David Schroer took center stage when Congress made history with its first hearing on discrimination against transgender employees.
After getting hired as a national security analyst with the Library of Congress, David Schroer took his new boss out to lunch to share some news: On his first day of work, he planned to show up as Diane. The next day, the job offer was withdrawn.
The hearing came after Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California was picketed last year when House leaders removed transgender employees from a job-discrimination bill offering protections to gays, lesbians and bisexuals. Supporters of the legislation want the House to reverse that decision next year.
Democratic Rep. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, who's openly gay, told the House Subcommittee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions that hate crimes against transgender Americans "are tragically common." She said transgenders face constant discrimination "in the mundane tasks of the everyday," such as finding housing, applying for credit or even seeing a doctor.
Rep. John Kline of Minnesota, the top-ranked Republican on the committee, questioned whether Congress needs to get involved at all.
Glen Lavy, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, said it would be a mistake to define gender identity or gender expression as a protected class. He said objections to "the concept of transgender" are based on religious beliefs and that forcing the idea as a valid concept "is like forcing an Orthodox Jew to eat pork."
In 38 states, witnesses said, transgender employees can be fired for any reason. After Minnesota passed the nation's first law banning workplace discrimination in 1993, the District of Columbia and 11 states – California, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington – followed suit.
[Source: McClatchy DC via Sacramento Bee]
1 comments:
“There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:28. Sad to say, this ancient truth is nowhere to be seen in the modern American arena. Do we discriminate against people that are ‘different’ from us? What a strange world that we still have issues regarding discrimination. Like sexual harassment, the true victims rarely report it while the abused suffer in silence. This is a problem. Huge Problem. In my book I devote a chapter to discrimination and how it is often over-looked or swept into a dark corner. And yes, it still exists in modern America. While we pour more stupid laws into the books to prevent such painful actions, we fail to fix the real problem, that is, the root. In addition, we have been conditioned by lawyers to believe that legal and moral are the same thing. So sad. Whenever a human is treated differently than the masses, we should take a cold, hard look at the situation. A hard look indeed. Maybe even the mirror. Michael L. Gooch, SPHR Author of Wingtips with Spurs: Cowboy Wisdom for Today’s Business Leaders http://www.michaellgooch.com
Post a Comment