Senate President Karen Spilka pledged that the Senate would reject any piece of “anti-LGBTQ” laws that’s filed within the Massachusetts Legislature within the face of what she described as assaults on the transgender group by the Trump administration.
Throughout a “Trans Day of Visibility” occasion on the State Home Monday, the Ashland Democrat stated the federal authorities is rolling again protections for transgender folks, attacking their well being care entry, and making an attempt “to force certain trans people back into the shadows.”
“Let me be clear, not a single bill that attacks the hard-won rights of this community will ever make it through my door or the doors of the Massachusetts Senate,” Spilka stated. “Massachusetts is not budging, will never budge. We will be here for you. We are not retreating. We are not compromising. Simply put, we are not going back.”
Transgender rights have develop into a politically contentious subject in america — from the flexibility of organic males to play in girls’s sports activities to transgender people serving within the army.
President Donald Trump’s administration has focused the group, together with by eliminating mentions of transgender folks on authorities web sites and passports and making an attempt to take away them from the armed forces.
The Republican president singled out Maine Gov. Janet Mills on the White Home earlier this 12 months throughout a fiery change over a risk to disclaim federal funding to the state until officers there banned transgender athletes from competing in girls’s sports activities.
Massachusetts has added protections for transgender folks into state regulation over time.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat, signed laws in 2011 that provides “gender identity” as a protected attribute to Massachusetts’ employment, housing, credit score, and public schooling anti-discrimination legal guidelines and to the state’s hate crimes regulation, based on GLAD.
Former Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, signed laws in 2016 that protects transgender folks from discrimination in eating places, libraries, motels, malls, public transportation, and different public locations, based on the group GLBTQ Authorized Advocates and Defenders.
Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll stated transgender people are dealing with “the worst threats we’ve ever seen” beneath the Trump administration.
“I was going to say in a long time, but I think it might actually be ever,” Driscoll stated.
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