Scenes from the Gallery of the NYS Assembly during the GENDA vote

We were in the Gallery yesterday afternoon to watch the debate and vote on the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) and took a few pictures. Several of New York’s leading transgender activists, who have worked hard to pass GENDA, were also there as was Housing Works, who co-facilitates the GENDA Coalition with us.

Melissa Sklarz confers with Bali White.



Rev. Duane Motley (green suit looking at me while I take this picture), who is the Christian right’s voice in Albany, takes a seat among all of us with three of his colleagues. Not surprisingly, Motley’s organization’s is opposed to our entire legislative agenda. We do seem to always meet this way in the Assembly Gallery. We will be working hard to stage several more re-unions in the near future in the Senate Gallery.

GENDA comes up on the boards for the debate.

Listening to some of the more inscrutable things that can sometimes be said during floor debate.

Melissa Sklarz and Moonhawk River Stone look out over the Assembly chamber moments after GENDA passes by a vote of 102-33.

Celebrating the passage of GENDA in the Gallery are: the Pride Agenda’s Jacob Lieberman, Housing Works’ Bali White, Melissa Sklarz from Manhattan, Moonhawk River Stone from the Capital Region and JoAnn Prinzivalli from Westchester County.

Assembly passes GENDA: vote tally

In a bipartisan vote of 108-34, the New York State Assembly just voted to end discrimination against transgender people in housing, employment, credit and other areas of everyday life. The legislation adds "gender expression and identity" to the state's Human Rights Laws. This is a big victory for the thousands of transgender New Yorkers who for years have lived in fear of being fired from their jobs or kicked out of their homes simply for who they are.

The bill has strong support from Governor Paterson, so now it's all up to the New York State Senate.

Below is an official tally of who voted for/against GENDA in the Assembly today (click here if you don't know your Assemblymember).

(italics denote Republicans)

Abbate: No
Alessi: Yes
Alfano: Yes
Amedore: No
Arroyo: Yes
Aubry: Yes
Bacalles: No
Ball: No
Barclay: No
Barra: Yes
Benedetto: Yes
Benjamin: No
Bing: Yes
Boyland: Yes
Boyle: Yes
Bradley: Yes
Brennan: Yes
Brodsky: Yes
Brook-Krasny: Yes
Burling: No
Butler: No
Cahill: Yes
Calhoun: No
Camara: No
Canestrari: Yes
Carrozza: Yes
Christiansen: Yes
Clark: Yes
Cole: No
Colton: Yes
Conte: Yes
Cook: Yes
Crouch: Yes
Cusick: No
Cymbrowitz: Yes
DelMonte: Yes
Destito: Yes
Diaz, L.: Yes
Diaz, R.: Yes
Dinowitz: Yes
Duprey: Yes
Eddington: Yes
Englebright: Yes
Errigo: No
Espaillat: Yes
Farrell: Yes
Fields: Yes
Finch: No
Fitzpatrick: No
Gabryszak: Yes
Galef: Yes
Gantt: No
Gianaris: Yes
Giglio: No
Glick: Yes
Gordon, T: Yes
Gottfried: Yes
Greene: Yes
Gunther: Yes
Hawley: No
Hayes: No
Heastie: Yes
Hevesi: Yes
Hikind: No
Hooper: Yes
Hoyt: Yes
Hyer-Spencer: Yes
Jacobs: Yes
Jaffee: Yes
Jeffries: Yes
John: Yes
Kavanagh: Yes
Kellner: Yes
Kirwan: No
Kolb: Abs
Koon: Yes
Lafayette: Yes
Lancman: Yes
Latimer: Yes
Lavine: Yes
Lentol: Yes
Lifton: Abs
Lopez, P: No
Lopez, V: Abs
Lupardo: Yes
Magee: Yes
Magnarelli: Yes
Maisel: Yes
Markey: Yes
Mayersohn: Yes
McDonald: Yes
McDonough: Yes
McEneny: Yes
McKevitt: Yes
Miller: Yes
Millman: Yes
Molinaro: No
Morelle: Yes
Nolan: Abs
Oaks: No
O'Donnell: Yes
O'Mara: No
Ortiz: Yes
Parment: Yes
Paulin: Yes
Peoples: Yes
Peralta: Yes
Perry: Yes
Pheffer: Yes
Powell: Yes
Pretlow: Yes
Quinn: No
Rabbitt: No
Raia: No
Ramos: Yes
Reilich: No
Reilly: Yes
Rivera, J: Yes
Rivera, N: Yes
Rivera, P: Yes
Robinson: Abs
Rosenthal: Yes
Saladino: No
Sayward: Yes
Scarborough: Abs
Schimel: Yes
Schimminger: No
Schroeder: Yes
Scozzafava: Yes
Seminerio: Yes
Silver: Yes
Spano: Yes
Stirpe: Yes
Sweeney: Yes
Tedisco: No
Thiele: Yes
Titone: Yes
Titus: Yes
Tobacco: No
Towns: Yes
Townsend: No
Walker: Yes
Weinstein: Yes
Weisenberg: Yes
Weprin: Yes
Wright: Yes
Young: Yes
Zebrowski: Yes

