Calif. Senate OKs transgender protections (Companies MUST hire transgenders)

Yahoo ^ | July 25, 2003 | Ellen Maremont Silver

[nwrep]

Calif. Senate OKs transgender protections

Fri Jul 25, 8:11 PM ET

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Ellen Maremont Silver, Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network

SUMMARY: The California Senate passed a groundbreaking bill on Thursday that makes it illegal to discriminate against transgender people in housing and employment.

The California Senate passed a groundbreaking bill on Thursday that makes it illegal to discriminate against transgender people in housing and employment. AB 196 adds "gender identity or expression" to sex and other characteristics that are already protected by the state's Fair Employment and Housing Act.

The bill, passed by the Assembly in April by a 41-34 vote, now goes to Gov. Gray Davis (news - web sites), who is expected to make a decision in approximately two weeks. The Senate vote was 23-11 along strict party lines: All in favor were Democrats, all opposed were Republicans.

Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, authored the bill. Equality California, the state's GLBT advocacy organization, worked closely with the five-member legislative GLBT caucus to achieve passage of the bill.

Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, one of the bill's co-authors and a caucus member, called AB 196 "a simple matter of civil rights. California law already protects against hate crimes based on gender stereotyping, and protects students and teachers from discrimination or harassment on this basis. ... We should not tolerate such arbitrary discrimination that can lead to the problems of unemployment and homelessness among those who are perceived as different."

The San Francisco Department of Public Health (news - web sites) reported 70 percent unemployment among transgender people in 1999, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

AB 196 allows employees to dress consistent with their gender identity as long as they meet reasonable workplace appearance standards. It is endorsed by more than 50 business, religious and civil rights organizations, from the California Labor Federation to the California Apartment Association. As expected, conservatives have criticized the measure.

If Davis signs the bill into law, California will join Minnesota, New Mexico and Rhode Island in explicitly prohibiting gender identity-based discrimination. Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and the District of Columbia have statutes that have been interpreted to protect transgender people in certain circumstances. No federal law protects GLBT individuals in the workplace, but activists and organizations including the Human Rights Campaign are developing one.

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[cajun-jack]

qualifications do not matter...remember the "lady" that sued Hooters cause she was butt ugly and fat and they wouldn't hire her?

you don't need to be qualifed for a job to "qualify" for a job.

[CaptIsaacDavis]

THE SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF CALIFORNIA IS BANKRUPT -- FINANCIALLY AND CULTURALLY.

[First Amendment]

Programs designed to protect one from narrow minded people most likely ain't goofy.

It is not narrow minded to consider homosexuals and "transgendered" people abnormal deviants. Indeed, it is using one's God-given common sense. And now, it's getting to the point where a person needs a backbone to acknowledge it. Calling people like me and many others here "narrow minded" is a small step from calling us "haters" and "homophobes" - and THAT is a small step from calling the Thought Police.

[First Amendment]

, but they should not be able to tell someone already employed what they can or cannot wear on or off the job, unless it is a condition of employment such as where a uniform is called for or where safety is a concern.

In your very stupid comments you also mentioned the "behind closed doors" fatuosity. You are a shill for the homo agenda and that must be why you registered on FR. I'm going to be watching you.

And as far as your comment above, why the hell shouldn't an employer be allowed to have rules about what employees can wear? I supposed you're in favor of the "Naked Guy" in UC Berkely, too.

[Blood of Tyrants]

What do you expect when the state is governed by people who owe their powere to the freaks and the perverts and the envirowackos and the Wiccans and every other sicko group out there?

[BurbankKarl]

I am not hiring any freaks. Sue me.

[conservativegirl]

For those of us who live in CA - send an email to the gov @ governor@governor.ca.gov & urge him to veto this idiocy. If enough of us do so, it may help.

[apackof2]

What if your religious beliefs won't allow you to endorse this behavior by hiring them at your private business?

Doesn't that violate YOUR civil rights???

[George from New England]

Of course you have to accept her/him. It was most likely your tax monies that was used to pay the medical /sic establishment to make him into her or her into him.

[Stopislamnow]

Right on.

We used to have institutions for these sad people where psychiatrists tried to help them.

Now the psychiatrists encourage it.

Something has to happen soon, we cannot continue down this path as a nation.

[INSENSITIVE GUY]

Your either born male or female,there's no such thing as a neuter gender.Neuter is nothingness!

[ppaul]

ping.

[DoughtyOne]

No really, unless calling a spade a spade is a problem for you. Did I hit on one of your pet projects there?

[DoughtyOne]

That 9th Circuit Court decision stood because Governor Davis deep sixed it. He sent it to arbitration rather than submit it to the Supreme Court on appeal. It was his duty to see the will of the people was not subverted, but he's never been concerned with the will of the people.

[DoughtyOne]

About all I can wonder at this point, is what's next. Our state Legislature has befriended every deviancy to come along. This hasn't escaped NAMBLA I'm sure.

[Constitutional Patriot]

So...red blooded Americans must declare war on the America-hating left. Our defeating the left is required if America is going to survive. Fix bayonettes!!!

[PFKEY]

No not really. I was just making a point that many of the things we conservatives today think and find acceptable were the very same things that caused our parent's concern.

I used the example of how foul language is now almost entirely aceeptable in our society. Where just a few short years ago it was not so.

What do we think when we see the old clips of Elvis gyrating around? I don't know about you but I find the outrage of the time to be silly. But was it?

And so it goes...

[Dante3]

What about people such as Lizard Man and stalking Cat? Would there be next a law regarding trans-species?

[DoughtyOne]

My language goes over the top at times. There are some issues that are so disgusting and repugnant, that normal language doesn't begin to express the outrage it warrants. Should I use that language on the forum? No. Should our state government pass policies so insane that I should feel compelled to respond with language like that? No.

Once transgender status is protected, public schools can't descriminate against them when hiring. What this means is that our K-12 students WILL soon be exposed to something that even adults have cringed at for all of eternity.

The question, "How much lower can our civilization go without imploding?", is a serious one. Deviancy is now the law of the land. We're in a death-spiral as a nation.

With so much promise, we have now devolved to this.