Did you know that in New York State it is legal to discriminate against transgendered people in the areas of housing, employment, and service? Many people don’t know that, which is both a blessing and a curse. Crimes against transgendered people that stem from their gender expression are also not counted as hate crimes here. Today, up in Albany, the State Senate Judiciary Committee rejected GENDA, the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act, which was designed to reverse all that. According to the Daily News (which has statements from both sides of the issue), the committee’s eleven Republicans voted against the bill, as did Democratic State Senator Ruben Diaz Sr. Thomas Duane, who is openly gay and a sponsor of the bill, says he regrets the tactic of bringing it through that committee. “I believe that we should have brought GENDA through Rules and brought it right to the floor so as to deny the right-wing fringe the ability to organize against GENDA with their lies and distortions,” he said, misplacing blame for the bill’s failure on tactics. Whatever strategy they took, it doesn’t change the fact that today eleven Republicans and one Democrat voted in favor of discrimination.
