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06/01/2004: "Feelings, nothing more than feelings"
The state of civil rights law in the year of our Lord, 2004, according to Newsday:
A lawyer for a Queens landlord that was sued for alleged discrimination against transgendered people who used the wrong bathroom argued Wednesday that city and state laws did not apply at the time.
"The issue that caused a problem here was whether an anatomical male who feels more comfortable as a woman should be able to use the ladies' room," Emanuel Gold, the attorney for the owners of the Bruson Building in Jackson Heights, told a five-member panel of the state Supreme Court's Appellate Division. "The only thing we're saying ... is that, in the year 2000, the statute did not apply to gender identity."
But Edward Hernstadt, a lawyer for the plaintiff, the Hispanic AIDS Forum, said New York courts have consistently held that state anti-discrimination laws protect transgendered people.
The Hispanic AIDS Forum sued its former landlord in 2001, charging that its lease was not renewed because some of its transgendered clients were deemed to be using the wrong bathrooms and other tenants complained.
Hernstadt, who is working with the American Civil Liberties Union, responded, "A transgendered woman walking into the rest room belongs there. She is a woman."
A little question of definition here. An person who is anatomically (not to mention genetically-but there's nothing that can be done about that condition) male is not a woman. He may prefer to be one, he may want to be one, he may think he is one, but he is no more a woman than I'm a woodpecker, no matter how much I want to be one. Once he's had the surgery, and become at least somewhat anatomically female, we can talk about it. Until then, he should just deal with it, out of respect for the actually female half of the species.
Gold said the case should be dismissed because city and state anti-discrimination laws did not protect transgendered people in 2000. He noted that the New York City Council added gender identity to the city's anti-discrimination law in 2002 and the state Legislature has yet to do so.
So this is what the courtroom argument was over-what was the state of the law, circa 2000. Not, why exactly should anatomically male individuals have the right to use woman's restrooms, regardless of whether they "feel more comfortable as a woman." Not, shouldn't women have the right to use a restroom without having to wonder whether an physically (as opposed to psychologically) male person is sharing the facilities.
And not, what has become of common sense in some quarters.