GENDA passes Assembly Codes Committee

The Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) has just passed the Assembly Codes Committee by a bipartisan vote of 16-2. The bill had already passed in the Government Operations Committee on April 30 and now goes to the Assembly Rules Committee, which is chaired by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

Thirteen Democrats and three Republicans voted for moving GENDA, while only two Republicans voted against. Democrat Robin Schimminger was the only Assemblymember absent for the vote.

GENDA has 75 co-sponsors in the Assembly and 101 Assemblymembers are on record in support of the bill, according to our Legislative Scorecard.

Below is the Codes Committee vote count.

Voting for:

Joe Lentol (D) (Chair)
Philip Boyle (R)
James Brennan (D)
Vivian Cook (D)
Steven Cymbrowitz (D)
Tom Kirwan (R)
Charles Lavine (D)
Daniel O'Donnell (D)
Nick Perry (D)
J. Gary Pretlow (D)
Dede Scozzafava (R)
Michele Titus (D)
Helene Weinstein (D)
Mark Weprin (D)
Keith L.T. Wright (D)
Kenneth Zebrowski (D)

Voting against:

George Amedore (R)
David R. Townsend (R)

E&J Day Gets GENDA Moving

The Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA), which would outlaw discrimination against transgender people in New York, has just passed the Assembly’s Government Operations Committee. Currently it is legal in New York to be fired from your job, kicked out of your house or be denied service in a restaurant just for being transgender. GENDA would put an end to this kind of discrimination.

The Committee vote comes the day after 1300-plus LGBT and straight New Yorkers were in Albany lobbying for key LGBT bills, including GENDA. The bill currently has 74 co-sponsors and, according to the Pride Agenda scorecard, 94 Assemblymembers would vote for the bill if brought to the floor. That’s way more than the 76 votes required to pass. Additionally, in a poll that the Pride Agenda commissioned in Feb. of this year, 78 percent of New York voters support passing this bill.

The vote was 9-2, with one absence (Marcus Molinaro), and went right down party line (Dems voting for, Republicans voting against):

Voting for GENDA:

RoAnn Destito (chair)
Michael Benedetto
Patricia Eddington
Sandy Galef
Rory Lancman
George Latimer
Margaret Markey
Crystal Peoples
Bob Rielly

Voting against GENDA:

Jack Quinn
Joe Saladino


Next up for GENDA: the Codes Committee

Governor Paterson speaks out on marriage equality, safe schools and transgender protections

Last night several of us from the Pride Agenda attended the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s New York Leadership Awards dinner in New York City where Governor David Paterson was honored for his longstanding work on behalf of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights.

The Pride Agenda’s Executive Director Alan Van Capelle was to have introduced the Governor to the crowd, but due to ongoing budget negotiations in Albany the Governor was unable to attend. Instead Alan introduced top Paterson aide Sean Maloney who accepted the award on behalf of the Governor. After brief remarks, Maloney let the Governor do the rest of the talking through his video message, which as you will see is both humorous and heartfelt.

