LGBT Non-Discrimination Bills Introduced in PA House and Senate

To take a break from the myriad of bad news coming out of the Pennsylvanian House of Representatives, we are very happy to report that House Bill 300 was reintroduced along with companion Senate Bill 910. As you may remember, HB 300 is the bill amending the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act to add sexual orientation and gender identity or expression into the long list of protected classes given “equal employment, housing and public accommodation opportunities.”

This protection is so important because it is currently missing in a majority of the state. Nineteen municipalities have their own non-discrimination ordinances, which is wonderful, but if you are a Pennsylvanian not living in Allentown, Allegheny County, Doylestown, Easton, Erie County, Harrisburg, Haverford Township, Lancaster, Lansdowne, Lower Marion Township, New Hope, Reading, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Scranton, State College, Swarthmore, West Chester or York it is currently perfectly legal to be discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity/expression. Many Pennsylvanians do not live in those 19 municipalities but still desperately need protection. Our lack of an inclusive non-discrimination law also makes us an outlier among the 21 other states who have already amended their laws in order to protect their residents.

The need for these bills is obvious, but as we can see from the failure of HB 300 the last time around there is still so much work to be done. HB 300 stalled in the State Government Committee in 2009 and the reintroduced bill has already been in that committee for a month. Senate Bill 910 has also been sitting in committee since April.

We’re going to have to start getting the word out about these bills and making it obvious that protecting Pennsylvanians from discrimination is a necessity.

Critical Trans Politics and Transformative Social Change

Seattle University Assistant Professor of Law Dean Spade was interviewed in this month’s issue of Guernica.  Spade is the first openly transgendered tenure-track law professor in the U.S.  and the founder of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, a non-profit agency which provides free legal services to low-income transgender and gender non-conforming people and advocates for policy reform to eliminate gender expression-based discrimination and violence.

The average life span of a transgendered person is 23 years, a shocking demographic that should make every LGBT advocate sit up and pay attention. Trans individuals face daily discrimination, threats of violence, homelessness, and poverty, and are disproportionately incarcerated.  They face anti-trans discrimination at school and in the workplace.

While law reform may be a method to bring social awareness to an issue, Spade argues that it is merely a “tool to address certain needs for certain communities,” but is not the answer to solving all social issues.  He believes that changing the law does not always change  people’s lives because anti-discrimination laws are often not enforced or implemented and vulnerable populations may not see change. Sometimes vulnerable people may actually be marginalized further through law reform.  He provides an example:

Law reforms declaring race and disability discrimination illegal haven’t solved concentrated joblessness, poverty, homelessness, or criminalization of people with disabilities and people of color.

Spade goes on to discuss what he calls critical trans-politics.  He argues that while non-trans gay and lesbian individuals face marginalization and discrimination, there are specific issues that are unique to transgendered individuals.  For example, he says

Trans people have a huge set of legal issues around how various government agencies and other entities see our gender, and lots of gay and lesbian people haven’t experienced not having a gender that the government recognizes.

Critical trans-politics moves away from gay and lesbian politics and focuses on racial and economic justice analysis in conjunction with gender identity.  It calls for broad social movements led by people directly impacted by the issues, rather than legal reform for social change.  The movements, Spade argues, must focus on changing people’s lives by advocating for “good housing, healthcare, education, and all those things that you actually need to live well and thrive.”

His work does not merely focus on transgender rights but includes a collective approach geared towards economic, racial, and gender issues.  Spade’s interview focused on a lack of equality within the U.S. and the need for social transformation.

Help end this kind of discrimination by educating yourself and your community about racism, ableism, transphobia, and sexism. Learn more here about non-discrimination laws that include gender identity and expression.

WLP Signs Onto Amicus Brief for Female Walmart Employees

The United States Supreme Court is set to hear a sex discrimination case brought against the largest private employer in the states. Although Walmart v. Dukes began with a small group of female workers, it has since grown into a class action including close to 1.5 million women who work or have worked at Walmart stores, making it the largest class action employment suit in United States history.

Without addressing the merits of the gender discrimination claim, Walmart is challenging the class action status itself. Walmart asserts that the plaintiffs are too diverse to qualify for class action status. If Walmart prevails in its argument, the female employees will have to file lawsuits individually. This would put women at greater risk for retaliation and make it less economically possible for women to pursue claims against Walmart.  Additionally, splitting the claims would potentially lead to many inconsistent rulings and increase judicial expenses, going against the spirit of Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which sets no limit to the number of class action litigants and allows cases to be more efficiently litigated.

