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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
-
• . ••
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