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The MA Transgender Equal Rights Bill's hearing is TODAY!

The MA Transgender Equal Rights Bill's hearing is TODAY, at 1:00 p.m. in the Statehouse’s Gardner Auditorium. This is the public hearing before the Joint Committee on the Judiciary, which we need to vote the bill onwards to be voted on by the full legislature.

Everyone is welcome to attend, and allowed to sign up to testify. However, please be aware that:

• Attendance is much more needed for Transgender Equal Rights Lobby Day on Thursday June 23rd.
• We ask that you not bring signs, or engage with anyone who antagonizes you.
• Although the hearing should be much shorter and simpler than our previous ones (which were quite complex and several hours), we can't know how long it will be, the order or timing of speakers, etc.; there will be many other bills being heard today, though far fewer than our previous hearing days.
• To make our presentation as short and sweet as possible, we need to focus on our pre-planned themed panels of speakers.
• We will present all written testimony to the Committee (the letters we have been asking supporters for all year).
• Although the opposition will have to follow the rules, their speakers may (as during the last hearing) say upsetting things about transgender people, (non-trans) women, etc. This can be particularly painful for allies, and for those who weren't around back when such things were much more commonly said about GLB people, women, etc.

If you can't attend, here's how you can help (yesterday's MassEquality email): http://eepurl.com/d_mA5

I will be attending, and ICTE will be presenting a faith-themed panel of three clergy. And here is my written testimony:

June 8, 2011

Senator Cynthia S. Creem and Representative Eugene L. O’Flaherty

Joint Committee on the Judiciary

Rooms 405 and 136

State House

Boston, MA 02133

Dear Senator Creem and Representative O’Flaherty,

My name is Mycroft Holmes, and I am a transgender person and leader who lives and works in greater Boston, where I was born and have always lived. I love Boston and the rest of Massachusetts; this has always been my home and I hope it always will be.

I’m an interfaith transgender leader -- Chair of the Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality (ICTE), member of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition’s (MTPC) Steering Committee, and Emeritus Founding Chair of the Keshet’s Transgender Working Group (TWiG); I’m also a board member of Congregation Am Tikva (Brookline).

Founded in 2007, ICTE is a gathering of clergy, lay leaders and organizations that organizes the Massachusetts faith community in support of transgender social justice. As the interfaith partner of MTPC, ICTE focuses on faith-based work in support of the Transgender Equal Rights Bill (An Act Relative To Transgender Equal Rights, House Bill 502 / Senate Bill 764).

ICTE created and has submitted to you several updates of our Declaration Of Religious And Faith-Based Support for the bill – you received the latest version today, signed by hundreds of Massachusetts faith communities, clergy, lay leaders and other individuals. We organized Transgender Faith Action Week in April – more than 100 faith communities participated. The Week included a clergy press conference at the Statehouse where four faith leaders -- the Episcopal Church’s diocesan bishop, an Episcopal priest, a United Methodist pastor, and a rabbi – spoke in support of the bill. You will hear testimony from some of our other supportive clergy at today’s hearing, and at Transgender Equal Rights Lobby Day on the 23rd. The Massachusetts faith community wants to see this vital legislation passed this session.

Ever since I was a small child, I wanted to work in criminal justice. After public school in Brookline and Newton, I attended Northeastern University as a Criminal Justice major. The university was supportive, but classes, campus life and housing were very challenging. After my sophomore year, I tried to participate in the cooperative education program -- students are placed in jobs in their majors during their next three years, helping them pay tuition and living expenses and find employment in their field after graduation. The co-op department was supportive, but the employers wouldn’t even communicate with me, never mind interview me.

Because I was transgender, I was the only one of the 200 criminal justice students who wasn’t placed in a job. Without the financial support and experience of co-op, I had to leave Northeastern.

It was devastating to learn that I couldn’t pursue my dream because I was transgender, and that I had no legal recourse. The day my co-op advisor called to tell me I couldn’t be placed, and the details of the discrimination, I understood what it meant to be a member of a group of citizens that don’t have civil rights.

And I realized that my calling was to be a transgender leader. I’ve had a wonderful career, and have a bright future. But very little of my career work has been or is funded – I’ve always needed other full-time paid work, and I’ve continued to experience employment discrimination because of my gender identity and expression, leading to underemployment and unemployment.

My life partner is a Maryland native and lifelong resident who graduated from George Washington University (Washington, DC) last month. We want her to move to Boston this year so that we can find our first home and begin the next part of our life together. We have much to offer my great state. But we are both challenged by employment discrimination, and we fear discrimination in credit, housing, public accommodations and public education. We need the Transgender Equal Rights Bill to pass into law.

