Dick Gottfried

Times Herald-Record, editorial, May 17

In what has been perhaps the most bizarre presidential campaign in this nation’s history, a bizarre diversionary issue has cropped up to grab the public’s attention.

Last week, the president of the United States found it necessary to issue a directive stating that public schools — all public schools — must permit transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their chosen gender identity. This White House acknowledgement of basic rights for transgender people was made necessary by the denial of such rights by the state of North Carolina.

That state’s Republican-controlled legislature has passed a bill that requires bathroom usage based on the sex stated on a person’s birth certificate. North Carolina’s Republican governor signed it and has defended it. Fear and ignorance, which have played a prominent role in the Republican presidential campaign, are also at the heart of this legislation.

By Rick Karlin, May 9

This has come up repeatedly during the past few years, but once again the Democratic-controlled Assembly  by a 81-46-vote margin has passed a gender non-discrimination bill.

The bill, however, has gone nowhere in the Republican-led Senate, a fact that some of the Assembly Republicans alluded to in the debate.

During the debate,  Manhattan Democrat Richard Gottfried parried with Republicans who expressed fears that such a measure would give free rein to men who, claiming to be transgender, might work their way into women’s locker rooms or other spots where they could launch a sexual assault. Gottfried and others, though, said there’s been relatively little evidence of that and he noted that a man could simply dress as a woman in order to gain access to locker or rest rooms.

As it has in the past, the debate went off on some tangents. Schoharie Valley GOP Assemblyman Pete Lopez, for instance, pushed for a clear distinction between transvestites, or men who dress as women and vice versa, and transgendered people who have switched from the gender they were born with or assigned to at birth.

May 10, 2016 (via San Francisco Chronicle)

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — The state Assembly has voted again to outlaw discrimination against transgender people amid the national debate about proposals in North Carolina and other states to restrict bathroom access.

The bill, voted on on Monday, would add gender identity and expression to the state’s civil rights statutes, making it illegal to discriminate against a transgender person when it comes to jobs, loans, schools and public accommodations.

An executive order issued by Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo last year took the same step, but supporters of the Assembly bill say it’s necessary to put the policy into statute so Cuomo’s order can’t be reversed by a future governor.

“Transgender rights are human rights,” said Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, a Manhattan Democrat who sponsored the bill. “… While North Carolina and other states try to roll back progress by attacking transgender rights, New York should stand up for common sense, fairness, and justice.”

It’s the ninth time the Assembly has passed the measure, which faces significant opposition in the Republican-controlled state Senate.

The state already prohibits discrimination based on race, religion, disability and gender. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia already include gender identity in their discrimination laws.

By Ken Lovett, 10/23

ALBANY — Gov. Cuomo Thursday night announced a plan to provide anti-discrimination protections to transgender people.

A bill to ban discrimination in the areas of employment, housing or public accommodations based on gender identity or expression has repeatedly stalled in the state Senate.

Cuomo told the Empire State Pride Agenda he plans to bypass the Legislature — as he did in raising the minimum wage for fast-food workers — by granting transgender people protections through a regulatory process he controls.

By Karla Ann Cote, June 8

Members of the Empire State Pride Agenda were in Albany on June 2 to witness the passage of the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act, or GENDA, in the Assembly. Now they are imploring the Senate to do the same.

GENDA would provide equal protection to transgender people under the State Human Rights Law by expanding current legislation to explicitly address workplace harassment, institutionally-sanctioned discrimination, homelessness and unequal access to medical care.

June 2, 2015

The Democratic-led Assembly on Tuesday once again approved the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act, a bill whose fate remains uncertain in the Republican-controlled Senate.

The measure was approved this afternoon, 88-45.

“Various New York cities and counties have already acknowledged the importance of equal rights for all people and passed transgender-inclusive nondiscrimination legislation,” said Speaker Carl Heastie in a statement. “It is time that we make this statewide legislation so that all New Yorkers can live their lives and be true to themselves without fear of being targeted or discriminated against.”

The bill would ban discrimination based on one’s gender identity or expression and also expand hate-crime laws that would explicitly outlaw crimes committed against people due to their identity or expression.

LGBT advocacy groups in recent years have focused on make GENDA the law, especially in the years after the passage of the legaliztion of same-sex marriage.

This is the eighth year in a row lawmakers in the Assembly have backed the bill.

“Every year my colleagues and I speak for transgender human rights and equal protection under the law, and every year, opponents spin imaginary horror stories, none of which have anything to do with this bill,” said the bill’s main sponsor, Assemblyman Richard Gottfried. “Local GENDA laws have been on the books in large parts of the state for years, without any problems. It’s time to protect all New Yorkers’ right to fair housing, employment, use of public accommodations, and protection against hate crimes.”