Not only did Governor Paterson renew his vow “to push on until we bring full marriage equality to New York state,” he also promised to fight for an end to bullying in schools due to bias and discrimination protections for transgender New Yorkers -- all issues well over 1000 New Yorkers will be traveling to Albany on April 29 to talk about with their legislators as part of our annual Equality & Justice Day.

120,000 more New Yorkers for GENDA

Candace Lider, Troy Area Labor Council Secretary, speaks in support of GENDA at the CDALF annual convention

Last weekend at the Capitol District Area Labor Federation’s annual convention, delegates voted resoundingly to pass a resolution in support of the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA).

GENDA would add gender identity and expression to the list of protected classes in the state’s civil rights law, and would therefore make it illegal to fire someone from their job, kick them out of their home or deny them service in a restaurant (among other things) simply because they are transgender.

The Capitol District Area Labor Federation (CDALF) encompasses five counties in the Albany area and represents 120,000 people working in blue collar and white collar professions, including teachers, civil service employees, bricklayers, firefighters, nurses and plumbers, just to name a few.

Union support for this bill is significant—during the build-up to the Assembly vote on marriage equality last year, unions across New York State representing more than 1 million people passed resolutions detailing their support for the bill. When massive labor federations and big unions like 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East or UNITE HERE actively support our issues, Albany takes notice.

CDALF’s 120,000 members brings the total organized labor support for GENDA to 440,000 working New Yorkers. Stronger together, indeed!

Poll: New Yorkers overwhelmingly support GENDA

We released a poll today (conducted by Global Strategy Group) that finds that 78 percent of registered New York voters support passing a bill that protects transgender people from discrimination in employment, housing, education and other areas of everyday life.

This is important for several reasons. First, in the five years that the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) has been around, legislators have never brought it to a floor vote in either chamber of the New York State Legislature. The most plausible reason for this is that lawmakers believe the issue to be controversial among their constituents—that, by acting to end discrimination against a marginalized group of people, they would somehow come under fire from the people who elect them to office.

This poll overwhelmingly dismisses that notion in a couple of ways. The first is the most direct: the poll states that for 88 percent of New York voters it either makes no difference in their vote or makes it more likely that they would vote for a state senator or assemblymember who voted to pass GENDA. Only nine percent said that they would actually be less likely to vote for their assemblymember/senator if that person voted to pass GENDA.

To further reinforce this, the poll found that 71 percent believed that there was already a law in place that outlawed this type of discrimination. This is a non-issue for voters and the state legislature should seriously take note of this.

Second, the political establishment in Albany often believes that a bill like GENDA has a natural base of support among voters of one party - the Democrats - more than the other - the Republicans. This means GENDA would be a one-house bill because, while Democrats may support it, the Republican-controlled Senate would not act on a bill that wouldn’t intuitively be popular with its core constituency.

This poll turns that assumption on its head. While the findings confirm that the vast majority of Democrats do support the passage of GENDA (77 percent), it also found that a clear majority of New York Republicans also favor outlawing discrimination against trans people (67 percent), further reinforcing the notion that New York Republicans are more libertarian than socially conservative and often have a “live and let live” mindset towards their fellow citizens. There is no reason, therefore, that GENDA should not be taken up and passed in both houses during this legislative session. We already know that Gov. Spitzer would sign the bill into law if it reaches his desk.

And finally, party leadership from both sides of the aisle may think that acting on this bill during an election year might do damage to some of their marginal members in parts of the state that are traditionally more conservative than New York City. Again, the findings of this poll prove that notion to be false. Support in New York City certainly is strong (80 percent), but the strongest support came from the NYC suburbs, where 82 percent of likely voters believe that discrimination based on gender expression and identity should be outlawed. Additionally—and perhaps most significantly—74 percent of upstate voters support passing GENDA.

The time for delay is over. New York lags behind the 13 states that have already passed a bill like GENDA--states like New Jersey, Iowa, Illinois and Colorado--and New York is also behind the curve when compared to the dozens of Fortune 500 firms that have enacted policies that forbid trans discrimination—including New York-based companies like Kodak in Western New York, PepsiCo in the Hudson Valley, TimeWarner and American Express downstate and Corning in the Southern Tier.

