NYS Governor Expected to Extend Transgendered Protections

Transgender people face tremendous discrimination in the workplace. Forty-seven percent of transgender people report being fired, or denied a job or promotion just because of who they are. In one recent Florida case, 17-year-old Zikerria Bellamy was denied a job at a McDonald's restaurant because she is transgender. Miss Bellamy applied online for the job, but after managers learned that she is transgender, she received a voicemail message from one of the them telling her, "You will not get hired. We do not hire fa**ots." TLDEF filed a complaint on Miss Bellamy's behalf on December 7.

Few protections exist for transgender people who experience employment discrimination. In 38 states, there is no law protecting people from being fired because they are transgender. In New York, while a number of municipalities protect transgender workers from on-the-job discrimination, there is no statewide law offering such protection. The Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act, which would add gender identity and expression to the state's non-discrimination law, has been repeatedly introduced and passed by the state Assembly, but it has never been passed by the state Senate.

Federal law similarly offers no job protection for transgender people. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) would address discrimination in the workplace by making it illegal to fire, refuse to hire, or refuse to promote an employee based on the person's gender identity or sexual orientation. ENDA has been stalled in the House of Representatives despite demands by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans that Congress take swift action to pass the legislation.

Mr. Paterson plans to make a high-profile event of the order signing. He is expected to be joined by leading gay rights advocates at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center in Greenwich Village during a ceremony Wednesday morning.

In issuing the executive order, Mr. Paterson is exercising the limits of his authority to impose legal protections on transgender people in New York. The order applies only to state employees who work under the authority of the executive branch. It does not apply to anyone in the private sector.

The State Assembly has already passed the Gender Expression Non Discrimination Act, but the Senate has so far refused to take the issue up.