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I im i'iï\mnews
rically opposite to admonitions in the Bible,”
she wrote. “T his mission is founded on bibli
cal principles, and we cannot give a public
forum to a public official who is blatantly
flaunting those principles.”
Kolbe, who came out in 1996, downplayed
the snub. He indicated in a statement that he
didn’t want the controversy to undermine the
essence of Thanksgiving.
“God made many diverse people in his
image,” Kolbe wrote. “Judeo-Christian tradition
tells us that no people should be made to feel
smaller than others.”
CONNECTICUT
n p he C onnecticut Commission on Human
à. Rights and O pportunities ruled last
month that the state laws prohibiting sex dis
crim ination include transgendered
people within those protec
tions. T h e ruling came
in response to a
request for a decla-
tory ruling filed
by Stamford at
torney
Bruce
Goldberg.
“T h is is
very important
decision
for
tra n sg e n d e re d
people,
who
have historically
been excluded from
many civil rights pro
tections,” said Jennifer
Levi, Gay &. Lesbian Advo
cates &. Defenders staff attorney. “T h e
commission’s ruling takes note o f the still-
pervasive discrimination that many people
face simply because they do not meet society’s
stereotype o f what people th in k a ‘real
woman’ or a ‘real m an’ should look like. This
decision affirms the recent trend correcting
the historical error of excluding transgen
dered people from our laws.”
T h e decision relies, in part, on a 1989 U .S.
Supreme Court case in which A nn Hopkins,
an associate at the accounting firm o f Price
W aterhouse, was denied partnership because
she was considered too masculine, m acho and
aggressive. T h e commission’s ruling recog
nizes that the form of discrimination many
transgendered people face also is grounded in
enforcing sex stereotypes, a practice harmful
to all people.
T h e ruling clarifies that transgendered
people may bring claims of sex discrimination
and defines transsexual people to include a
broad range o f individuals who do not co n
form to gender stereotypes regardless of
whether they have or intend to have surgery.
T h e ruling also includes intersexed people—
for exam ple, people who are horn with
ambiguous genitalia or chromosomal ambigu
ity found in people with Androgen Insensitiv
ity Syndrome, Klinefelter’s Syndrome and
Turner’s Syndrome.
PENNSYLVANIA
S
overeign Bancorp, a $35 billion financial
institution headquartered in Wyomissing,
Pa., has reconsidered a plan to roll back
domestic partner benefits for its New England
employees and announced it would extend
them companywide. T h e decision came after
Kim 1. Mills, Human Rights Campaign edu
cation director, wrote to C E O Jay S. Sidhu,
detailing why such benefits are a low-cost
means o f attracting and keeping the best
employees.
“This is excellent news and another sign that
domestic partner benefits are good business,”
she said. “Sovereign has shown great leadership
by being willing to re-examine its initial deci
sion and then reversing it because it was the
right thing to do.”
H R C has found only two U .S. companies
that ever have rescinded domestic partner
benefits: Perot Systems Inc. in 1998 and
ExxonM obil Corp. in 1999. Neither has rein
stated the benefits, even though their major
competitors offer them.
In O ctober, H R C obtained a copy o f a
benefits brochure sent to Sovereigns New
England employees stating: “Beginning in
2001, eligible dependents for Flex Benefits
will be limited to a team member’s spouse and
dependent children. If you currently cover a
domestic partner or other adult dependent,
you may continue coverage for that individ
ual. However, future dependents will be cov
ered under the new guidelines.”
T h e reason given for all benefit changes
outlined was that the company needed
to manage the costs of rising health
care. “Eliminating an inexpen
sive perquisite to save money
rings hollow, especially since
Sovereign recently posted a
51 percent increase in third-
quarter cash earnings, among
other positive results during
this market downturn,” Mills
wrote.
Jo h n H am ill, Sovereign
Bank New England chairman,
called Mills on Nov. 17 to say
the company had decided to
reverse its initial position.
GEORGIA
he Mary-Helen Mautner Project for Les
bians with Cancer kicked off its 10th year
of fighting tobacco use by participating in the
first National G L B T Forum on Tobacco Pre
vention and Control on Nov. 8 and 9 in
Atlanta.
"Tobacco is a killer, and our community
smokes at significantly higher rates than the
general population,” said Mautner Project
executive director Kathleen DeBold, who
attended the forum. “It is especially alarming
that G L B T youth— the future of our move
ment— are lighting up in unprecedented num
bers. T h e good news coming out of this forum
is that there is a growing network of G LB T
activists and health professionals dedicated to
helping us stop.”
T h e goal of the forum was to provide tan
gible recommendations for reducing tobacco
use among youth, increasing quit rates among
smokers and reducing exposure to second
hand smoke. It was organized by the Am eri
can Legacy Foundation, an independent pub
lic health organization that has desig
nated the queer community as one
o f five priority popu
lations in the bat
tie to decrease
tob acco c o n
sumption.
“Wh en
you work at a
project serv
ing lesbians
with
cancer,
the devastation
caused by smoking
is self-evident,” De-
Bold said. “But for the G L B T population in
general, smoking can seem like the least of
our worries. Our challenge now is to change
that perception.’
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