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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[Credo]

Davis is political road kill. The legislators who conspired to hold up the budget and were caught AND sponsored this gem of legislation need to face the same music Gray Out is now facing.

[Lijahsbubbe]

new unoffensive PC words to use to describe these freaks of nature

Now, now, who are you to judge? Are you transgender phobic? After all, they're not bothering you. Some people are different and we need to accept all of our differences, and we must teach our children to accept them too. Remember, civil rights for trans genders are the same as civil rights for people that are Black or Hispanic or Asian, right?

There. I think I pretty much have their mantra down.

The last one gets me the most. How dare they compare themselves to a beautiful innocent child that God created.

[VOA]

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

As a tranplanted Okie, I'd like to tell the rest of the country that it may actaully
be a GOOD thing that the California Legislature (controlled by Democratic-Socialists)
are expending their brain-power on this topic.

Because when they aren't engaged in social engineering like this, they make merry
figuring out ways to drive the state economy/budget further into the red
and how to increase their confiscatory taxes on their constituents.

I know this sounds surreal...but then, that's California.

[VOA]

Equality California, the state's GLBT advocacy organization

Equality MY @$$...these people (and I use that term advisedly) want nothing less
than SUPERIOR Rights that supercede the rights of anyone who isn't in their "oppressed category".

[VOA]

Davis is political road kill. The legislators who conspired to hold up the
budget and were caught AND sponsored this gem of legislation need to face
the same music Gray Out is now facing.

IF (and I'm not 100% convinced the California voters will throw off their chains)
Gray (and later the Democratic-Socialist legislators) are made to pay, it will
be because they believed their own press releases...and didn't read the occassional
"tea leaves" that appear even in liberal rags like The Los Angeles Times.

E.G., the series of articles about the travails of the transgendered that appeared in
The Los Angeles Times a few years ago.
I'm sure the author penned the articles as pro-transgendered propaganda...
but a bit of truth slipped in.
The series included a profile on one couple that were having a child...the "mother"
IIRC, was just about ready to "transition" to male-ness, but had gotten pregnant.
And appeared with a fairly masculine appearance and obviously pregnant at
a birthing class at the local hospital...and was shocked, shocked, I tell you,
that some of the couples (that would be men with female mothers-to-be) were
freaked out at her/his presence.

When the writer mentioned that this happened at a hospital in THE BAY AREA,
I smiled to myself and said "these folks are like any strain of arrogant
persons...they just don't grasp how really dislike they are, even if people
are polite to them".

[Lijahsbubbe]

Senator Norm Coleman (R) is leading the way on this front. He took Susan Kimberly, formerly known as Robert Sylvester, to Washington with him to be his state legislative director.

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/local/5738824.htm

[LinuxRocks]

LOL. You are so right. Navy sailors that get drunk in the French Quarter might wind up with an unexpected surprise. Some of the Lolas I've seen in the French Quarter are really difficult to distinguish from real women.

[rocky88]

Well, I've never lived in Kali but my uncle does. He has lived there for probably 30 years and is now considering moving back to the East Coast (I don't think he'd survive the East Coast the way it is now because he's so "Kalifornia" in his laid-backness..but that's another topic for another day!) He is running his own biz in San Jose and just can't take one more state regulation. This decision will surely send him over the edge today. I think I'll call him though I hate to be the bearer of bad news.

[republicofdavis]

I wrote a letter to my local paper a couple of months ago that mentioned this, among other silly things the Rats were doing at the time. I was surprised to see a response letter written by three local Rat committee members. Before addressing my other issues, they took a quick swipe at this one by saying: "As a party, we don't care who you hold hands with."

As if that's all it is.

[rocky88]

Yeah, where's the "Big One" when you really need it? I wonder if the idea of Kali falling off into the ocean after the Big One is appealing NOW????

[nwrep]

Rocky88, please keep us posted about your uncle's response. Good luck to him!!

[spodefly]

What, you have some kind of problem regarding "Chicks with Sticks"?

[freekitty]

Why must companies hire transgenders? Just because they are transgenders doesn't mean they are the best qualified.

Too crazy. And we wonder why the world is crashing down? It's idiot laws like this. They are ruining competition in the name of equality(slavery); and if anyone has trouble seeing that; they are in La La Land.

[Regulator]

The freak show continues.

In two months, we dump the enabler.

[Binyamin]

The Peoples Republik of Kalifornicate, a once-wonderful place to live and work, is now a turd in a toiletbowl, spinning around and refusing to get flushed.

Excellent. Spot-on.

[LiteKeeper]

INTREP - giving the mental instability that often accompanies transgenderism, perhaps companies could disqualify applicants on that basis.

[marsh2]

There was actually a transgender young man in my son's high school a few years back. (This is a high school in the mountain backwoods where the graduating class in 75 kids or less.) He wore dresses. The girls and their parents did not want him using their bathroom. The boys were freaked that he was using theirs. He finaly ended up using the bathroom in the teachers lounge.

I guess the California solution to this would be the UNISEX bathroom, such as they had in Allie McBeale. I don't know if I am ready for that.....

[Jeff Chandler]

Your uncle might want to consider moving to Arizona. We're more laid-back than the Kalis, and the business climate is great. If he doesn't care for hot summers, he could choose to live in Prescott or Flagstaff, or do what I do: vacation in California!

[gcruse]

Why must companies hire transgenders?

Who said that must?  Hint: Don't believe
altered headlines.

[elbucko]

................It's an ugliness that keeps on giving.

Your entire post is funny and probably nearer to the truth than fiction.