Judiciary Committee Hearing
Tuesday, July 14, 2009 - Gardner Auditorium
State House, Boston, MA
Contents
Summary
of the Judiciary Committee Hearing
Testimony by MFI President Kris Mineau
Quotations from other Testimony
“Bathroom
Bill” heard by Judiciary Committee
The Joint Committee on the Judiciary
met yesterday to hear testimony on more than 200 bills, including
the “bathroom bill,” HB 1728. Those wishing to testify
were invited to sign-up starting at 10:30 am, with the hearing
scheduled to begin at 12 Noon. Though members of the Committee
began arriving around Noon, the hearing itself did not start until
at least a half-hour later.
The first two hours or so were dominated by legislators, district
attorneys and other elected officials wishing to testify on the
bills before the committee. They did not begin accepting testimony
from citizens until after 2:00 pm, putting the day well behind
schedule and pushing exclusive testimony on HB 1728 until nearly
4 o’clock.
The co-chairs of the Committee, Rep. Eugene O’Flaherty (D-Charlestown)
and Sen. Cynthia Stone Creem (D-Newton), were even-handed in their
handling of those giving testimony from both sides of the issues.
It was obvious that Sen. Creem was inclined to support our opponents,
while Rep. O’Flaherty was more skeptical. Rep. O’Flaherty
made it clear from the beginning that the Committee would not
allow rude or snide comments from either people testifying or
those in the audience, responding to snickering from homosexual
activists upon one citizen citing the “homosexual agenda”
in his testimony.
Testimony on the “bathroom bill” began with the two
legislative sponsors of the bill, Rep. Carl Sciortino (D-Somerville)
and Sen. Benjamin Downing (D-Pittsfield), delivering remarks in
support of the bill, followed by MFI President Kris Mineau speaking
against it. The format of having an individual or panel from one
side testify, followed by the same from the other side, was more
or less held to throughout this segment of the hearing.
“HB 1728, the bathroom bill, would allow men access to women’s
restrooms, locker rooms and health facilities, compromising the
safety, privacy and modesty of all citizens,” Mineau told
the committee. “While laws exist to prosecute those who commit
crimes that take place in bathrooms, HB 1728 puts women and children
at risk of assault because men as a group cannot be questioned
beforehand or curtailed from entering women’s rest facilities.
General laws should ensure the safety, privacy and protection
of all citizens.”
Among the most important panels testifying against the “bathroom
bill” were MFI’s legal panel, featuring three attorneys,
one of our education panels, featuring a school committee member
and a former school principal and superintendent, and our mental
health professionals panel, featuring a psychiatrist, a sexual
assault nurse, and a family therapy councilor.
The lawyers, all members of the Alliance Defense Fund, lent their
legal expertise to arguments countering claims from the bill’s
supporters that the bill would not impact bathrooms, locker rooms
and school facilities. "The First Amendment mandates that
no individual should be required to affirm, in act, word, or deed,
that a man is a woman, or a woman is a man, against their sincerely
held religious beliefs," ADF attorney Timothy Tracey said.
"Yet this is precisely what (the bill) will do."
Throughout the hearing, members of both the House and the Senate
had to leave their committee positions to take roll call votes,
since both chambers were having formal sessions. In one memorable
moment, Rep. O’Flaherty suspended the hearing while House
members voted because MFI’s attorneys were in mid-testimony
and committee members wanted to hear what they had to say.
“This proposed legislation affects the entire school community
by impacting bathrooms and locker rooms for all students,”
North Reading School Committee member Maureen Vacca said, speaking
with 15 years of experience on the school committee, as well as
raising 3 students. “It does nothing to strengthen a school’s
ability to protect students from violence. Mixing anatomy in public
restrooms is a prescription for trouble.”
David L. Stormberg, M.D., a psychiatrist in private practice,
addressed the true central issue in the whole debate: gender-identity
disorder and those suffering with it. “Tragically, this bill
if passed will represent our society’s abandonment of those
persons who suffer with a gender identity disorder,” Dr.
Stormberg said in his written testimony. “This bill suggests
that there is no disorder and therefore undercuts any hope for
healing that someone with this trouble might have.”
Unfortunately, the hearing dragged on well past the 6:00 pm expected
end time, with some people still waiting to testify after 10 o’clock
in the evening. Some important panels, including two featuring
educators, as well as two featuring college and high school students,
were not called before the participants had to leave to return
to their normal lives, taking care their children and family.
