New York City

Transgender bill shot down in NY State Senate amid partisan rancor

Squadron: ‘Not one Republican Senator voted to support basic fairness for all.’

April 26, 2017 By Mary Frost Brooklyn Daily Eagle
A bill sponsored by state. Sen. Daniel Squadron giving transgender persons equal rights under state law failed to pass in a Senate committee on Monday despite having passed the Assembly ten times. Eagle file photo by Mary Frost
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A bill that would give transgender persons equal protections under the law was shot down — again — in a New York State Senate committee on Tuesday after a partisan clash over what the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Daniel Squadron, called President Donald Trump’s “campaign of divisiveness and fear.”

Following the vote, Squadron (D – Brooklyn waterfront and lower Manhattan) blasted Republicans who blocked the bill, saying in a statement, “Today, the Senate stood with Trumpian divisiveness, discrimination, and fear. As the Trump Administration rolls back basic protections for transgender Americans, the Senate Majority has an obligation to ensure all New Yorkers are protected. Today, not one Republican Senator voted to support basic fairness for all.”

During the discussion preceding the vote of the Investigations and Government Operations committee, Squadron told his fellow senators that Senate Bill S502, called GENDA, was very simple: “It ensures the basic fairness, the basic civil rights that the vast majority of New Yorkers take for granted for transgender New Yorkers.”

Nearly 20 states have similar laws that protect transgender individuals from discrimination, he said, as do a number of cities, including New York City. The New York State Assembly has passed a version of the bill ten times; the Senate has blocked it more than a dozen times. Squadron used a procedural device to force the Senate vote on Monday.

Sizable percentages of transgender people have reported discrimination and harassment while seeking employment or on the job, finding housing, obtaining medical care or using public accommodations. Squadron said protecting transgender people, who were not covered under earlier legislation protecting gay and lesbian New Yorkers, was an issue of “basic civil rights and fairness.”

“It’s about people’s lives and the right to do what most New Yorkers take for granted,” he said.

Legislation at the state level was especially important at a time when Trump has rolled back transgender protections “as part of his campaign of divisiveness and fear,” Squadron told the committee.

Sen. Andrew Lanza (R – Staten Island) immediately jumped on Squadron’s reference to Trump.

“Comments made about President Trump and his ‘divisiveness’ leave me to wonder if this is more political nonsense, or is it about substance?” he said. “If you asked me in the last eight years, I would have told you that President Obama was the most divisive president in my lifetime.”

“I believe that you can’t discriminate on the basis of any immutable quality,” Lanza said, adding that in his opinion, the “most rampant” new discrimination was political discrimination.

Lanza said that his daughter told him that students in colleges who were conservative, Republican or suspected of supporting Trump faced discrimination from the left.

“Every generation deals with these types of cruelties … The better approach is to not discriminate against anyone for any immutable quality” he said, before voting “no” on the bill.

Brad Hoylman (D – central Manhattan) said the bill was “so important” because transgender rights were expressly left out of the human rights bill passed years ago in New York.

Hoylman said a 16-year-old student named Sam took spring break off to come to Albany to talk to him about transgender rights.

“He knows there aren’t any protections against gender discrimination,” especially in some sections of the state, Hoylman said.

After the nays had it, Hoylman said in a statement, “It’s morally reprehensible that the state Senate considers transgender New Yorkers to be second class citizens.”

 

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