We’ve come a good way towards establishing legal protections
for transgender people in New England in the past several years. In 2011, both
Connecticut and Massachusetts added gender identity to their
anti-discrimination laws, joining Rhode Island (2001), Maine (2005) and Vermont
(2007) in providing protections in employment, housing and credit, and, in
all but Massachusetts, public accommodations (like restaurants, bars,
parks, stores, hospitals, shelters, etc.).
While the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination(MCAD), where discrimination complaints are filed, may provide public
accommodations protections for transgender people using “sex” as the protected
characteristic, securing explicit
protections for transgender people in public settings is crucial. For
instance, GLAD recently worked with a young woman who was prohibited from
sleeping in the women’s dormitory at a homeless shelter on the North Shore
because she is transgender. Instead, she was offered a mat and sleeping space
on the floor of the shelter’s donations room and in a common area outside of
the women’s bathroom and next to the men’s dormitory, putting her safety at
risk.
Fortunately, Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition and the
Massachusetts Transgender Equal Rights Coalition (consisting of GLAD and many
other organizations), is now working hard to add gender identity as a
“protected characteristic” to the Commonwealth’s public accommodations
anti-discrimination law.
The Coalition
is holding a Community Action Day at the Massachusetts State House on Thursday, January 17th
at 11am in the Suite 167 conference room. All transgender people and allies are
encouraged to attend and meet with your legislators to ask for co-sponsorship
for the Trans Equal Access Bill.
For more information about how anti-discrimination laws
work, see last week’s blog: Know Your Rights: Protections Against Employment Discrimination.
On the federal level, in a
landmark April 2012 ruling the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC),
the agency that handles employment discrimination complaints, made it clear
that they view discrimination against transgender workers as a form of sex
discrimination, and will therefore accept discrimination complaints from
transgender employees.
All six
New England states also offer some protections for transgender students. The anti-discrimination agency in
Connecticut, The Connecticut Human Rights and Opportunities Commission (CHRO),
has created a set of guidelines for schools to follow for their transgender
students. GLAD is working
to try to get similar guidelines established in the other New England states.
Four of
the New England states have gender identity protections in their hate crimes
laws—Vermont (2001), Connecticut (2004), Massachusetts (2011) and Rhode Island
(2012), acknowledging the increased vulnerability of transgender people to
bias-motivated attacks and providing for more severe sentences for
perpetrators.
Slow but
steady progress is also being made around requirements to change one’s gender
on identity documents, moving away from requiring surgery to simply requiring
proof that the person is committed to living in her or his designated
gender. Proof of surgery is no longer
required to change gender on U.S. passports; drivers’ licenses in Connecticut,
Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont; or birth certificates in
Vermont.
As
Drew Carson, profiled in our book We Are New Hampshire and fortunate enough to meet New Hampshire’s stricter
requirements, points out, having consistent documents “makes a huge difference
in navigating the world as myself—it gives me the legal back-up that many
transgender people do not have.”
But Mason Dunn, who also shares his story in We Are New Hampshire, cannot
meet the overly strict requirements to legally change the gender marker on his
driver’s license, which forces him to come out as transgender every time he
must show identification, potentially exposing him to discrimination and even
violence.
Clearly, there is more work to do. In addition to stricter requirements for
changing gender on identity documents, New Hampshire has yet to provide any
explicit protections for transgender people at all. Transgender people across
New England and nationwide lack consistent access to insurance coverage for
needed medical care, and far too often face discrimination in family court. GLAD continues to work on litigation, legislation and legal
and public education in all these areas and more to ensure equality and
fairness for transgender people throughout our region and the country.
For more
information about transgender rights in New England, read GLAD’s publication: TransgenderLegal Issues: New England, and see our list of resources.
If you
have questions or want additional information on this topic, contact GLAD’s
Legal InfoLine at 800-455-GLAD (4523) or www.glad.org/contact-infoline.
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