FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact Gunner Scott: 617-669-5144 or Kara Suffredini: 617-758-9504

November 15, 2011

Advocates Praise Lawmakers for Advancing Transgender Equal Rights Bill

Boston – In an historic move, the Transgender Equal Rights Bill was released from the Joint Committee on the Judiciary this morning, Tuesday, November 15.

It is the first time that the bill has been released from the Joint Committee on the Judiciary.

“This bill includes essential protections for transgender residents, who are not currently protected in any areas of the Commonwealth’s civil rights laws,” said Gunner Scott, executive director of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition. “We strongly urge the House and Senate to quickly pass this bill.”

“We are deeply grateful to our champions in the House and Senate, State Representatives Carl Sciortino and Byron Rushing and State Senators Ben Downing and Sonia Chang-Diaz,” said Kara Suffredini, executive director of MassEquality. “We are also appreciative of Joint Judiciary Chairs State Representative Gene O’Flaherty and State Senator Cynthia Stone Creem for their work on this bill.”

“Today the Judiciary Committee formally recognized that transgender people suffer from unfair and unjust discrimination in employment and housing,” said Arline Isaacson, co-chair of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus. “The bill they’ve released addresses those concerns clearly and directly. We’re pleased they decided to advance a bill before the end of this calendar year.”

The bill would provide vital protections for the Commonwealth’s approximately 33,000 transgender residents.

The bill advanced by the Joint Committee on the Judiciary does not include protections within public accommodations. But the bill will extend much-needed civil rights and hate crimes protections to the state’s transgender residents, who experience high rates of employment discrimination and hate crimes violence.

“We support this bill,” said Jennifer Levi, director of Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders’ (GLAD) Transgender Rights Project. “We want complete protections for transgender people – including in public accommodations – but also know that in order to get there, we cannot walk away from the legislature’s first step toward achieving those full protections.”

“This bill is about giving transgender people an equal shot at obtaining everyday basics we all need—a job, a place to live, an education. It’s a major step forward for fairness, and we urge the legislature to pass it right away,” said Gavi Wolf,  legislative counsel, for the ACLU of Massachusetts.

“This bill will give basic civil rights protections to transgender people, who suffer disproportionately from discrimination and violence,” said Rebekah Gewirtz, director of Government Relations and Political Action for the National Association of Social Workers, MA. “No one should be denied a job or have to live in fear for their safety simply because of who they are.”

A February, 2011 report found that 76 percent of transgender people in Massachusetts have been harassed on the job because of their gender identity; 20 percent have lost their job because of their gender identity; and 17 percent have been denied a promotion because they are transgender.

Seventeen percent of transgender residents have been denied housing because of their gender identity, and 10 percent of transgender residents have been homeless because they could not find work. Fifteen percent of transgender people make $10,000 or less in annual household income while only three percent of the general population makes $10,000 or less in annual household income.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts spends at least $3 million annually on public benefits for transgender residents who are eligible to work but can’t find a job because of their gender identity.

Fifteen states, the District of Columbia, and 136 cities and towns around the country have passed laws and ordinances protecting transgender people from discrimination.

Gov. Deval Patrick signed an executive order in February 2011 protecting transgender state workers from employment discrimination. He also submitted written testimony supporting the bill to the Joint Committee on the Judiciary.

The Judiciary Committee vote follows a public hearing on the bill held in June in which supporters of the Transgender Equal Rights Bill far outnumbered those testifying against it. Among those who testified in favor were Attorney General Martha Coakley, Cambridge Police Department Superintendent Christopher J. Burke, Julian T. Tynes of the MA Commissions Against Discrimination and representatives from the Mass. Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Jane Doe, Inc., and MassNOW.