As a transsexual, Justine Nicholas said she often feels like Nora in the last act of Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House.” This sense of isolation was only compounded after a security guard in Midtown demanded that she prove her gender after she walked out of a women’s restroom.

“I was born as an insider,” Nicholas, 46, said. “I lived the first 43 years of my life as a white heterosexual male and while I wasn’t fabulously wealthy, nobody questioned what restroom I used when I walked in.”

Nicholas, a teacher at the City University of New York, was among more than 60 activists, officials and legal experts at a forum at New York University on Tuesday, April 19, that discussed the implementation of law that amended the city’s Human Rights Law to include gender identity and expression as a protected category. The New York City Council overwhelmingly passed Local Law 3, which protects transgendered New Yorkers from housing, employment and public accommodation discrimination, in April 2002; Mayor Michael Bloomberg quickly signed it into law. The city’s Commission on Human Rights adopted these guidelines in December.

Michael Silverman, executive director of the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund, said these guidelines and amendments establish an important legal precedent. “There haven’t been many guidelines for gender identity and expression,” he said. “But when we added gender identity and expression to the city Human Rights Law, it was somewhat of a novelty under civil rights law.”

The TLDEF announced earlier this month that it had reached a settlement under the amended HRL after Nicholas and Pauline Park, co-chair of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy, filed complaints with the CHR. They alleged security guards did not allow them to access public restrooms. The settlements (the first since Local Law 3 took effect) constitute an important success, Silverman said: “Having success in cases like those is pressing some hot buttons.”

Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Lesbian & Gay Task Force, described the impact of Local Law 3 as “tremendous” and added that other municipalities across the country are looking at it as a model. “This is a monumental step forward,” Foreman said. “When you do something like this it affects 8 million people. And other cities look to New York and say, “If New York can do it then we can do it also.”

Councilmember Bill Perkins (D-Harlem), who sponsored the bill, said it was part of an ongoing civil rights struggle for the transgendered. “We are not talking just about human rights but a civil rights movement,” he said. “One of the most important things we have learned is that laws don’t change attitudes.”

Sen. Tom Duane (D-West Side) and Assemblymember Dick Gottfried (D-Hell’s Kitchen) have reintroduced a bill in Albany last week that seeks to extend legal protections to transgendered people statewide. NYAGRA, the Empire State Pride Agenda and a number of other gay advocacy groups have endorsed the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act. Gottfried said he hopes the bill will expand protections outlined in the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act. “The experience of transgender individuals and the discrimination they face is unique,” Gottfried said. “It should be specifically identified and unambiguously rejected in our state’s civil rights laws.”

Despite these ongoing legislative and legal efforts, CHR Deputy Commissioner Avery Mehlman said he is concerned that many transgendered New Yorkers are simply unaware that they are protected under the law. “When we speak with the transgender community we see discrimination everywhere,” he said. “But we don’t see the numbers coming down to the agency to file a complaint.”

But Nicholas said this was a first step: “The fact that such a law was passed caused people to realize that their own consciousness needs to be raised.”

This article originally appeared in the 22 April 2005 issue of the New York Blade News, which is now defunct.

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More than 2,000 people rallied for equal rights in front of the capitol building in Albany.

New Yorkers Lobby Albany for Equality and Justice Day in Record Numbers
Constituents urge lawmakers to pass three key bills this session
By Kat Long
New York Blade
5.1.2009

Riding the momentum of recent victories for gay equality in Iowa, Vermont, Washington D.C. and other states, Empire State Pride Agenda sponsored its annual Equality and Justice Day in Albany on April 28. Pride Agenda, the statewide LGBT civil rights advocacy group, organized the daylong series of meetings with state legislators as well as a noontime rally at the foot of the capitol building. More than 2,000 New Yorkers from all corners of the state took part—the largest turnout in the event’s history. The number presented a huge increase from the first E&J Day, when 400 people participated.

“We were very strategic in identifying the districts where we wanted to make sure we had a good attendance, and we had conference calls prior to E&J Day with the individuals who had signed up to come, so we could talk to them about just how important their stories were going to be,” said Alan Van Capelle, Pride Agenda’s executive director. “Those districts included places on Long Island and in the North Country and western and central New York, so that [support] literally came from around the state.”

The day’s program was focused on having small groups of constituents meet with their elected Senators and Assemblymembers to tell their personal stories, with an emphasis on the difference pro-gay laws could make in their lives.

Three major pieces of legislation of concern to LGBT New Yorkers have a chance of passage in this legislative session, which ends June 22: the marriage equality bill re-introduced by Gov. David Paterson last month; the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA); and the Dignity for All Students Act. (See related articles in this issue for analyses of each bill).

