Do we personally know other transgender New Jerseyans who've faced this kind of discrimination? You bet. Last year, Garden State Equality ran a television commercial on News 12 New Jersey that featured Carol Barlow of North Jersey, rejected by an astounding 1,000 potential employers. Sensing Carol is transgender, some employers laughed in her face when she entered the room and refused to let the interview proceed. They threw her coat at her and had her physically escorted away. Then there's the state's best-known transgender citizen, teacher Lily McBeth of South Jersey, who earlier this year faced a vicious herd of prejudiced parents who sought to exile her from the district's classrooms. Garden State Equality had to generate national media coverage and significant grassroots pressure to help Lily defeat the hatemongers. State legislators have had a mixed reaction to the discrimination emergency. A few lawmakers point to a lower-level judicial ruling that interpreted the State's Law Against Discrimination to encompass the transgender community – this, they say, makes passing a statute unnecessary. Well, you won't find redder herrings even in Scandinavia. First, the final ruling came from an intermediate court, not the New Jersey Supreme Court, and thus remains as obscure as can be. And second, the disparity between the transgender community and the constituencies that the Law Against Discrimination explicitly protects by statute, such as women and people of color, is heartbreaking. Given that the transgender community has no statutory protection, official state government anti-discrimination posters – those in offices and public places everywhere – delineate a whole host of groups against whom it is illegal to discriminate, with zero mention of the transgender community. The message? Discrimination against the transgender community is more acceptable than discrimination against the other constituencies. You don't need a mind-reader to discern that employers and others are thinking just that. The discrimination faced by Jacqui Charvet, Carol Barlow and Lily McBeth occurred after the intermediate court's ruling of 2001. Passing a statute to expand the State's Law Against Discrimination should be a political cakewalk. According to a Zogby Poll commissioned by Garden State Equality, 70 percent of New Jersey favors such a statute while only 19 percent oppose it. The truth is, we have the votes in the Assembly, as well as the political will of Assembly leaders, to get the bill passed right now. We would also have the votes in the state Senate were Senate President Codey, usually a champion of LGBTI rights, to go on the record supporting the bill. He has not. Governor Corzine endorsed the bill during the 2005 gubernatorial campaign. The buzz you'll hear at the State House, where Garden State Equality spends every legislative day, is that the bill is a good idea but that the state has more pressing problems. Tell that to Jacqui Charvet, Carol Barlow and Lily McBeth. Tell that to all the other transgender citizens of New Jersey before they, like Jacqui, are forced to leave our state to escape its discrimination emergency. And then, tragically, only the rest of us remained.
----------- To join the campaign to pass a statute outlawing discrimination against the transgender community in New Jersey, please contact Steven Goldstein, chair of Goldstein@GardenStateEquality.org, or Barbra Casbar, vice chair of Garden State Equality and political director of the Gender Rights Advocacy Association of New Jersey, at BabsC@aol.com. |
