Good news, via Transgriot: on Monday night, the city of Cleveland unanimously passed an ordinance protecting residents against many forms of discrimination based on gender identity and gender expression:
The ordinance approved Monday night expands the city’s existing anti-bias laws to bar businesses from denying jobs or housing to people because of their gender identity or gender expression.
It’s the council’s latest step meant to show that Cleveland is a tolerant city. The city was recently rewarded for those efforts by being named the host city for the 2014 Gay Games, an international sports festival.
A big congratulations to the local trans activists who worked for this. And good for the city of Cleveland — it’s much too common for those attempting to display “tolerance” towards LGBT people to forget the “T” on the acronym. The unanimous vote is also particularly heartening.
Unfortunately, the ordinance doesn’t cover everything. For example, it doesn’t protect a trans person’s right to use the the public restroom or locker room that fits (or in some cases, best fits) their gender identity. As these are significant areas of discrimination against trans people, as well as sites of potential violence, it was a big oversight. Council members say that they may attempt to expand the ordinance accordingly next year; we’ll just have to see whether or not they live up to that.
But despite the shortcomings, the protections just passed in Cleveland are sadly a lot better than those offered to most transgender Americans. Only 13 states and D.C., as well as just over 100 cities and counties, have laws prohibiting any kind of discrimination on the basis of gender identity. And it should go without saying that many of those laws that do exist are incomplete. So whenever these kinds of local protections pass, joyous occasions though they most certainly are, it should also be a reminder of the work that is being done by activists at a federal level, and the fact that such work also desperately needs to be supported.