“Anytime we’ve won something from Albany it’s because we’ve told our stories to legislators,” Van Capelle said. “The biggest goal we had to was to get as many people together to tell their stories to our elected officials.”

The groups of amateur lobbyists included heads of major labor unions, CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, and everyone in between, Van Capelle said, which showed a depth and breadth of participation that hadn’t been seen in previous years.

For some E&J Day participants, it was their first chance to meet face-to-face with their elected representatives and make a personal investment in the democratic process. For others, this year offered a chance to lobby with the wind at their backs.

Pauline Park, chair of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA), told the Blade this was her eleventh year of lobbying in the capitol. She personally met with legislative directors for Senators Carl Kruger (D-Brooklyn), Joseph Addabbo, Jr. (D-Queens) and Hiram Monserrate (D-Queens), the latter from her own district.

“I felt it was especially important, as the chair of a statewide transgender advocacy organization, to meet with centrist Democrats who have not yet taken a clear position on legislation important to our community,” Park said. “It is precisely with Addabbo, Kruger and a few other moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans that we will find the votes to bring marriage, GENDA, and Dignity bills to the floor of the Senate and get them passed.”

Based on her meetings, Park felt that the Dignity for All Students Act would be the easiest of the three to pass, “as it is difficult for even the most homophobic or transgenderphobic politician to argue that kids should be subject to bullying in school.” She also had high hopes for GENDA based on polls that suggested most New Yorkers support laws banning discrimination, but felt marriage equality could be the biggest hurdle, based on feedback from legislators.

Van Capelle said that while we as voters have no control over which bills come up for votes first, it’s our responsibility to work the legislation we want to see made into law.

“This is a unique moment in our movement that did not happen by accident. We’ve worked for this moment, and we saw the fruits of it on Tuesday.”

He added, however, that E&J Day 2009 was the “starting point, not the finish line.”

This article originally appeared in the New York Blade on 1 May 2009; the Blade is now defunct.

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New Yorkers Join National Fight for Trans Equality
By Brett Krutzsch
NY Blade
Friday, May 18, 2007

Personal stories of harassment and discrimination were a uniting theme Tuesday night at the LGBT Center in Chelsea during a panel titled “Clock In/Speak Out: Gaining Momentum for Workplace Equality in New York and the U.S.”

Almost 50 people attended the discussion on transgender rights, sponsored by the LGBT legal advocacy group Lambda Legal. The debut program was one of seven flagship events across the country that took place on Tuesday to raise awareness for the  Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). Introduced in Congress on April 24, ENDA could make it illegal to fire, prevent promotion, or refuse to hire anyone based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

At Tuesday’s event, the panel discussed key issues facing the transgender community, including problems with the healthcare system, workplace discrimination, and harassment of transgender youth in New York City schools.

“As an American citizen, I can work just like anyone else,” said panelist Elizabeth Rivera, Program Coordinator of TransJustice at the Audre Lorde Project. Rivera, who is transgender, said it can be very difficult to get a job when you are in an “in-between state” of male and female.

New York is one of 17 states that ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. However, explicit statewide employment protection for transgender individuals does not exist.

Transgender youths are also at risk, and are not protected under New York State  law. Truman High School student Andy Santana, who identifies as “gender queer,” has been verbally and physically assaulted by other students, and said complaints to school officials have fallen on deaf ears. Santana said that when he was jumped by another student in a stairwell, “There was a security guard who saw me screaming, and walked away.”

“Fear of going to school harms people,” said Michael Silverman, executive director of the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund. “You are less likely to be hired if you don’t have the skill set you need.”

Panel moderator and chair of the New York Association for Gender Rights and Advocacy (NYAGRA), Pauline Park, said that, “Since so many transgender people are forced out of high school, they don’t go to college. It’s no surprise that so many transgender people are forced into sex work or extremely low-paying work.”

Santana’s experience at Truman High School in the Bronx captured the attention of the audience and became a focal point for much of the evening.

“Gay bashing definitely happens,” Santana said. “Gay and transgender students in my school get their names posted on a wall by other kids. After a student gets jumped, their name gets crossed off.”

Park said her group has sponsored trainings related to transgender issues at Truman High School, but, “The principal has been hostile since day one,” and that the “Department of Education doesn’t do anything to take these issues seriously.”

Hayley Gorenberg, the deputy legal director of Lambda Legal, wanted the audience to know that transgender people can still take cases to court in states such as New York where there aren’t specific laws to protect transgender individuals.

“People are discriminated against all the time without knowing we have tools to fight,” she said.

The evening ended with a call to action. People were encouraged to sign a petition in support of ENDA. Everyone was also given information about New York State’s Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) that would protect against discrimination based on gender identity and gender expression in employment, housing, credit, public accommodations and education. Those present were given phone numbers of State Assembly members on the Codes Committee who will be voting on the issue.

