from http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0211010270nov01,0,7648976.story?coll=chi%2Dnews%2Dhed (outdated link)
By Sabrina L. Miller
Tribune staff reporter
November 1, 2002
Lorraine Sade Baskerville says there was a
time when her presence as a transgender woman was enough to have
her thrown out of public places, arrested and beaten.
More than two decades later, Baskerville witnessed the fruits
of her struggle for acceptance and legal protection when the City
Council's Human Relations Committee recommended adding language
to the city's human rights ordinance that will protect transgender
and transsexual Chicagoans from discrimination. Transgender individuals
adopt a gender identity different than their physiological staus;
transsexuals undergo surgery to alter their gender.
Committee members, who unanimously
approved the addition, said it was long overdue and expected the
measure to pass at next Wednesday's City Council meeting.
"I'm sorry that it took so long for us to get this passed,"
said Ald. Mary Ann Smith (48th), a co-sponsor of the measure.
"It's long overdue and the right thing to do."
If it is passed by the full City Council, Chicago will join almost
50 other cities nationwide, including Dallas, New York and Philadelphia,
to add "gender identity" to civil rights laws protecting
the transgender and transsexual from housing, employment and credit
discrimination.
Baskerville, executive director of Transgenesis, a North Side
health and social service agency for transgender people, tearfully
told aldermen she was not seeking "special rights,"
but equal protection under the law.
"Today, I know that I am protected under the law as an African-American.
But my protection as a woman is uncertain. I have no protection
at all from those who would deny me as a `trans-woman,'"
Baskerville said. "Today I cannot file a complaint under
the human rights ordinance unless I fit into a certain category.
I'm not disabled. I'm not gay. I'm not a lesbian. But I have been
rejected from public accommodations because I am a `trans-woman.'"
Catherine Sikora, who identifies herself as a "non-operative
transsexual," told aldermen that the longer they waited to
pass the ordinance, the longer people would think it was acceptable
to discriminate against individuals like her.
"As long as mass media and popular culture portray gender-variant
people negatively ... then we as a society are saying it's acceptable
to do harm to this group," Sikora said. "Let's send
a message that we do not accept discrimination in our city."
Copyright © 2002, Chicago Tribune
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