It’s time to do what the vast majority of New Yorkers believe is the right thing to do: pass GENDA in 2008.

Read the Pride Agenda press release here

See where members of the New York State Legislature stand on GENDA here

See a PDF of the poll here

New York State Democrats pass resolution calling for passage of GENDA

In light of the great news that the New York State Democratic Committee has stated its support for the passage of the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA), we asked Melissa Sklarz to tell us in her own words why GENDA is important and what needs to happen next. Melissa was at the New York Democrats’ semi-annual meeting today in Garden City when they passed the resolution in support of GENDA. She’s the Director of New York Trans Rights Organization (NYTRO).

Today, on October 1, 2007, the New York State Democratic Party passed a resolution supporting the quest for transgender and gender variant civil rights and the Gender Expression Non Discrimination Act (GENDA) in an effort to bring New York State in line with what other states have done throughout the US.

In 2002, an attempt was made to amend the Sexual Orientation Non Discrimination Act (SONDA) to include language added to protect “gender identity and expression”, with a legal definition to explain this phrase. However, the amendment was defeated in the New York State Senate, and so a go-alone bill called GENDA was created.

In 2002, a similar bill was passed in New York City that created legal protection for trans people in areas like employment, housing, and public accommodation. In the subsequent years, guidelines were created by the trans community in an effort to add depth to this new idea. Areas included protection in schools, shelters, and public restrooms.

But outside of New York City, Albany, Ithaca, Suffolk Country and a few other areas, trans people in New York can still be fired from their jobs, arrested for using public restrooms, and denied apartment leases.

Many of us have horror stories about changing gender. Many of us have lost jobs, lost the love of our families, or wandered lost in a maze of inadequate or inappropriate health care. Many of us have stories of substance abuse that make a difficult situation almost impossible. Many of our young people turn to street sex or sex work to survive. And I know from my own experience, there are certainly no prizes for a young male to decide to live life as a female and cope with the lack of compassion from an uncaring culture.

We do not think GENDA will necessarily change the culture overnight, but it is a beginning. With state-wide legal protection, the culture of transgender people and the non trans majority will change. Options will grow, behavior will modify, and some conflict will be resolved. Like all struggles, they will not happen immediately. One only needs to view the issue of marriage equality over the last 10 years to see how public dialog can change an idea and culture.

As a trans woman in New York, I am grateful for the effort of the New York State Democratic Party and look forward to the Legislature passing the GENDA Bill in 2008. To make this happen, it is imperative that all progressive and caring people join together to help educate New Yorkers and our legislators that we are your sons and daughters and desire a level playing field in which to survive.

Melissa Sklarz
Director of NYTRO

See the full version of the resolution here.

Pride Agenda response to decision by House Leadership to strip ENDA of trans protections

We just put out this statement on ENDA and wanted you to know about it:

“Promise on ENDA was not kept,” says Pride Agenda’s Van Capelle

Statement by Empire State Pride Agenda Executive Director Alan Van Capelle
September 28, 2007

“We do not agree with the decision of the House Leadership to vote on a non-inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA).

Congressman Barney Frank should have tried harder. It appears taking out protections based upon gender identity in ENDA was his call. He made the wrong call. It does not reflect what the LGBT community wants. Speaker Pelosi promised LGBT Americans that the House would pass a trans-inclusive ENDA. The promise on ENDA was not kept; we are upset and disappointed.

Our community was ready to do the education that was required with the House of Representatives to get it to a place where it could be comfortable passing a bill that protects all of our community, even if it meant a delay in the vote. We were not given that opportunity when these last minute concerns came up.

The Pride Agenda is committed here in New York State to passing the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act, known as GENDA (A.6584/Gottfried, S.3753/Duane), which will provide not only workplace protections based upon gender identity and expression, but also protections from discrimination in housing, public accommodation, credit and other areas of everyday life.

