Congress Holds Landmark Hearing on Transgender Rights

June 27, 2008— -- Congress held its first-ever hearing on transgender rights last week, courtesy of the House Subcommittee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

Rep. Rob Andrews, D-N.J., invited a panel of transgender individuals and advocates to offer testimony about what he called fundamental violations of civil rights in the workplace.

"I feel strongly that someone's presentation has nothing to do with how they do their job and I aspire to the time when the law will protect these people," Andrews said in his opening statement.

The June 26 hearing was Congress' first major look at lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender discrimination since November, when the House passed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., who's openly gay, had introduced a highly controversial amendment to the original bill that offered protections specifically for transgender men and women. House Democrats persuaded House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., the only other openly gay member of Congress, to strike the amendment so the bill would have enough votes to pass.

"So many elected leaders are afraid of the way the issue will be demagogued," Andrews said after Thursday's hearing. "There is a political risk in associating oneself with an unpopular group."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., had promised that the 110th Congress would return to the issue of gender identity injustice when the explicit language extending civil rights to transgender individuals was dropped.

It is difficult to calculate exactly how many transgender individuals live in the United States because of societal stigmas and the complexity of understanding and defining the condition. But the National Center for Transgender Equality estimates that the number of transgenders could range anywhere from a quarter of a percent to one percent of the U.S. population, or as many as 3 million people.Although 11 states and the District of Columbia have laws that prohibit discrimination based on gender identity, millions of transgender individuals remain largely unprotected from being fired with no legal recourse.

Col. Diane J. Shroer, a former airborne Ranger, testified that she accepted a job at the Library of Congress as a terrorism expert after retiring from the United States Army. When she told her boss she would be transitioning from "David" to "Diane," she was informed she would no longer be "a good fit" for the Library.