I urge you to vote the Transgender Equal Rights Bill out and on so that it can be voted on by the full legislature and pass during this legislative session. This bill would finally give transgender people our civil rights. This is so vital, so long overdue, and we are so close.

Thank you,

Mycroft Holmes

{address}

27th Annual Erev Pride WEEK Liberation Seder -- THIS FRIDAY!!

CAT is Boston's GLBT synagogue and my synagogue, and invented the Pride seder here in Boston 27 years ago. I've been on the Seder planning committee for several years. All are welcome!!! You don't have to be GLBTQ (et al) or Jewish.

~ 27th Annual ~

Erev Pride WEEK* Liberation Seder

*the night before Boston GLBT Pride WEEK

THIS FRIDAY, June 3rd, 2011

7:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.

Temple Sinai ~ Weintraub Auditorium

50 Sewall Ave. in Brookline, MA

(Green Line - C train - Coolidge Corner stop; #66 bus)

In the tradition of the Passover seder, we will retell the story of

the GLBT community’s liberation. This year, we celebrate marriage

equality as well as recognize the continuing violence and

discrimination committed against transgender and all people because of

their gender identity and expression. We will take this opportunity to

taste the bitterness of this oppression and to take action against it.

Participants will have the opportunity to take action to support the

Transgender Equal Rights Bill.

Kosher desserts will be served. Suggested donation is $5.

Facebook event page:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=201727453205027

617.232.5543 | info@AmTikva.org

Co-sponsored by Congregation Am Tikva, Keshet and the Interfaith Coalition for

Transgender Equality.

NEVADA - transgender anti-employment-discrimination law passed

Nevada is where my favorite aunt lives -- my Aunt June, who I was named after; my late mother's younger sister.

http://www.masstpc.org/?p=1374 :

Transgender Equal Rights Coalition Congratulates Nevada On New Law Protecting Transgender Workers From Discrimination

May 25th, 2011

14 states, District of Columbia, and 100s of businesses now prohibit discrimination against transgender people

BOSTON—Nevada Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval signed into law yesterday a measure banning employment discrimination based on gender identity and expression. Nevada is the 14th state to prohibit workplace discrimination against transgender people.

“We applaud Nevada for protecting all residents,” said Gunner Scott, executive director of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition. “Everyone should have the same opportunities to work, and this bill will help Nevada residents who are transgender support themselves and their families.”

“We know that employment discrimination against transgender people is costing the state of Massachusetts at least $5 million a year in lost income tax revenues and increased expenditures on public health insurance coverage,” said MassEquality Executive Director Kara Suffredini. “Nearly 100 businesses in Massachusetts, our Executive Branch, and 14 other states, including three of our New England neighbors and the District of Columbia, have put protections in place for transgender people. We applaud Nevada lawmakers for working in bipartisan fashion to take this important step and urge lawmakers on Beacon Hill to join the chorus calling for passage this bill.”

On Wednesday, June 8, the Joint Committee on the Judiciary will hold a hearing on the Transgender Equal Rights Bill at 1 pm in Gardner Auditorium at the State House. The bill would update Massachusetts’ nondiscrimination and hate crimes laws to include transgender people. The 13 other states, in addition to Nevada and the District of Columbia, that have enacted laws banning discrimination against transgender people are: California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont, Iowa, Oregon, and Washington.

###

About the Transgender Equal Rights Coalition:
The Transgender Equal Rights Coalition is working to pass “An Act Relative to Transgender Equal Rights.” (House Bill 502 and Senate Docket Number 536). This law would add gender identity and expression to existing Massachusetts civil rights laws, which currently prohibit discrimination on the basis of age, race, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation, sex, and marital status in the areas of employment, housing, public accommodations, education, and credit. The bill would also add offenses regarding gender identity or expression to the list of offenses that are subject to treatment as hate crimes. The bill defines gender identity and expression as “a gender-related identity, appearance, expression, or behavior of an individual, regardless of the individual’s assigned sex at birth.” This is consistent with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination’s past decisions, as well as Boston’s 2002 transgender anti-discrimination ordinance. Members of the coalition include MassNOW; ACLU of Massachusetts; Jane Doe, Inc., The Massachusetts Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence; National Association of Social Workers, MA; Mass AFL-CIO; Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders; Mass Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus; Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition; and MassEquality.