Though unable to deliver testimony in person, these citizens will
have their voices heard through written testimony delivered to
the Committee.
With the large volume of bills the Judiciary Committee has been
charged with deciding upon this session, it is not known when
the Committee will vote to pass HB 1728 out of Committee with
an “Ought to Pass” or “Ought Not to Pass,”
or instead decide to kill it by sending it to a “study.”
Some insiders believe such a vote could come in September or October.
Though the hearing has now passed, our lobbying efforts will continue,
as should yours. If you have not yet contacted the Judiciary Committee,
please take some time to do so today. Click
Here to send an email to the members, or Click
Here to make a phone call. Judging by the turnout at the hearing
yesterday, we are running even with our opponents insofar as grassroots
involvement.
Testimony of Kris
Mineau, President
Massachusetts Family Institute
Before the Judiciarty Committee In Opposition to HB 1728
Massachusetts
Family Institute is a public policy institute dedicated to strengthening
families in the Commonwealth. Because tens of thousands of sociological
studies identify the nuclear family as the single best environment
for the procreation and nurturing of children, human sexuality is
a most significant issue to us. I thank you for the opportunity
to testify before you today in opposition to House Bill 1728, an
Act Relative to Gender Based Discrimination and Hate Crimes.
This radical legislation would remove gender
restrictions from public access restrooms, locker rooms and fitness
facilities-compromising the safety, privacy and modesty of all citizens.
HB 1728 would legally require public schools at all levels to allow
boys and girls to choose for themselves which rest room or locker
room they wish to use, based on an ill-defined concept of gender
expression, with no medical or legal basis. Last week a public grammar
school in Maine was found to be in violation of that state's Transgender
Rights Law because they did not allow a fifth-grade boy to use the
girl's bath room. The Maine public school system is now grappling
with how this ruling is to be implemented.
Two recent incidents of bathroom stalking by
men at Boston University and on Cape Cod make the notion of legalizing
entry by men into women's bathrooms not a hypothetical matter but
one of legitimate concern -Massachusetts has over 10,000 registered
sex offenders. While laws exist to prosecute those who commit crimes
that take place in bathrooms, HB1728 puts women and children at
substantial additional risk of assault because men as a group cannot
be questioned beforehand or curtailed from entering women's rest
facilities.
Proprietors of public accommodations are already
prohibited from discriminating against persons of any sex, or sexual
orientation, in the full enjoyment of accommodations offered to
the general public. The current law has exceptions for single-sex
rest rooms, bathhouses, seashore facilities, fitness facilities,
corporations established for the benefit of a single sex, and single-sex
rooming houses. HB 1728 would override all those exceptions. Nothing
would prevent a sexual predator from pretending that he is confused
about his sex to gain access to vulnerable women and children in
public restrooms, which should be safe spaces for their accommodation
and health.
This bill would add the vague terminology of
"gender identity or expression" to the state ban on sex
discrimination. The bill says, "The term 'gender identity or
expression' shall mean a gender-related identity, appearance, expression,
or behavior of an individual, regardless of the individual's assigned
sex at birth." There is no generally accepted definition for
"gender" or "expression," which would cause
chaos in the inevitable swirl of litigation, as activists press
for access to the most private spaces of the opposite sex.
The word "gender" (as opposed to
"sex") is dangerously vague. It refers to socially constructed
roles unrelated to biology. The term denies immutable biological
differences between the sexes and places women and children at risk
from biological males.
Transgenderism is classified as a disorder
by the American Psychiatric Association in its Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders. Under this bill, if a father and his
young daughter went to a public accommodation and the young girl
needed to use the ladies room, her own father could not go in with
her, but a man claiming a gender identity disorder could.
HB 1728 also deletes protection from discrimination
the categories of genetic information, children, marital status,
veteran status or membership in the armed services, and the receiving
of public assistance. Public policy should not allow an infinitesimally
small percentage of the population with a psychiatric disorder to
use whatever public restroom or bathhouse they want, while simultaneously
removing protection of families with children, veterans and people
on public assistance.
Massachusetts General Laws should ensure the
safety, privacy and protection of all citizens. HB1728 presumes
to protect five one hundredth of a percent of the population who
feel more comfortable using a rest room of the opposite biological
sex, while compromising the safety, privacy and modesty of 99.95%
of citizens
For these reasons of public safety and well-being,
we recommend the Joint Committee issue an unfavorable report on
House Bill 1728.
