Posted on 06/04/2007 8:55:25 PM PDT by Coleus
It comes too late to help Carol Barlow, but she certainly could have used it. Could have invoked it when she got fired. Could have pointed to it when the job interviewer laughed in her face. Could have sued after, she says, her boss said, "When you become Carol or whatever the hell you're doing, you're out of there." Because Carol Barlow used to be Bruce Barlow. And first Bruce, and then Carol, suffered harassment, indignities and discrimination at one job and then another, and still more on innumerable job interviews. Well, that won't cut it anymore.
Starting June 17, it will be illegal under state law for businesses to discriminate against Carol Barlow and any other transgender person. New Jersey's anti-discrimination law, already one of the most far-reaching in the country, will add "gender identity and expression" to its list of protected categories for employment, housing, public accommodation, credit and business contracts. The legislation, passed in December, makes New Jersey the ninth state with a transgender law. Vermont, Oregon, Iowa and Colorado passed similar laws this year, but they won't take effect until mid summer.
| What you should know Employers: The New Jersey Division of Civil Rights Web site has updated the Law Against Discrimination posters required forevery employer to display. It now includes the "gender identity and expression" to its list of protected classes. Download the poster at www.njcivilrights.org. Click on the red box marked "Anti-discrimination posters." Posters are available in English and Spanish. Employees: If you feel you are being discriminated against you have two options, says Frank Vespa-Papaleo, director of the state Division on Civil Rights. You may file a lawsuit in State Superior Court, or visit the office of the Division on Civil Rights at 100 Hamilton Plaza, 8th floor. The telephone number is 973-977-4500. The Paterson office covers Passaic, Bergen and Morris counties. |
This latest amendment to the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination means it will be illegal for employers to not hire, not promote, not give a raise to, or to harass or fire an employee because she or he is transgender. "It's not going to affect me but for the people who come after me it will mean a lot," says Barlow , who lives in Clifton. "I hope this law gets rid of some of the fear that our people have." Barlow , who once did computer support work for the Herald News, is 61 now and nearing retirement. But she worked on the amendment anyway, agreeing to be featured in a 2005 television commercial that urged lawmakers to pass the bill.
The transgender category in the law covers transsexuals -- people born one sex who live as a member of the opposite sex and may have had sex reassignment surgery; cross dressers -- people who dress as the opposite sex sometimes; and androgynous people -- those whose gender is ambiguous. The new law "is a big deal and it isn't a big deal," says Leslie Farber, a lawyer in Montclair who specializes in job discrimination cases. Not a big deal because it codifies a decision made in 2001 by the state's Appellate Division. In that case, the court ruled that an employer's refusal to renew a medical director's contract as he was changing from a man to a woman violated the law against sex discrimination.
"We applauded that (2001) decision but we soon found out it really wasn't good enough because no one knew about it," says Barbra Casbar, president of the Gender Rights Advocacy Association of New Jersey, which worked to pass the amendment. And that's why Farber thinks this is a big deal. Because starting June 17, transgender people will be included in that sign posted in every workplace explaining to employees that it is illegal for their employer to discriminate because of race, creed, age, nationality, marital status, domestic partnership, sexual orientation and now gender identity or expression.
"A statute has much more authority than an interpretation," says Steven Goldstein, chairman of Garden State Equality, another group that helped to pass the amendment. "Transgender people can say, 'Look, there's a law on the books.' They don't have to say, 'There was a court case that interpreted...' blah, blah, blah." The Law Against Discrimination was enacted in 1945, and was the first state civil rights statute in the country, according to Frank Vespa-Papaleo, director of the state's Division on Civil Rights. It included race, creed, color, origin and national ancestry under its umbrella. Since then the law has been amended "probably hundreds of times," Vespa-Papaleo says, including in 1972 when it was expanded to include people with disabilities, a full 18 years before the federal government passed the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Lawyers don't see the new amendment that includes transgender people as posing a problem for employers. But one area that may be murky is the legal interpretation of "discrimination," says Julie Greenberg, a law professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, Calif., and an expert in legal issues surrounding sexual identity and orientation. Could businesses be violating the rights of transgender employees by telling them they must use the bathroom or locker room of their sex at birth? "Part of the problem of bathroom use is other's objecting," Greenberg says. Workers feeling like their privacy has been breached and complaining to their bosses.
A case like that arose in Minnesota, which has a similar statute. In 2001 the state Supreme Court found that an employer was not violating the anti-discrimination law by making a policy in which employees must use the bathrooms of their birth sex. The suit had been brought by a transgender worker who identified as female and had a state court declare him legally female. Female coworkers complained when their colleague used the women's bathroom, and in response the company made the policy. There is a movement among transgender people to install unisex bathrooms in workplaces and public buildings to avoid just such a problem. "The one thing I think we all strive for is respect," Casbar says.
I hope they realize that by further classifying and singling out these ....”people” they’ll just be painting more and more attractive targets.
I’m part polish but that doesn’t stop my co-workers from calling me a pollock where’s my 25 million dollars for being subjected to “unberable mental agony”/s
Of course it does. The only group it doesn’t apply to is white males.
What always interests me is the need for such individuals to force their decision on everyone else. They don’t just want to be the opposite sex but want to be in your face about it and take absolutely no responsibility for their decision in relationship to the uncomfortable situation it produces for others. It is completely natural to be uncomfortable and have distaste for those who are sexual ambiguous in any way whether they be Homosexual, Bisexual, or Transgendered but the law would rather operate in the realm of pretend.
These people choose to mutilate themselves to become the opposite sex and we’re supposed to accept this mental disorder or face criminal charges? What a load of crap. What passes for enlightenment today is so anti-intellectual.
As Michael Medved says, “You can’t change your sex, all you can do is mutilate your genitals.”
Pingout tomorrow. Really!
or Christians.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
First it was "Gay and Lesbian" rights.
Then a few years ago it expanded to "LGBT" = Lesbian Gay Bisexual & Transgendered".
Then just last week, an editorial from our local "Lambda Center" made me aware that once again I've fallen behind the times, and am just not hip, because I wasn't aware that the newest expanded definition is "LGBTIQQ" = "Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgendered Intersex Queer Questioning".
Isn't that just dandy? Anyone got any predictions on what it will be 10 or 20 years from now?
I'll hazard a guess:
GLBTIQQIMBLZIINPAPANRQQPEFAGAMTQQSIG - which of course is --
Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgendered Intersex Queer Questioning Intergenerational Man-Boy-Love Zoophilic Interspeciesexual Incestual Necrophilic Polygamist Asexual Polyandrist Antisexual NeoSexual Retrosexual Quasisexual Queasysexual Porkosexual Eweosexual Fungisexual Amoebasexual Globosexual Ambisexual Monosexual Trisexual Quadrisexual Quintisexual Sexisexual Infinisexual Googolsexual
DNA defines gender
Seldom mentioned is the undisputed scientific medical fact that it is impossible for the sex of a person to change or be changed.
If you live in NJ I can refer you to a good lawyer. That is if your bosses have deep pockets.
Oops, you actually had it. Forgive my eyes.
“DNA defines gender”
That’s coming — DNA manipulation to matcht the mutilation.
ok, thanks, you have 15 minutes left : )
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.