong questions. Clearly they attempt to portray themselves as “one big community” as Field Organizer Owen Smith put is at Pam’s House Blend. Funny that story starts off explaining how Owen and his happy band of followers braved “the evening cold and an impending ice storm,” to put on a sideshow in Annapolis. That too was lily white. They staged it in front of a statue of Thurgood Marshal to make it look like black folks showed up.
From my perspective I can only laugh out loud. The very next day, when braving-the-weather Owen was supposed to be meeting me to explain his comments about “scary” amendments he sent me a message on Facebook. “The weather is very bad. ... Stay safe it’s icky out there,” and said he couldn’t make it to the meeting that was less than three miles away but could brave the “icky” weather to stand in the cold in Annapolis thirty miles away.
All of that said I think I will choose to feel honored.
“Icky” indeed.
I am honored to be the battle for our lives with you Dana. I was made for this.
Hey Thursday I will be talking with Morgan Meneses-Sheets Executive Director Equality Maryland. I will ask about your unfriending. I will also be talking to a representative from the Maryland ACLU.
I did get the sense of urgency from the messages Morgan sent like I was a small flame she wanted to extinguish before I lit the entire freaking forest on fire.
Too late, the fracking cat is out of the bag.
BTW Thank YOU Tansgriot MONICA ROBERTS FOR THE FIRST ARTICLE ALLERTING us TO THIS TRAVESTY)
So I wasn't the first to write about this just the earliest confrontal article.
Lets do this thing. Full equality for all. Win or lose its our only option.
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