Columnists :: Editorial
First task for the new MassEquality should be passage of the trans rights bill
by Susan Ryan-Vollmar
editor-in-chief
Wednesday Dec 12, 2007
The parade of power-brokers who celebrated with MassEquality at its marriage victory party last week underscored just how self-defeating it would have been to dismantle the organization. Lt. Gov. Tim Murray worked the crowd. House Speaker Sal DiMasi talked movingly about what it meant to him to push for civil marriage rights. Senate President Therese Murray sent a representative from her office. Mass. Bar Association President David White Jr. was in attendance. There were a bunch of state lawmakers, including seven of the 11 who changed their position from supporting the anti-gay marriage amendment to voting against it between the Jan. 2 and June 14 constitutional conventions. And there were former state lawmakers Mike Festa, who is now Secretary of Elder Affairs for Gov. Deval Patrick’s administration, and Jarrett Barrios, who now heads the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation. Evan Wolfson, the dean of the national marriage rights movement, was there. Matt Foreman, president of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, was there. Pat Guerriero of the Gill Action Fund was there. Even those few who sought to dissolve MassEquality felt compelled to be there -- showing just how much clout the organization has.
Perhaps more meaningful proof of the need for MassEquality’s continued existence with an expanded mandate, though, was the list of co-sponsors of the party. They included many of the smaller LGBT groups that MassEquality’s critics claimed would be harmed -- or even squeezed out of existence -- if MassEquality morphed into a multi-issue organization working on LGBT issues across the state: BAGLY, GLAD, AIDS Action Committee, the Freedom to Marry Coalition, Victory Programs, Bisexual Resource Center, Gay Men’s Domestic Violence Project, the LGBT Aging Project, the Mass. Transgender Political Coalition and the Network/La Red. Would you sign on to sponsor a victory party -- and write a check to help pay for it -- if you didn’t support the organization at the center of it all? Hardly.
It’s safe to say that there is widespread support among politicians and activists for a cohesive and connected grassroots organization working on LGBT issues. The need for such an organization is equally obvious. Just a few weeks ago, Bay Windows reported on the case of a gay man, recently married, who has reason to believe he was fired from his job because of his supervisor’s discomfort with gay people. This past summer, a gay man vacationing in Provincetown was violently attacked and poorly attended to by police officers. Last spring, a man filed a lawsuit against the popular watering hole J.J. Foley’s, alleging that he was thrown out after kissing another man. And last week, of course, a three-judge panel heard the appeal of Parker v. Lexington, a federal lawsuit brought by four Lexington parents who object to any discussions of gay issues in a public school classroom, including mention of a student’s gay parents, without prior parental notification. Despite the gains made in the last few years, homophobia is alive and well -- even here in Massachusetts.
But the issue that looms largest over all others is trans rights. The disparities in legal protections enjoyed by lesbian and gay citizens and the Commonwealth’s transmen and women is shocking. As MassEquality gears up for its future, surely passage of the trans rights bill should be priority number one.
House Bill 1722 would add gender identity and expression to the state’s anti-discrimination and hate crimes laws. It’s currently sitting in the House Judiciary Committee, where many expect it will have a hearing in early next year. It will be a steep road to passage. We’re not likely to see the massive groundswell of support that helped protect civil marriage rights. That’s because everyone understands marriage -- even those who have no desire to marry. But some of our most ardent allies in the State House will begin this debate by asking what a transgender person is. It’s up to all of us to answer that question and to make sure lawmakers understand the vital need for this legislation.
LGB people enjoy more rights here in Massachsuetts than anywhere else in the country. Our trans residents, meanwhile, are denied basic protections like employment non-discrimination measures. Let’s bridge that divide.
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