We will be looking to our Legislature to take GENDA up and pass it in 2008. Transgender New Yorkers should not have to wait one more day for the protections they so desperately need.”

HRC speaks on ENDA - it appears we will have two bills

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has just released a statement saying that there will apparently be two bills - one providing workplace protections based upon sexual orientation and another based upon gender identity.

It goes without saying, but we'll say it anyway -- there will be plenty of discussion within the LGBT community about this decision.

The Pride Agenda is committed here in New York State to passing the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act, known as GENDA (A.6584/Gottfried, S.3753/Duane), which will provide not only workplace protections based upon gender identity and expression, but also protections from discrimination in housing, public accommodation, credit and other areas of everyday life.

While HRC's statement appears to be on their blog, they're not allowing for responses. But they are asking everyone interested to email them at hrc@hrc.org. We encourage you to take them up on it.

DC37 supports marriage equality, GENDA

DC37, New York's largest municipal employee union, last week passed resolutions that express the organization's support for the marriage equality bill and the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA).

This adds about 120,000 more members to the overall number of New Yorkers represented by unions in support of marriage equality, making the total somewhere close to 970,000. (read the marriage resolution here)

Unions supporting GENDA (so far) represent approx. 320,00 New Yorkers.

Lagging behind

Today New Hampshire Governor John Lynch signed that state's civil unions bill into law, and last Tuesday (May 22) Vermont Governor Jim Douglas signed into law a bill banning discrimination based on gender expression or identity. Because of this, we thought we'd put out an update on which states 1) currently offer comprehensive protections for same-sex couples or/and 2) have gender expression non-discrimination legislation:

States offering comprehensive protections for same-sex couples:

1992

District of Columbia: domestic partnerships (limited family recognition laws)

1997

Hawaii: reciprocal beneficiaries (limited family recognition laws)

2000

Vermont: civil unions (broad family recognition laws)

2004

Maine: domestic partnerships (limited family recognition laws)
Massachusetts: marriage (full marriage equality)

2005

California : domestic partnerships (broad family recognition laws)
Connecticut: civil unions (broad family recognition laws)

2007

New Hampshire: civil unions (broad family recognition laws)
New Jersey: civil unions (broad family recognition laws)
Oregon: civil unions (broad family recognition laws)
Washington: domestic partnerships (limited family recognition laws)


States where discrimination based on gender expression/identity is illegal:

1993

Minnesota

2001

Rhode Island

2003

California
New Mexico

2005

District of Columbia
Hawaii
Illinois
Maine

2006

New Jersey
Washington

2007

Colorado
Iowa
Oregon
Vermont


Number of times New York appears on this list: 0

GENDA passes Gov. Ops. Committee

The Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) passed the NYS Assembly's Government Operations Committee today. The bill, if eventually signed into law, would make it illegal to fire someone from their job or deny housing or credit (or other public accommodation) to someone because of how they express their gender.

Today's vote is a major step forward for GENDA, as the bill has not been brought to a committee vote since 2003. The bill had gained initial momentum as an amendment to the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act (SONDA), which passed in 2002. GENDA, however, stalled in committee in 2003 and hadn't moved again until today.

The bill now must pass the Codes Committee in order to then go to Speaker Silver and the Rules Committee, who can put it to a floor vote. Lot's of work still to be done, but today's vote is very encouraging.

Here's how today's vote went down:

Chair: RoAnn Destito (D-Oneida) - YES

Michael Benedetto (D-Bronx) - YES
Patricia Eddington (D-Suffolk) - YES
Sandy Galef (D-Westchester) - YES
Rory Lancman (D-Queens) - YES
George Latimer (D-Westchester) - YES
Margaret Markey (D-Queens) - YES
Marcus Molinaro (R-Dutchess/Columbia) - NO
Crystal Peoples (D-Buffalo) - YES
Bob Reilly (D-Albany/Saratoga) - YES
Joseph Saladino (R-Nassau) - NO

A look at what's up in the NY State legislature

The Dignity for All Students Act easily passed (again) in the Assembly earlier this week (::crickets::crickets::). Unfortunately, no one really noticed. Maybe it's because this is the sixth year in a row that it has passed in the Assembly...and it's going to take a lot of work to move it in the State Senate.

The Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) is scheduled to be voted on in the Assembly's Government Operations Committee next Tuesday, April 24. GENDA is expected to pass in the committee, which would bring the bill to Speaker Silver, who can put it to a floor vote (a first for GENDA). The Pride Agenda's legislative scorecard shows more than a majority (84 to be exact) of Assemblymembers support the bill.

No news at the moment on the introduction of the marriage bill, but we think it's coming soon. As always, marriage is what's getting much of the buzz lately, so next week we'll be posting a timeline of how marriage has moved from 35 supporters in the Assembly last fall to 60 current supporters.

We'll leave the rest of this post to your comments--so until Monday, we leave you with a weekend open thread.

The need to act on GENDA

This week's Legislative Gazette features an articulate argument from Joann Prinzivalli, Director of the New York Transgender Rights Organization (NYTRO) on why it's so important to pass the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA).

The letter is written specifically in response to comments made by Dennis Proust, a spokesperson from the Catholic Conference; and the marginally-known Rev. Duane Motley from an organization ironically called "New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms."

In a March 26 Legislative Gazette article, Mr. Proust claims that GENDA would "force schools to hire teachers or landlords to provide housing to people who cross-dress." It doesn't take much dot-connecting to know that this is a twisted exaggeration of the truth. The bill would, in fact, make it illegal to fire a teacher or deny housing to someone just because of how they express their masculinity or femininity. And furthermore, using the term "cross dress" trivializes the lives and identities of these people.

This issue is not so new. In fact, nine other states have already made it illegal to discriminate based on gender expression/identity. And to answer Mr. Proust's assertions, there have been no coups staged in New Jersey schools by transgender teachers, nor has there been a disruption in the California real estate market because of transgender people looking for a place to live. The apocalyptic arguments are getting old.

Ms. Prinzivalli refutes similarly weak arguments presented by Mr. Proust and Rev. Motley in her letter below:

To the editor:

The views of human rights opponents expressed in the article about the reintroduction of the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (“Bill would ban discrimination of transgender New Yorkers,” March 26, 2007, page 5) shows exactly how necessary it is for this bill to become law.

Dennis Proust of the New York State Catholic Conference ignores the Catholic Catechism in his opposition. Catechism Section 2358 provides: “They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.” This is the Church’s official position on gays and lesbians. It should be understood as inclusive of the Church’s official position on transsexuals as expressed in a sub secretum document issued by the Vatican in 2000.

Duane Motley of the Orwellianly-named “New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedom” thinks of transgender as immoral, reflecting his ignorance about sexual morality as well as constitutional freedom. Being transgendered has nothing at all to do with sexual activity, which may involve individual moral decisions, but instead relates to a person’s innate identity. It is as if Motley thinks that it is immoral for anyone to be a man or a woman.

Motley’s ignorance also shows in his mischaracterization of the teacher in Batavia, New York who is receiving the appropriate medical treatment for Harry Benjamin Syndrome, a medical condition and not a moral choice, and has absolutely no bearing on her performance in the classroom.

Both opponents make the offensive allegation that trans people are “confusing to children” as if we are monsters or subhuman creatures from whom children should be protected. Clearly the opponents do not give children any credit for intelligence. Indeed, that small minority of children who themselves are transgendered are harmed by those in society who seek to teach children that everyone is like Ozzie and Harriet. As a result, the child often feels confused, alone and isolated, as if he or she is the only person in the world who is like this.

Their erroneous views underscore the need we have for the protections afforded by this legislation, as well as the Dignity for All Students Act and Dignity for All Youth Act.

Joann Prinzivalli
Director, New York Transgender Rights Organization
White Plains

"Bill Would Ban Discrimination of Transgender New Yorkers" (Legislative Gazette: March 26, 2007)
Find more information on transgender issues in New York here.
Find more information on transgender issues nationally here.
Read the text of GENDA in the State Senate bill here.
Read the text of GENDA in the State Assembly bill here.