Marcy Farrell, who volunteers with the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, said that panel gave “all of us enough courage to be public about our transgenderness and to advocate for understanding, to be seen as human beings, despite our gender issues.”

Maurice Harrison, who was also in the audience, wished that the event could have been held somewhere other than the LGBT Center. “We have problems with the heterosexual community,” Harrison said. “And they have no idea about these meetings.”

Leslie Gabel-Brett, director of education and public Affairs at Lambda Legal, said she hopes Santana’s and others’ stories “raise visibility of transgender issues, and generate more activism on the state and national level.”

As Santana said before the panel ended, “If I had transferred out of the school, I would have shown my bashers that they had won.”

Now Santana’s story is inspiring others to fight for transgender individuals.

This article originally appeared in the New York Blade on 18 May 2007; the Blade is now defunct.

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I’d like to begin by thanking Eileen Novack and everyone else who helped put this event together, as well as the Rev. Paul Ratzlaff and the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Huntington for hosting the second Transgender Day of Remembrance here on Long Island. I’m honored to be asked to speak again as I was at last year’s event and I’m especially honored to be in such distinguished company, with Suffolk County Majority Leader Jon Cooper, with Donna Riley of Long Island Trans Experience (LITE) and with Juli Owens of the Long Island Transgender Advocacy Coalition (LITAC).

The work of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy is and has always been about collaborating with and supporting the great work of organizations such as LITE, LIFE, LITAC, and LIGALY. NYAGRA is also proud to work with supportive people of faith such as Pastor Paul and the members of the UU Fellowship of Huntington. NYAGRA’s legislative agenda includes advancing the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) and the Dignity for All Students Act (DASA) in the state legislature as well as working on implementation of the New York City Dignity in All Schools Act and the New York City transgender rights law (Int. No. 24, enacted as Local Law 3 of 2002). We’re also working with the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund (TLDEF) to try to persuade the New York City Department of Health to revise its proposed new regulation on change of legal sex designation on birth certificates for transsexual and transgendered people.

On a solemn occasion such as this, when we remember those we have lost to violence and hate, it is important to understand precisely what legislation and law can and cannot do. Non-discrimination laws can help protect us from discrimination, but they cannot eliminate discrimination. Hate crimes laws can help reduce hate crimes against transgendered people — at least those that include gender identity and expression, unlike the hate crimes law enacted by the New York state legislature in 2000 — but hate crimes laws cannot eliminate hate crimes.

We must recognize that law is an important but a weak tool of social change. To give you just one example that illustrates my point, let me mention the inclusion of sexual orientation to Ecuador’s constitution. When Ecuadorian activists were successful in getting sexual orientation added to their national constitution, it was a testament to their commitment to equality under law. But because there was no campaign to undergird that constitutional provision by educating the public on issues of sexual orientation, the addition of that provision did not substantially improve the lives of lesbian, gay and bisexual Ecuadorians, who still face pervasive discrimination and police brutality in Ecuador. Without public support, legal change — whether through legislation, litigation, or even constitutional amendment — cannot alone fundamentally alter the reality of our lives as LGBT people. It is only through a change of hearts and minds, as the catch-phrase goes, that we can substantially change the grim reality that greets many members of our community as they try to make their way in a still-hostile society.

But what law can do is to send a signal to those who would commit discrimination and hate crimes. In addition to providing legal recourse to the victim, law sends a signal to a potential perpetrator as to what society finds acceptable or unacceptable, and so enactment of transgender-inclusive statutes can powerful influence the governing discourse of social relations with regard to how to treat transgendered and gender-variant people.

NYAGRA’s philosophy is to view law as a tool to educate the public as well as a means of providing transgendered and gender-variant people with legal redress. Just as we must pursue legal change — such as the addition of gender identity and expression to Nassau County human rights law — to protect transgendered and gender-variant people from discrimination, we must use legislation and litigation to educate the public so that members of the public understand the pervasive discrimination and violence that transgendered and gender-variant people still face, even in those cities, counties and states with transgender-inclusive non-discrimination and hate crimes laws.

The challenge for us is not only a political challenge of getting legislation through city councils, county and state legislatures, and Congress; it is also the challenge of winning the hearts and minds of our family members, friends, neighbors, colleagues, and fellow citizens. And so our task must be viewed in spiritual terms. It is therefore especially appropriate that we commemorate the Transgender Day of Remembrance here. But just as spirituality cannot be contained within the walls of a church — even one as welcoming and wonderful as this one — our task is to take the spirit of remembrance from this sanctuary out to every city and town on Long Island and beyond. In remembrance of all those we have lost to violence and hate, let us join together in re-committing ourselves to that task. Thank you.

Pauline Park is chair of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA).

