June 1, 2005
NYStateWatch: GET ON THE A-GENDA
We've announced it before, and we'll announce it again, because it's that important: Two weeks from today, Wednesday June 15th, state senator Tom Duane (D-Manhattan) will be holding public hearings from 10:30am-1pm (in Hearing Room A of Albany's Legislative Office Building) on the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA), which would add the category of gender identity and expressing to the already existing New York State human-rights laws. (The current law makes it illegal in New York State to discriminate on the basis of age, race, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation, sex, marital status and other categories in the areas of employment, housing, public accommodations, education and credit.) GENDA would provide legal protection not only to transgenders but to anyone discriminated against for, say, being "too butch" or "too effeminate."
If you or your group would like to testify at the hearing, download the reply form here and follow the included instructions. Housing Works is already running radio ads in Albany to set the stage for the hearings later this month; if you'd like to get involved in GENDA advocacy, contact Mark Hayes at hayes@housingworks.org.
Consider being part of this hearing, which Duane staffer Mark Furnish says will be "the first open discussion on gender rights in the state legislature. Something like this has never been done before."