Maryland gay rights group defends a transgender nondiscrimination bill striped of public accommodations provisions that uses our lives as leverage in furthering marriage agenda.
INEquality Maryland then parades out a employee
quisling apologist who personally attempts to justify this injustice as necessary incrementalism.
The Maryland legislature non discrimination bill explicitly prohibits discrimination against trans people
except in public accommodations! This is a concession to extremist neo-christian groups and generic transphobic so gay Marylanders may have a better chance for marriage equality this year:
HOUSE BILL 235 (pdf) introduced and read first time: January 28, 2011 prohibits workplace discrimination and ".... discrimination based on gender identity by certain licensed or regulated persons; prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity with regard to the leasing of property for commercial usage or in the provision of certain services or facilities; altering a certain exception for employers that relates to standards concerning dress and grooming; providing that certain provisions of law relating to discrimination in 10 employment do not apply to certain religious entities.."
Glaringly absent from this years years bill, unlike previous versions offered in the past years, are provisions to allow us access to public accommodations. This will mean if this bill passes transgender Marylanders will only be protected in the areas of employment and housing. Dana LaRocca wrote in her column in the Baltimore Outloud
"During Thursday’s Kick-Off, Equality Maryland emphasized the importance of employment protection using the statistic that transgender people have an unemployment rate ten times the norm (their website says two times, however). I doubt the accuracy of any number. The places where transmen and transwomen are most often discriminated against are in public accommodations. A bill that leaves out public accommodations leaves transfolk, literally, “without a pot to piss in.”
Commenting on Pams House Blend post "
Gender Identity Anti-Discrimination bill introduced in Maryland House" Danna was more explicit in her condemnation with a post tittled:
"Public accomodations were left out as appeasment to opponents."
"Unlike the bill offered for the past four years this bill excludes public accommodations, it includes only employment and housing. This is not equal treatment under the law. This is second class citizenship. It is the moral equivalent of what would have been if the Civil Right Act of 1964 had left restaurants, the restrooms, and the lunch counters segregated."
"I have seen no support for this bill within the transgender community. What I have seen is a lot of anger and a sense of betrayal."
"The die had been cast and the rights of the transgendered were sacrificed. Just as Neville Chamberlain had sacrificed the Sudetenland for a moment of peace the LGB lobby has sacrificed the transgendered. The result will not be the peace they expected. What the LGB lobbyists have shown is that they are willing to back down at fear of something like what they have called ""vicious" attacks on Montgomery County's transgender bill," which refers to a county struggle in 2007. I'm old enough to remember the Battle of Chicago in '68 and Stonewall in '69, when activists in my day said "vicious" they meant fire hoses, Billy clubs, and teargas. The name calling we suffered in Montgomery County was not "vicious."
Yet the majority of the commenter's on Pams House Blend just shrugged their virtual shoulders sending a disastrous potentially lethal message of "oh well its better than nothing".
Better than what? Its almost impossible to prove discrimination in housing or win any monetary compensation in employment discrimination casesReality Check. You are on your way to work after a Starbucks and get delayed in one of the many MD traffic jams and you can't even use a bathroom for Christs sake!
Reality check. This is worthless bill spotlighting gay.com's willingness to sacrifice transgender lives for its agenda. Transgender Marylanders, are you going to lay down for them and let the Gay.com bus run you over?EQUALITY MARYLAND people of good faith, I have always supported you, will you be silent?
Demand Equality Maryland treat us with dignity.
Add a comment on their Facebook page post congratulating themselves on our exclusion.
TWEET THIS and make the call!!!! From
« ENDAblog Maryland Mariage Equality Hearings today call the six undecided senators needed to pass #EQMD #transgender
Ask the six undecided Senators to vote against the Maryland Marriage Equality bill UNTILL there is a bill, PASS OR FAIL, that respects transgender people.
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