Bostonians are recognizing Transgender Awareness Week this week just as the approval of legislation that would include transgender residents in non-discrimination laws is pending in the State House.
On Monday, the state Judiciary Committee began polling its members on the bill, according to an official State House press release.
Co-chair Rep. Eugene O’Flaherty, of Chelsea, said he sees the bill reaching the floor for a vote before midnight on Wednesday, when the legislature begins a seven-week recess, according to the release.
He said in the release that the redrafted bill still requires sex-segregated facilities in Massachusetts to allow transgender residents access based on their preferred “gender identity.”
The 17 members of the committee will have until Tuesday morning to respond to the vote.
If passed, the bill would forbid discrimination against transgender residents in employment, housing, credit and insurance.
Opponents of the bill, according to the release, have labeled it as the “bathroom bill,” saying it would allow sexual predators to “pose as transgender residents to prey on victims in women’s bathrooms.”
Rep. Marc Lombardo, of Billerica, said that the bill is a diversion from creating jobs and helping the economic climate, according to the release.
He will hold a press conference Tuesday morning to criticize attempts to “ram through special interest legislation,” he said in the press release.
The MTPC, however, will be holding a phone banking session at MassEquality for Transgender Equal Rights in support of the bill on Tuesday. They will transfer callers straight to lawmakers’ voicemail boxes to leave messages.
Transgender Awareness Week is designed to educate the public about the transgender community and issues that are facing transgender people in Massachusetts, according to the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition.
Boston University College of General Studies sophomore Michael Tom, a member of BU’s queer student activist collective Q, said that non-discrimination laws against transgender people are important.
“I think it’s important to have laws that prevent discrimination not only against transgender or gay people or racial minorities,” he said in a phone interview. “But to prevent discrimination against everyone.”
Tom said that within the gay community, the transgender view is not one that is heard very often. He said that often when lobbyists argue for gay rights, they leave out transgender rights.
“It’s an understated area,” he said. “It’s definitely not talked about as much as gay rights in general.”
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
