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Compiled by GayToday
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The Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities ruled late
last week that the state laws prohibiting sex discrimination include
transgender people within those protections.
The ruling came in response to a request for declaratory ruling filed by Stamford attorney Bruce
Goldberg. Jennifer Levi, staff attorney for Gay & Lesbian Advocates &
Defenders (GLAD) drafted a brief in support of the request that was filed
by a coalition of supporters including GLAD, the Connecticut Coalition
for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Civil Rights, Connecticut
Women's Education and Legal Fund, Human Rights Campaign, National Center
for Lesbian Rights, Female-to-Male International, and Gender Public
Advocacy Coalition.
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 Ladylike Magazine addresses the issues of the transgendered community |
Jennifer Levi commented:
"This is a very important decision for transgender people who have historically
been excluded from many civil rights protections. The Commission's ruling takes
note of the still pervasive discrimination that many people face simply because they do not
meet society's stereotype of what people think a 'real woman' or a 'real
man' should look like. This decision affirms the recent trend correcting
the historical error of excluding transgender people from our laws."
The decision relies, in part, on a 1989 United States Supreme Court case
in which Ann Hopkins, an associate at the accounting firm of Price
Waterhouse was denied partnership because many of the partner's opposed
her candidacy on the grounds that she was too masculine, macho, and
aggressive.
In that case, the Supreme Court explained that enforcing sex
stereotypes is sex discrimination. The Commission's ruling recognizes that
the form of discrimination many transgender people face is also grounded
in enforcing sex stereotypes, a practice harmful to all people.
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The ruling clarifies that transsexual people may bring claims of sex
discrimination and defines transsexual people to include a broad range of
individuals who do not conform to gender stereotypes regardless of whether
or not they have or intend to have surgery.
The ruling also includes intersexed people, for example people who are
born with ambiguous genitalia or chromosomal ambiguity found in persons with Androgen
Insensitivity Syndrome, Klinefelter's Syndrome and Turner's Syndrome.
As the Commission explained:
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Ladylike Magazine
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"[I]n reaching this conclusion, our intent is to
see that justice is done for each individual--transsexual or
nontranssexual, male or female, straight or gay, black or white, rich or
poor--so as to recognize each person as a unique and valued member of our
great human family."
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