Massachusetts Family Institute Brief
2009 Transgender Rights/Hate Crimes Bill

Rep. Carl Sciortino (D-Somerville) has re-filed the bill that would grant special rights to people with Gender Identity Disorder. The bill would add the vague category of "gender identity or expression" to the state ban on sex discrimination, defining it as "a gender-related identity, appearance, expression, or behavior of an individual, regardless of the individual's assigned sex at birth."

What would it do?

Everyone should be safe from harm from others, and assault is already against the law for everyone, but this bill would:

1. Give special legal protection against discrimination to the 1 in 2000 people confused about their gender, and expand the dubious "hate crime" law to include them.

2. Take away the same legal protection from veterans, members of the armed forces and people on welfare, and from people based on children, marital status and genetic information.

3. Endanger the privacy and safety of women and children in public bathrooms and locker rooms, opening them to men dressed as women, and also to potential predators who claim to be confused about their gender. There is no way to distinguish between them.

While advocates of the bill are now denying the bill would affect single sex bathrooms, and misleading legislators to gain their support, the author of the bill, Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) attorney Laura Langley, last year in a Bay Windows article admitted that under the bill "those [single sex] facilities would have to open their doors to anyone who identifies as and lives as the gender that they serve. A transgender person who identifies as a particular gender would be entitled to use bathroom, locker room and other single-sex facilities for that gender, regardless of whether or not they have had surgery or are taking hormones."

4. Teach Children in school that they can change their gender. A teacher in Newton told his third grade class that people can have an operation to change their sex, sending them home traumatized and leaving their parents to deal with the aftermath.

5. Discriminate against veterans and soldiers who courageously served our country.

6. Deny insurance to someone who has a gene that might some day cause a particular disease.

7. Harm businesses that provide single-sex fitness facilities.

8. Pressure churches and affiliated hospitals which admit the general public to compromise their faith. Once same-sex marriage became Massachusetts public policy, Catholic Charities was forced to abandon their 100-year-old special adoption service rather than violate their faith. A Catholic hospital in California is being sued by a man denied breast augmentation surgery.

What do transgender and transsexual actually mean?

According to the American Psychiatric Association, transgenderism is a mental disorder known as Gender Identity Disorder or GID. According to Wikipedia, its precise definition "remains in flux" but includes "people who were assigned a gender, usually at birth and based on their genitals, but who feel that this is a false or incomplete description of themselves." It is estimated that the ratio of male-to-female transsexuals to genetic males is less than five one-hundredths of 1 percent. The ratio of female-to-male transsexuals is considered even smaller.

GLAD's goal is to deny the immutable biological differences between the sexes in law.

TAKE ACTION

Citizens have the power to stop this bill from enshrining special "transgender rights" into law, while taking them away from veterans and many others. Please call your state representative and senator today at 617-722-2000 and ask them to oppose HD431. Explain that the bill threatens the privacy and safety of women and children on behalf of a very small number of people who have, or claim to have, a gender identity disorder.

For further information and timely updates on this and other bills, visit www.mafamily.org or call 781-569-0400. MFI is a non-profit organization dedicated to strengthening the traditional family and Judeo-Christian values. MFI is funded by the generous donations of its supporters.