Try for a moment to imagine an America where equal opportunity really does mean everyone — even people who are transgender.
That was the legislative vision the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) was supposed to uphold. But then came the recent Congressional shenanigans that have threatened to leave transgender people in the lurch and out of the bill.
Here’s the deal: In 31 states it’s perfectly legal to fire someone just for being lesbian, gay or bisexual, and in 39 states for being transgender. So the need for an anti-discrimination bill is compelling. Today, it is illegal to discriminate against employees on the basis of race, sex, religion, national origin, and disability.
t’s time to add sexual orientation and gender identity and expression to that list.
That might seem like an insignificant detail. After all, aren’t transgender people just a tiny minority? Why should the rest of us care if they get fired from their jobs or don’t get hired at all?
Permit me to offer a personal perspective. My husband is a transgender man. We were married this past New Year’s Eve. When I first met Marcus, he was known as Margery. Not until he was 40 did he feel brave enough to face down the prejudice and act on what he had felt since childhood — that the female body he had been born into was the wrong sex. Thanks to modern medicine, Margery was able to medically transition and legally become Marcus.
Unlike many transgender people who get fired when they transition, Marcus did not have to worry about his job. His employer, a major New York Stock Exchange firm, was enlightened: The HR department even did a Transgender 101 seminar for his co-workers. His firm is one of the 152 Fortune 500 companies that recognize that giving transgender employees equal treatment simply makes good business sense, and have the written policies to back that conviction up.
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