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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 18, 1996)
ju s t out ▼ o c to b o r 18. 1 0 9 6 ▼ 13 local news G&M Automotive PDX Automotive 6006 E Burnside, Portland 231-8486 5934 N E Halsey, Portland 282-3315 Heard at last Transsexuals in Portland are on the verge o f securing basic civil rights by Inga Sorensen T • • he Metropolitan Human Rights Com During the hearings, supporters shared tales of harassment, and voiced frustration with the insur mission has voted unanimously to rec ommend the inclusion of “transsexu ance industry for denying coverage for sex-reas als and other sexual minorities” in signment surgery. A female-to-male transsexual Portland’s human rights ordinance. testified he had been fired from a job in Portland The recommendation comes on the heels of his employer learned he was a transsexual. after Others fact-finding hearings held in late March and April talked about being the victims of anti that were designed to assess the level of discrimi transsexual violence. nation against those populations in Portland. Cheek says, “While some of that testimony “I burst into tears when they voted unani did not pertain to our mandate, it was important to mously,” transsexual rights activist Margaret hear that testimony in order for us to get a sense of Deirdre O’Hartigan told Just Out the morning how far-reaching the problem may be.” after the Oct. 8 vote. “I cried because I’m always She says the commission’s report and recom stunned when people actually hear us.” mendation will be forwarded to Portland City Last January, O ’Hartigan requested that the Commissioner Gretchen Kafoury, who will de Portland City Council extend civil rights protec cide whether to take the proposal to the City tions to transsexuals by amending the city’s Civil Council. Rights Code, which currently covers several cat That has O’Hartigan nervous. egories including sexual orientation. “Actually, I’m terrified that Gretchen Kafoury The MHRC hearings were the immediate re is handling this,” she says. “When I first started sult of that request. Nearly 30 people submitted talking about [amending the code to include trans oral or written testimony; 11 people testified they sexuals], Helen Cheek was open to the idea, but had personally experienced or witnessed discrimi Kafoury’s office nixed it. I was told by [former nation against transsexuals in employment, hous Kafoury aide] Ben Merrill that they had spoken ing or public accommodations in Portland. with other commissioners and decided they didn’t An MHRC report states that while the data want to give the OCA any more ammunition.” compiled from the hearings is “insufficient to Kafoury admits she questioned whether clearly establish” whether there is a “system or O’Hartigan’s timing was prudent. pattern” of discrimination in Portland against trans “When this idea was first brought up, the sexuals, the testimony about broader discrimina Oregon Citizens Alliance was circulating peti tion and harassment was enough to convince com tions [for another anti-gay initiative],” she says. mission members to recommend that transsexuals “I wondered whether it was wise to do that then, be covered by the city Civil Rights Code. and I asked Margaret whether she could delay “This has been a real learning experience for this. That was the issue for me. Luckily the OCA many members of the commission,” says MHRC seems to have dissolved under its own weight.” Executive Director Helen Cheek. “Prior to this, When Just Out spoke with Kafoury she had not seen the final MHRC report, and thus could many of us didn’ t know a whole lot about transsexu als and the problems they encounter. We heard these not comment on it. heart-rending stories about how they have been Cheek, meanwhile, says three cities— San mistreated by family, employers, the insurance and Francisco, Minneapolis and Seattle— include medical communities. There clearly is a lot of transsexuals in city civil rights codes, as does the harassment and discrimination going on out there.” state of Minnesota. BOLI will investigate transsexuals’ discrimination claims An official with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, the agency charged with enforcing state anti-discrimination statutes, says BOLI will immediately begin accepting discrimination claims based on transsexualism. BOLI had been under fire from some critics, including transsexual activist Margaret Deirdre O’Hartigan, who blasted the agency for its prior refusal to investigate such claims. During a Metropolitan Human Rights Com mission hearing this spring, O ’Hartigan testified that BOLI had failed to enforce the law when it declined to investigate transsexuals’ claims of discrimination in employment. “In the past, they failed to investigate our complaints on the basis that we were not a pro tected class,” she said. “But in fact we fall under the state’s disability statutes. How can we expect to be treated fairly when an agency whose job is to protect us refuses to uphold the law?” O’Hartigan then presented MHRC members with a 16-page report detailing BOLI’s alleged misconduct. During those heari " es another trans- says Marcia Ohlemiller, a BOLI legal policy advisor. “We’ll handle those claims the way we do all the others.” According to Ohlemiller, BOLI officials took a close look at relevant legal cases and the state disability statute, which was approved in the 1970s and bars employers from discriminating against a person due to a physical or mental impairment. The law also bans discrimination in public accommodations based on one’s physical or mental impairment. Additionally, it prohibits discrimination if the person is simply regarded as having a physical or mental impairment. Some transsexuals, O’Hartigan among them, say disability statutes clearly apply to them. For ammunition, they point to the American Psychi atric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual o f Mental Disorders, which classifies transsexuals as having a mental disorder. According to Ohlemiller, the Americans with Disabilities Act, a federal disability law passed in 1990, specifically excludes transsexuals from its protections. But she says an earlier federal statute, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, does not. “And we at BOLI, after looking at the legisla tive history involving the state law, concluded that the state statute was really fashioned on the Rehabilitation Act,” she savs, “Now ;o up to - • . •• *Meehan ics with a Conscience1 CERTIFIED MECHANICS Complete automotive service of foreign and domestic cars and light trucks Free ride to M A X Gerard Lillie Todd Connelly Proudly Serving The Greater Portland Metro Area 503 / 286-1330 1 L O W ' E R ; P A B A Located in Historic St. Johns 8 3 0 2 N. 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