Patrick backs bill to protect rights of transgendered

Antibias statutes would be amended

Waltham High School student student Synthia Kennedy came to the State House yesterday to support a bill that would help protect transgendered people from discrimination. (SUZANNE KREITER/GLOBE STAFF)

Governor Deval Patrick said yesterday he supports a bill protecting transgendered people from discrimination, legislation similar to laws already enacted in more than a dozen states.

"Massachusetts has a rich history of protecting the civil rights of all its citizens," Patrick said in a letter that was read to a legislative committee at a State House hearing. Yet "transgendered people continue to face serious discrimination in the workplace, in schools, and in public accommodations."

"The proposed legislation represents another step forward in achieving fair and equal treatment for all," he said.

The bill proposed by state Representative Carl Sciortino, a Somerville Democrat, would add the terms "gender identity and gender expression" to existing antidiscrimination and hate crime laws in Massachusetts. Transgendered people are people transitioning to a sex different than the one they had at birth. Some wear clothes of the other sex, while others have undergone hormone replacement therapy or sex-change surgery.

House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi was still reviewing the bill, spokesman David Guarino said. Senate President Therese Murray could not be reached for comment last night.

The bill has been backed by MassEquality, a nonprofit organization that coalesced in 2003 after a ruling by the state Supreme Judicial Court legalizing same-sex marriage. The group's leadership had intensely debated whether to broaden its mission and take on this issue and others.

"The position that strongly prevailed was that we should use our political clout up here on Beacon Hill, as well as in the field, . . . to advocate for equality across the board," MassEquality campaign director Marc Solomon said yesterday. "Today was an important first step in that."

More than 300 people attended the hearing on the bill, held by the Legislature's Joint Commitee on the Judiciary.

Jennifer Levi, a senior staff attorney for Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, said her organization routinely receives calls on its hot line from transgendered people experiencing discrimination. In one recent instance, she said, a woman working at a hardware store was fired shortly after it was disclosed that she was born a man.

The woman had little legal recourse, Levi said. "This law would clarify both who is protected . . . and who is subject to liability under the law," she said.

The Massachusetts Family Institute, a group opposed to same-sex marriages in Massachusetts, has called the bill radical and asked members to express their opposition at yesterday's hearing.

"Sex change operations and hormone treatments would be topics in sex education classes," the group wrote on its website. "Women and children would be put at risk since anyone, regardless of their biological sex, would be allowed access to sensitive areas such as single-sex bathrooms and locker rooms, as well as college dormitories. Nothing would prevent a male sexual predator from pretending that he is confused about his sex to gain access to a woman's bathroom or to join a female-only fitness club."

Kris Mineau, the organization's president, and others in the group could not be reached for comment.

Testimony on the bill as well as on other legislation before the Judiciary Committee was expected to continue into the night.

MassEquality's Solomon said that about 100 businesses across the state have already adopted bans on discrimination based on a person's gender identity, including Raytheon, Staples, and Bank of America. According to the Transgender Law & Policy Institute, based in Brooklyn, at least 18 higher education institutions in Massachusetts also have nondiscrimination policies.

"These suggestions are nothing more than scare tactics," Solomon said of the Massachusetts Family Institute comments. ". . . In practice, it just doesn't ever become an issue."

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