Bills under consideration target transgender bias

“For many years I did a lot of macho things while trying to hide who I was,” said Grayson, who now works as a “handyman” in Las Vegas. “I was a firefighter, a construction superintendent, a Hollywood stuntman. I got married and had a couple of kids.”

Growing up in Chicago, Jane Heenan tried in vain to please a father who wanted his oldest son to be “the next middle linebacker of the Chicago Bears.”

“I was no Dick Butkus. I knew from a young age I was different,” said Heenan, a marriage and family therapist in Las Vegas. “I was quite self-destructive … drugs, alcohol and anger. I dealt with a lot of hidden shame for 20 years.”

Grayson and Heenan are two of the estimated 25,000 transgender people in Nevada who are hoping that state legislators and Gov. Brian Sandoval will recognize them in the coming weeks as human beings who deserve legal protection, not as freaks to be shunned. There are six bills to prevent discrimination against transgender people pending in the Legislature this session.

NO ‘CIRCUS ACT’

The Assembly, on a 29-13 vote, last week approved Assemblyman Paul Aizley’s Assembly Bill 211, which would prevent employers from discriminating against people based on their “gender identity or expression.”

Employers still could compel them to wear appropriate clothing for their job but must allow them to dress in clothing consistent with their gender identity.

Gender identity or expression is defined in the bills as the “gender-related identity, appearance, expression or behavior of a person,” regardless of the gender the person was “assigned” at birth.

“No one wants a man showing up for work in a pink tutu,” said Lauren Scott, a leader of Equality Nevada and a lobbyist for the bills. “We want to portray ourselves in a way not unbecoming to a professional workplace. There isn’t going to be a circus act coming to work everyday.”

The employment bill goes to the state Senate for further review. Five other bills designed to protect transgender people from other discrimination also remain alive in the Nevada Legislature.

One would outlaw discrimination against so-called transpersons in housing and real estate transactions, and another would outlaw such discrimination in public accommodations. A third would make crimes against transpersons hate crimes with more stringent sentences. Another bill would allow transpersons to be foster parents, and the last would protect them from school bullies.

Twelve states already have laws protecting transgender people from job discrimination.

JOB BILL MOST IMPORTANT

“It’s close,” Scott said about the chances of the bills passing. “The job discrimination bill is the most important of them all. If you can’t find work, you can’t live a full and productive life.”

She believes the transgender community will pick up a couple of Republican votes in the state Senate, as they did on the job discrimination bill in the Assembly.

But the community also may lose a Democratic vote or two in the state Senate, while all 26 Democrats in the Assembly backed the job discrimination bill.

The big unknown is Sandoval, who sponsored an anti-hate crime bill as an Assembly member in 1995. Sandoval hasn’t said whether he’ll sign or veto any of the current transgender anti-discrimination bills should they reach his desk.

While estimating that the unemployment rate of transpeople is two or three times the overall 13.2 percent rate, Scott said she has escaped job discrimination, but a Gardnerville management company refused to rent an apartment to her and a transgender friend.

“I guess it was too much for Gardnerville,” she said. “I have had three good jobs here in Nevada.”

Scott now runs Apollo Bioenergy, a Reno company that is working toward using pinion and juniper wood to generate electricity. She spent seven years as a male member of the Air Force before being honorably discharged.

‘STEALTH MODE’

Grayson maintains she lost a $100,000-a-year job as a construction super­intendent because her boss found out that she lived as a woman off the job.

Even today, she shows up for handyman jobs as “Kelvin” because of fear she would be fired if employers knew she was Karen Grayson.

When she spoke Thursday, Grayson was operating in “stealth mode” as a man operating a jackhammer and breaking up concrete.

Grayson fears she would be immediately fired if her employer discovered her identity.

“The quality of my work wouldn’t count,” she said. “‘You are a misfit. Why do I want you working for me?'”

Grayson also said she knows people living in “deep stealth,” including waitresses and coffee shop workers who tell almost no one that they are transgender because of fear of reprisals from employers.

Heenan said she was fired from a dealer’s job and from a therapy intern position because she “did not conform to their gender standards.”

On another job quest, she was told she would not be hired because of how she looked.