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In 2009, Sen. Hiram Monserrate was convicted on a misdemeanor charge of assaulting his girlfriend, Karla Giraldo.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Pauline Park
OutPOCPAC co-president
paulinepark@earthlink.net
Doug Robinson
OutPOCPAC co-president
doug@outpocpac.org
New York, NY, January 21, 2010 – The Out People of Color Political Action Club (OutPOCPAC) today endorsed the unanimous report of the New York State Senate’s Special Committee of Inquiry on Sen. Hiram Monserrate (chaired by Sen. Eric T.Schneiderman, D-Manhattan) recommending expulsion for the senator convicted last year of a misdemeanor charge of assaulting his girlfriend. A New York City-based non-partisan political club for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) people of color, OutPOCPAC joins the National Organization for Women-New York State (NOW-NYS) and a host of other civil rights and social justice organizations in calling on members of the New York State Senate to vote for the expulsion of Senator Monserrate (D-Queens).

“Hiram Monserrate’s conviction for domestic violence, his leading role in thecoup that upended the State Senate last June, and his vote against the marriage equality bill in December are each in themselves sufficient reason for OutPOCPACto repudiate him,” said Doug Robinson, co-president of OutPOCPAC. “Taken together, these constitute a compelling reason for members of the Senate toexpel him from that body.”Monserrate was elected in November 2008 to represent the 13th Senate district in western Queens and took office in January 2009; in June, he joined Sen. Pedro Espada of the Bronx in fomenting a ‘coup’ that effectively suspended action inthe Senate for 30 days, preventing votes on legislation that would recognizesame-sex marriage as well as on the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) and the Dignity for All Students Act (DASA) — the LGBT community of New York’s three top legislative priorities. GENDA is a state transgender non-discrimination bill currently pending in the Senate and DASA is a safe schools bill also pending in the Senate; both have been approved by the Assemblybut have yet to get a vote in the Senate.

“I would like to see the 13th Senate district represented by a Senator who embodies integrity and respect for women,” said Pauline Park, OutPOCPAC co-president and a resident of the 13th district. “Hiram Monserrate is guilty of violence against the woman who is his partner and consorted with the most corrupt member of the state Senate to undermine the elected leadership of that body,” Park added. “And in voting against the marriage equality bill in December, he betrayed his stated commitment to support full equality for LGBT New Yorkers as well as his own record on LGBT rights as a City Council member.”

The Coalition for Morality’s poster calling on members to thank Hiram Monserrate for voting against the marriage equality bill.

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Gov. David Paterson, Pauline Park of NYAGRA & Michael Silverman of the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund (TLDEF)
(photo courtesy of Michael K. Lavers)

On Dec. 16, Gov. David Paterson signed an executive order (Executive Order No. 33) prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity or expression in state employment.

As the chair of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA), I was invited to join the governor on the dais along with a number of other activists as well as elected officials. And I was invited to make a statement on behalf of NYAGRA that was included in the press release issued by the governor’s office announcing the executive order. The New York Times broke the story of the executive order the day before the signing ceremony. Several media outlets covered the event. Gay journalist and blogger Michael K. Lavers filed a report about the executive order for Edge Boston as well as on his own Boy in Bushwick site.

Gov. Paterson with Pauline Park
(photo courtesy of Laura Vogel)

Here is the text of the press release from the governor’s office quoting me:

Pauline Park, Chair of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA), said: “Governor Paterson has taken an important step in helping members of the transgender community secure full legal equality under state law in New York, and we applaud him for this historic executive action. In extending protections from discrimination based on gender identity or expression in State employment, the Governor creates momentum for enactment of the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA). We in NYAGRA call on the State Senate to follow the Governor’s lead and take action on GENDA now.

(NYAGRA is a co-founding member of the GENDA Coalition, which is coordinated by Ejay Carter, the transgender rights program organizer at the Empire State Pride Agenda.)

The governor with Pauline Park at the signing ceremony.
(photo courtesy of Michael K. Lavers)

Gov. Paterson should be commended for taking this important step.  It’s now up to the New York State Senate to pass GENDA so that all transgendered and gender-variant New Yorkers are protected from discrimination under state law.

8.13.25: update:  the former governor endorsed NewYork City Mayor Eric Adams for re-election, shattering the regard I once had for David Paterson; I can’t see any legitimate reason for him endorse the most incompetent and corrupt mayor in this city’s history but pride I once felt in meeting the former governor and participating in the event at which he announced the signing of his executive order has vanished; David Paterson is a shadow of his former self, which in all honesty wasn’t all that much to write home about; he was a mediocre governor at best & the small steps he took on behalf of LGBTQ rights were virtually his only achievements as governor (Kelly Mena, “Paterson backs Adams as Mamdani faces hostile reception on Staten Island,” NY1, 8.14.25).

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