On Dec. 14, the New Jersey Senate passed a bill that prohibits discriminatory practices against transgender people in employment, housing and public accommodations.
Reflecting a growing consciousness and the organized efforts of the transgender equality movement and its allies,
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This modest, yet important legal victory reflects changing attitudes amongst the population of the country on issues of transgender equality, in particular, and LGBT liberation in general.
It is no coincidence that on the same day, the New Jersey legislation also passed a comprehensive civil union bill. While falling short of declaring same-sex marriage equality, the bill, unlike other civil union legislation, made no reference to marriage being defined as a union between a man and a woman.
Commenting on the significance of the transgender equality law, Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality said, “The legislation in New Jersey represents a huge civil rights victory for transgender communities.”
Keisling put the victory in perspective. She stated, “While we celebrate that one-third of the U.S. population is now covered, NCTE continues to fight for explicitly transgender-inclusive protections on the federal level.”
Social movements force change
Both New Jersey laws reflect how the impact of social movements from below change the consciousness of society, which is reflected legal and institutional changes. From pre-Stonewall LGBT organizations like the Daughters of Bilitis and the Mattachine Society, to Gay Liberation Front of the 1970s, to ACT UP of 1980s, to today’s LGBT organizations it has been the mass mobilization of millions of people who refused to accept bigotry and discrimination that changed how society has treated the LGBT community.
The present advances in transgender equality come on the heels of past struggles by the LBGT community. The struggle in the 1970s to declassify homosexuality as a mental illness, the fight to defend lesbian mothers’ rights to keep their children, the demand for non-discrimination clauses based on sexual orientation in union contracts and governmental practices, the struggle for domestic partner benefits, and the struggle for marriage equality are part of a historic movement that has overturned the unrealistic and bigoted view of human sexuality and the family.
The U.S. ruling class wants to keep all people straight-jacketed in the repressive “Leave It to Beaver” family and sexual confines of the 1950s. But the economic reality of today has made that rigid family model outmoded and incapable of meeting needs of working-class families.
No laws or referendums that try to define marriage as a heterosexual union can stop the tide of social change.
According to a poll conducted in 2006 for Garden State Equality, a same-sex marriage equality advocacy group, people in New Jersey favor marriage equality by 56 to 39 percent. This echoes a multitude of polls reflecting a continuing shift in favor of LGBT and marriage equality rights.
The passage of the New Jersey bill outlawing discrimination against transgender people will be another indication of this progressive trend.
