For some people the fight
for transgender rights boils down to one scary possibility — that bathrooms
will never be safe again.
In Maryland,
USA, a senate committee heard testimony about the proposed Gender Identity Anti-Discrimination
Act — which would prohibit discrimination against transgender Marylanders in
employment, housing and credit.
The state
senate could consider the bill as early as next Friday. At the testimony one
committee member complained of receiving robocalls against the bill in the
middle of the night.
The calls came
from notmyshower.com, a website run by Maryland Citizens for a
Responsible Government (MSRG). The group opposes the bill because it could lead
to protection for trans people in public accommodations, including bathrooms.
The fact that the bill doesn’t cover public accommodations is why many trans
activists oppose it.
MSRG calls the
bill an “outrageous legislation,” saying that it will ensure that women and girls will not
feel safe in bathrooms and that it may force “even religious schools to hire
transgender teachers; and then also allow cross-dressing but biological males
in your daughters school locker room.”
People are
really stupid.
In Canada we
are still struggling to get our own trans bill passed. 
Bill C-389 – which would
add gender identity and gender expression to the Canadian Human Rights Act and
the hate crimes provisions of the Criminal Code – passed through the Commons but
then died on the Senate floor.
Bill Siksay,
author of the bill, never found a sponsor in the Senate. It wasn’t because there
isn’t any support for it — in fact, most Liberal senators have said that they
supported the bill — it’s just that no one came forward to pick it up.
Elections are
looming, and once they are over the NDP and the Liberals will have to live up to
their promise of revisiting the bill in the next Parliament. Easier said than
done — advocates of the bill will still have to find a new champion.
Why you can trust Xtra
