Here’s an interesting tidbit.

In Massachusetts, it is against the law to deny a job to a Transgender person if that is the only reason you want to deny it, but you can actually deny service in your business to that very same person if they come in as a customer.

They can work in your establishment, but they can be denied service there. And worse, if you are a Transgender employee, you may be the person the boss chooses to tell the Transgender person they have to leave.

S735 and H1577 pick up where a previous law left off.

Four and a half years ago in October 2013 then-Governor Deval Patrick signed Massachusetts’ Transgender Rights Law that extended protections for transgender people by banning discrimination in the areas of housing and employment.

But when it came to covering public accommodations, things like restaurants, lodging, gender-segregated changing rooms and restrooms, these were removed from the original bill because, with the agreement of the GLBT “Leadership” doing so would  ensure passage of the broader legislation.

I, personally, am not a fan of this somewhere-down-the-road approach as it generally means “never if I can help it”.

At a meeting to rewrite the Oklahoma City Public School District’s policies on bullying, harassment, and nondiscrimination, and to rewrite the Student and Parent Handbook to make it clear that GLBT students would be covered, I was told that I had to accept that I couldn’t get everything that I wanted, and needed to be mature enough to accept a compromise. The actual compromise, when explained, meant getting nothing, but perhaps somewhere down the road when the topic may or may not have ever been brought up again, I could try again then.

Why should any group of students have to wait for inclusion at some unspecified time down some unspecified road when they were in the schools now?

The same goes for the T in GLBT.

But some of the “leadership” (not a fan) supported the compromise of passing the watered down version of the Massachusetts bill with the promise of future consideration for the rest. They preferred to get what they could, which to me showed a weakness and uncertainty in their own case.

Anyone in opposition to the bill would have seen that too.

Why should the opposition support Transgender people if their own community was so willing to shelve them

The public accommodation bill may be coming up soon, but the big question is where the Republican governor, Charlie Baker, stands.

Carly Burton, campaign manager for Freedom Massachusetts, has stated,

“I have confidence that the Legislature will pass this bill.

We have great support both from the speaker and in the House, as well as from the Senate president and in the Senate. We also have a wide variety of businesses and unions and all sorts of other entities, women’s groups, domestic violence prevention groups, that have come out in support of this bill.”

It appears that the bill has more than enough support to pass, but the question is about there being enough votes to override a veto if the governor chooses to take that route.
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The governor has said,

“We certainly support non-discrimination in Massachusetts for anybody, but the details on this are important, and I know the Legislature’s working on it, and we’ll look forward on seeing what they will produce.”

The governor’s reluctance to say what he ultimately will do is frustrating the bill’s supporters.

Needless to say, the opposition to the bill are, as all Republicans seem to be, fixated on bathrooms.

 “The Legislature has a responsibility to protect the rights and privacy of women and children in public restrooms, showers and locker rooms. So that’s paramount,” said Jonathan Alexandre, legal counsel for the Massachusetts Family Institute. “We’ve been here before. In 2011, when the transgender bill was passed, the Legislature specifically removed public accommodations, understanding that that wasn’t an area that would create a safe situation for the citizens here in Massachusetts.”

See how he used the throwing of Transgender people under the bus?

Former state Rep. Susan Tracy said Baker is likely staying noncommittal so as not to aggravate the conservative Republican base.

“The governor has taken some positions that probably have alienated that base — whether it’s trying to take over the party, which we’ve read about, or bringing some Democrats into his administration or working closely with the Legislature — so I’m sure that there are members of the conservative Republican base who are not happy with him. And perhaps he sees this as an issue where he is appealing to or appeasing that base.”

Some incumbent legislators in competitive swing-districts are also concerned about a potential challenge from a conservative opponent because it’s all about politics, and not people.

Bigots have power.

The Legislature’s Judiciary Committee has until May 2 to report out the bill.

For anyone reading this, let me make a suggestion, that I wish the media would use, if you are in a position to discuss the need for non-discrimination.

When that person, in whatever position they are, begins to make their opposition known, ask them to define Transgender before they can actually begin. Most likely they will go with the usual Republican definition of a man who just decided to throw on a dress, or decides one day upon getting out of bed that they feel like a woman so that is their gender identity.

Correct them.

Take the time to correct them.

Gender Identity is:

“a person’s gender-related identity, appearance or behavior, whether or not that gender-related identity or behavior is different from that traditionally associated with the person’s physiology or assigned sex at birth. It is the sincerely held part of a person’s core identity.”

If they reject this and want to discuss dresses and feelings, discussion is impossible, so merely inform them they are not serious, and life is too short to discuss fantasies when reality needs to be addressed.