Posts from — April 2009

Great work Tony!!! [Link to original article]

(Fortune Small Business) — Tony Ferraiolo will never forget his first day back at work after surgery. The 46-year-old supervisor’s knees trembled as he entered the windowless headquarters of Madison Co., a switch and sensor manufacturer in Branford, Conn.

Under the curious gaze of his colleagues, Ferraiolo crossed the plant floor and settled into his office. A few minutes later, Madison owner and president Steve Schickler walked in and sat down. “So you’re a ‘he’ now, right?” Schickler asked. Ferraiolo nodded. “Good enough,” Schickler said briskly. “I’ll let the managers know.”

For Schickler, 50, there was no question about what would happen next. Ferraiolo would continue to supervise more than half of the plant’s 50 employees. Life would go on as before, with one small difference: Ferraiolo would no longer use the ladies’ room.

Schickler describes his decision to support the transgender employee formerly known as Ann Ferraiolo through the transition as a no-brainer.

“If you start limiting your choices in staff based on this kind of thing, you’re cutting yourself off from a lot of good people,” he says. “We could have lost a valuable manufacturing supervisor - it was as simple as that.”

Most employers will never have to deal with a transgender worker: Estimates of the transsexual population in the U.S. are vague but relatively low, ranging from less than 50,000 to 600,000 (not including those who choose not to undergo sex reassignment surgery). Nonetheless, gender identity has become the latest battleground in workplace discrimination law, which no business owner can afford to ignore. And given that few small businesses boast dedicated HR teams, it’s particularly important for management to set a tone of workplace tolerance and respect. [Read more →]

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The House is preparing to vote on the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act - H.R. 1913 as early as this week. As you know, the bill would give the Justice Department the power to investigate and prosecute bias-motivated violence by providing the department with jurisdiction over crimes of violence where the victim is chosen because of their actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.

When introducing the bill, Representative Conyers stated that the legislation “provides a constructive and measured response to a problem that continues to plague our nation. These are crimes that shock and shame our national conscience. They should be subject to comprehensive federal law enforcement assistance and prosecution.” [Read more →]

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The last few weeks have been extremely busy with our excellent Lobby Day on April 7th and the highly successful Transgender Lives Conference on April 18th, which has consumed us here at Ct TransAdvocacy over the last month or so.  And now with both of these critical events behind us and some critical Legislative dates passing by, we thought it an appropriate time to provide an update on our Legislative work to secure Gender Identity and Expression protections within Connecticut’s anti-discrimination statutes.

Though we had a very strong showing and highly moving testimony at our Public Hearing for HB 6452 (An Act Concerning Discrimination), the bill did not have an opportunity to come up for a vote in the Judiciary Committee before the drop dead date of April 3rd.  What this means is that our original Bill raised this year, HB 6452 is no longer able to be voted upon by the Ct General Assembly this session.  HOWEVER, this in no way means that this legislation cannot be passed this year.  As many of us who work on legislation know, there are many ways in which legislation like ours can be passed and one is through the bill process and another is through adding it as an amendment to another bill.  In fact, you may recall that Domestic Partner legislation (2002) was actually passed and enacted into law as part of another highly relevant bill!  With your help as we will detail below, we feel that such a path is quite viable this year for the Anti-Discrimination legislation.  But this can only happen if you commit to putting this legislation as your number one priority over the next month or so!

I have been asked by reporters, community members and allies as to why our bill did not get a vote out of the Judiciary committee and sadly I do not have a concrete answer to that question; though many will offer speculations.  Though as I have relayed to folks, we knew that this year was in some respects going to be a very difficult year given the immense budget pressures and other issues facing the Connecticut legislators as well as the Judiciary Committee.  However, this bill is a CRITICAL bill for not only our Communities but also for Connecticut as a State securing full equal rights and assuring full employment of its citizens!  And so it is imperative that each and every one of you, visit, call and email your legislator to let them know that you support this legislation and that you want them to work to assure that this legislation is amended to an existing bill, in its original legislative context with no amendments,  and passed in both the House and Senate this session!  And if you are saying that you already contacted them, we are asking you to not just talk to them once, but to be respectfully persistent since this is such critical and important legislation.  The old saying “out of sight, out of mind” is as true with legislators as it is with other situations!

Our opponents, and you know who they are, have been working hard to spread genuinely false and truly hateful statements about transgender people like you and I.  And so every single legislator in the Ct General Assembly must hear from each of their constituents telling them that we expect them to work hard this year to assure that Connecticut does not tolerate such hate speech and that they work to assure that Connecticut does not
discriminate against any person or community, independent of their race, color, religious creed, age, marital status, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, mental retardation, or physical disability!

It is imperative that you personally connect with your legislators today, that you tell everyone of your friends, family and co-workers to contact their legislators today to assure that they pass legislation this session assuring inclusion of Gender Identity and Expression within Connecticut’s non-discrimination statutes. Over this remaining time for the 2009 legislative session we will continue to communicate with you in the many ways that you can assure passage of this legislation, though at this moment it is imperative that you personally visit or talk to your legislator and tell them you support this legislation and you need them to assure they support it and assure it receives a vote and is passed this session!

Oh yeah, did we mention to you also to TELL A FRIEND, FAMILY Member or Co-Worker to contact their legislators?

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