The Women’s Law Project has joined in an amicus brief asserting that workplace gender discrimination is properly addressed in this class action and that this class is unified since subjective decision making practices affected all women within the class. The brief highlights evidence of general beliefs that women should not be primary breadwinners and other assumptions of women’s availability and competency which caused women to be devalued in the workplace and restricted promotion opportunities. There was also evidence that the employers were purposely secretive about payment of male counterparts who earned more than the female employees. The Supreme Court is expected to issue its decision on the case in June.

The National Women’s Law Center, which co-authored the brief with the ACLU, is collecting messages of support for the Walmart women. You can add yours here.

No Hard-wired Differences Between Male and Female Brains

In Delusions of Gender, a new book that seeks to correct popular false conceptions of sex and gender, Cordelia Fine, shows that “there are no major neurological differences between the sexes.”  Fine, who is a research fellow at the University of Melbourne, presents compelling evidence from the latest neuroscience and psychology research to demonstrate that commonly-accepted “innate” gender differences are actually the result of socialization.

Dr. Lise Eliot, author of Pink Brain, Blue Brain, another recent book debunking the “hard-wired” differences between boys and girls, weighs in on the issue in this article from The Observer:

“Yes, there are basic behavioural differences between the sexes, but we should note that these differences increase with age because our children’s intellectual biases are being exaggerated and intensified by our gendered culture. Children don’t inherit intellectual differences. They learn them. They are a result of what we expect a boy or a girl to be.“

The current popular stress on innate intellectual differences between the sexes is, in part, a response to psychologists’ emphasis of the environment’s importance in the development of skills and personality in the 1970s and early 1980s, said Eliot. This led to a reaction against nurture as the principal factor in the development of human characteristics and to an exaggeration of the influence of genes and inherited abilities. This view is also popular because it propagates the status quo, she added. “We are being told there is nothing we can do to improve our potential because it is innate. That is wrong. Boys can develop powerful linguistic skills and girls can acquire deep spatial skills.”

Dr. Eliot notes that “All the mounting evidence indicates these ideas about hard-wired differences between male and female brains are wrong…There is almost nothing we do with our brains that is hard-wired. Every skill, attribute and personality trait is moulded by experience.”

We’re happy to see neuroscientists taking on the pop psychology tropes that boys and girls or men and women are “hard-wired” to be so incredibly different from one another that they can’t be educated together or need to purchase junk science books to relate to one another. Once we can get put these gendered assumptions behind us, we can focus on the reality of the situation: that every person, regardless of gender, is different, and that there is far more that our brains have in common than not.

A Major Win for Marriage Equality is Intertwined With the Fight for Reproductive Autonomy

This week marked an enormous step forward for LGBT rights in the United States when Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker declared Proposition 8 – California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage – unconstitutional.

In his opinion, Judge Walker emphasized the irrelevance of one’s sex or gender in terms of relationship legitimacy and the ability to sustain a family.  Marriage in the United States has not been a static tradition, especially in terms of gender equity. According to Walker, breaking down inequities between men and women in heterosexual marriage serves as a precursor to same-sex marriage:

Relative gender composition aside, same-sex couples are situated identically to opposite-sex couples in terms of their ability to perform the rights and obligations of marriage under California law. … Gender no longer forms an essential part of marriage; marriage under law is a union of equals.

The overturn of Prop 8 is a victory not just for the LGBT community, but for supporters of reproductive rights as well. As Shira Saperstein writes:

Reproductive rights are about nothing less than the ability to chart one’s own course in life—to make decisions about love, sex, and family without government interference or discrimination. That ability is central to core American values of freedom, equality, and fairness.

In terms of American marriage, charting one’s own course in life is enmeshed with the decision to have (or not to have) children. A major argument in support of Prop 8 is the inability of same-sex couples to produce children through sexual intercourse, but this is an issue that realistically affects some heterosexual marriages as well. Linking the ability to procreate with the legitimacy of a relationship would, in effect, be declaring a significant number of opposite-sex marriages meaningless (not to mention backtracking considerably in terms of women’s roles in society).