“I don’t know anyone who hasn’t had to struggle in finding a job because they are transgender or different,” Heenan said.

She estimated that a quarter of her therapy clients are transgender people.

OPPOSING VIEWS

Aizley had no hesitation sponsoring the job discrimination bill, or supporting the other five bills.

“They are as nice as people as you will find anywhere,” said Aizley, D-Las Vegas. “Too many of them now have to hide in the closet to keep their jobs. Most people now know gay people, and being gay no longer is a big deal. They don’t know transgender people. If they tell me they are a man or a woman, I can’t question their decision. You just have to accept people for themselves.”

Aizley said his anti-discrimination bill applies to people who live as “transmen” or “transwomen,” not to men or women who have fetishes and cross-dress on occasion.

Assemblyman Ira Hansen, R-Sparks, voted against Aizley’s bill. Hansen has appeared with Scott at forums and studied transgender issues.

“I am a plumber and a plumbing company owner,” he said. “If a plumber showed up in a dress, it would cause problems at job sites. A teacher could be a male one week and a female the next. If this bill passes, then I could apply for a cocktail waitress job and be told, ‘Sorry, Hansen.’ Then I could say, ‘I am female in my mind, and you could be sued for transgender discrimination.’ ”

Since last summer, the Department of Motor Vehicles has had a policy that allows transgender people to change the gender mark on their driver’s licenses or identification cards. Their doctors must sign statements asserting they are legitimately transmen or transwomen. The DMV does not keep records of the number of people applying for gender marker changes.

Transgender people are not required to have undergone sex change operations to amend the gender mark on their licenses. Sex change operations can cost $25,000 to $50,000, a cost that is prohibitive to many people.

Before a sex change operation is permitted, transgender people must undergo long periods of hormone treatment and psychological counseling, which also are expensive.

CONCERNED ABOUT POSERS

What has upset supporters of the transgender bills are statements such as the one made by Sen. James Settelmeyer, R-Minden.

Following a Senate Commerce and Labor meeting in which bills to outlaw discrimination in public accommodations and housing were approved, Settelmeyer said he could not support the bills because of restroom issues.

While supporting protections for “true transgender people,” Settelmeyer said he worried about posers.

“I respect transgender people, but I am a dad and I have an obligation to my two little girls to protect them from having a guy walk into the bathroom.”

He said the bills, as written, could be a problem for security guards in public places who might have to determine whether someone should use the men’s or women’s restrooms.

Scott said that should not be an issue, since transgender people can secure IDs with appropriate gender markings from the DMV.

But Grayson and others contend that such concerns wrongly suggest that transgender people are perverts or child molesters.

‘IRRATIONAL REACTIONS’

The American Civil Liberties Union testified in support of the transgender bills. Its state legal director, Maggie McLetchie, finds it “bizarre” that restrooms are an issue to some legislators. She said anyone, regardless of their gender, who behaves inappropriately in a public restroom should be dealt with by police.

Under the job discrimination bill, McLetchie added, a person does not need to have changed their gender mark with the DMV to be protected.

“It is how you identity yourself and how your employer perceived you.”

For example, McLetchie said, if an employer perceived that his secretary was transgender and fired her, then a legal argument could be made that the boss discriminated against her, even if she had not changed the gender box on her license.

“The fact that people have this hate and these irrational reactions is why we need these laws,” McLetchie said. “The ACLU protects unpopular minorities.”

Grayson is a member of the Stonewall Democrats and has spoken for transgender equality with every Democrat she meets, even U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

At first people are shocked and stunned by her appearance and viewpoints, Grayson said, but once they get to know her, they accept and like her.

Transgender people have visited with legislators, some sitting with Assembly members during voting sessions.

“When you get to know someone as a person, it is harder to discriminate against them,” Scott said.

If the bills are killed, Grayson intends to return to Carson City again in 2013 and show more legislators that trans­gender people are simply people concerned about their loved ones and keeping jobs.

She already has won over her two adult sons. Grayson is no longer Dad; her children have accepted her chosen identity.

“They call me Karen. When they bring their friends over, they say, ‘My dad is transgender, but if you don’t like it, there’s the door.’ ”

Contact Capital Bureau Chief Ed Vogel
at evogel@reviewjournal.com
or 775-687-3901.