Kristian M. Mineau
President
Quotations from Citizens
Opposing HB1728
"Permitting anybody into any restroom or locker room does not
make the world less discriminatory. What it does do is prevent me
and other young women from using a public bathroom, locker room,
or shower room without fear or embarrassment."
Katie Grayton
Age 17, resident of Methuen
"Adequate safeguards for our students are not provided in this
bill. Quite simply put, this bill is a recipe for disaster and student
abuse, not to mention laying additional financial and human burdens
on school staff. But most importantly, it will put the emotional
and physical health of our youngest children at risk."
Deborah Furtado
Elementary school teacher in New Bedford for 36 years
"It is difficult enough to control student behavior, prevent
discrimination for all students, and ensure the safety of all students
without having to distinguish between truth and a lie of some student
claiming, at will, a gender-identity other than their assigned sex
at birth, simply to gain access to the opposite at birth sex locker-rooms,
showers, or lavatory facilities."
Joseph Martins
Former, Superintendent of Schools, Fall River
"The bill would grant overly-inclusive civil rights protection,
extending far beyond persons undergoing sex reassignment surgery
or therapy. The bill guarantees opposite-sex entry [into restrooms]
as a 'civil right' whenever an individual merely asserts that, at
the time of entry, the single-sex facility's designation is consistent
with his or her 'gender identity, regardless of the individual's
assigned sex at birth.' Individuals who object would be required
to share intimate quarters with persons of the opposite biological
sex where partial or full disrobing occurs."
Phil Moran, Esq.
Attorney in private practice, Salem
"To pass into law supposed protections
based on an extremely vague and most likely unconstitutional description
of a classified mental illness is irresponsible at best and can
serve no other purpose than to muddy the waters of already confusing
'hate crimes' legislation."
Christen M. Varley, Holliston
Young mother and school volunteer
"Life is about choices. I have chosen
to protect the weak and seek justice for the innocent. As I appear
before you today, we can see the danger or we can wait until after
the disaster to cry. I am a positive person, but I am asking that
you give a negative 'no' to the bill HB 1728."
Karen Petty
Retired registered nurse
"The bill not only opens the door to dangerous
law and regulation changes concerning public places, it also discriminates
against those who are offended or threatened by such changes by
cutting off many avenues of defense against the abuse of such laws
and regulations. If the changes suggested by HB 1728 are put into
practice, we will see the door of our Commonwealth opened for the
following to become common occurrences: instruction of privacy,
including implicit, covert, or over sexual harassment; abuse of
access, including sexual or other physical assult."
Will Eifler, Cambridge
"House Bill 1728 would threaten the comfort
and pschological state of women of my generation and older who were
not raised in a unisex world ... This change in how we as a society
accord privacy and respect to the opposite sex will cause great
anxiety in the women I know who would see it as a step backward
into a less civilized state. Mothers would be afraid to let their
little boys go into a public men's room and fathers would fear sending
their daughters into a ladies room which could harbor a predator
posing as a transgendered person."
Christine Funnell, Medford
Mother, former teacher and future grandparent
"It is not what is in your head that determines
what restroom you use; it's what is in your pants that determines
the matter. It has been that way since day one."
Ralph Filicchia, Watertown
Husband, father and grandfather
"[W]e decided to raise our children here
in large part because of Massachusetts's excellent schools. But
now I am gravely conserned for my children's future in these Massachusetts
schools, given the very likely consequences of this legislation,
if it were enacted."
Margaret Woolley Busse, Acton
Harvard Business School graduate and mother of four
"I do not want my kids to be traumatized!
I don't want them to be afraid whenever they need to use a restroom
or workout facility ... It's always been my impression that our
legislators and government officials were supposed to provide for
the Common Good, not the Uncommon Good."
Ed Sharib, Natick
Husband and father
"Our job as parents, grandparents, teachers,
pediotricians and most importantly those of you who have the privilege
to be lawmakers, is to protect those that can not protect themselves:
our children. Please do not pass this bill for it does not protect
those it is intending to protect, but actually harms those that
need the most protection: our children and grandchildren, our nieces
and nephews, as well as our mothers and wives."
Kim Incampo, North Andover
Working mother of two