Judge Walker addresses the procreation claim, saying, “Never has the state inquired into procreative capacity or intent before issuing a marriage license; indeed, a marriage license is more than a license to have procreative sexual intercourse.”

As Jessica Arons points out, much of Judge Walker’s decision is grounded in the interrelated nature of discrimination. He discusses the necessity of sex equality and sexual orientation equality as the foundation for marriage equality. He also strikes down the notion that same-sex couples are inferior parents, stating:

The evidence does not support a finding that California has an interest in preferring opposite-sex parents over same-sex parents. Indeed, the evidence shows beyond any doubt that parents’ genders are irrelevant to children’s developmental outcomes….Proposition 8 makes it less likely that California children will be raised in stable households….the evidence shows Proposition 8 disadvantages families and their children.

Jessica Arons says it well when she writes, “reproductive and sexual rights are integrally and intimately linked. When one is undermined so is the other. But when one is affirmed, the victory is doubly sweet.” The overturn of Proposition 8 is a great win in the ongoing fight for LGBT rights and reproductive justice.

Working Women, Happier Families

A recent report by the Pew Research Center has reignited the debate over gender roles within heterosexual marriages. Due to significant changes in educational and employment statistics between men and women, the economic roles between spouses is changing.

The study focuses on the correlation between education level and income among men and women (and husbands and wives) between 1970 and 2007. Women’s disproportionate gains have been characterized by gender role reversals both inside the home and out. A New York Times article points out that the effect this has on the stability of marriages is generally positive.

While the changing economic roles of husbands and wives may take some getting used to, the shift has had a surprising effect on marital stability. Over all, the evidence shows that shifts within marriages – men taking on more housework and women earning more outside the home – have had a positive effect, contributing to lower divorce rates and happier unions.

Additionally, the recession has forced many couples to respond to unexpected financial pressures by stepping out of traditional gender roles. As it is becoming less unusual for women to be primary breadwinners, the same is proving to be true for men staying home and caring for the home and children.

These changes, however, come with new challenges. Adopting new gender roles means giving up traditional responsibilities.

Men, for instance, sometimes have a hard time adjusting to women’s equal or greater earning power. Women, meanwhile, struggle with giving up their power at home and controlling tasks like how to dress the children or load the dishwasher.

Despite difficulties in adjusting, the blurring of traditional gender roles appears to have a positive overall effect. In marriages where husbands and wives share household and employment responsibilities the relationship is likely to be more egalitarian, and spouses tend to be happier.

Why the Current Health Care System Does Not Work for Women

The Department of Health and Human Services has released a report on how the health care system fails women. The report, also available in PDF version here, extensively and concisely details the many barriers women face in obtaining health care. A few findings:

Women’s reproductive health requires more regular contact with health care providers, including yearly pap smears, mammograms, and obstetric care.

Twenty-one million women and girls went without health insurance in 2007, and another 14 million relied on coverage through the individual insurance market.

Women are less likely to be employed full-time than men (52% versus 73%), making them less likely to be eligible for employer-based health benefits themselves. In fact, less than half of women have the option of obtaining employer-based coverage on their own.

Even when they work for an employee that offers coverage, one in six is not eligible to take it, often because they are part-time workers. They end up either covered through a spouse (41%), purchasing insurance directly through the individual market (5%), on public programs (10%), or uninsured (38%).

Important state and federal laws that protect individuals with employer-sponsored insurance do not apply to health insurance sold in the individual market.  These include anti-discrimination protections in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, as well as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”), which prohibits covered employers from charging different premiums or denying coverage based on age or health status.

In particular, women are often charged higher premiums than men during their reproductive years. Holding other factors constant, a 22 year old woman can be charged one and a half times the premium of a 22 year old man. This difference largely disappears – and sometimes reverses – by age 64.

In a recent national survey, more than half of women (52%) reported delaying or avoiding needed care because of cost, compared with 39% of men.

Women face a higher financial burden from medical care than men. Nearly one-third of women aged 50 to 64 are in households that have spent more than 10% of their income on health care, compared with one quarter of men of similar age.

None of these findings are surprising to women’s health advocates, but it is encouraging that the federal government is examining the gendered aspect of health care barriers. We hope these findings will serve as a guide to HHS when the department is working on a solution to the current health care crisis.

Via RHRealityCheck