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Health & Fitness

Jim Splaine: Portsmouth Starts Transgender Equality

This past Monday on a very cold late winter night, the Portsmouth City Council voted 9 to 0 to adopt a resolution directing our City Manager to provide a non-discrimination hiring policy for transgender citizens.  It also calls on New Hampshire to adopt transgender protections statewide.  

In 1993, during a very warm mid-summer evening, the Portsmouth City Council considered an ordinance that would have provided for protections for our gay and lesbian citizens.  Generally, it would have prohibited discrimination due to sexual orientation in city employment, and ask that businesses provide similar protections. 

Portsmouth would have been the first community in the state to adopt such protections.  It was defeated 5 to 4, but led to wider discussion statewide, resulting in sexual orientation being added to N.H.'s civil rights statutes in 1997 in legislation signed by Gov. Jeanne Shaheen.

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Currently, 17 states have protections for transgender individuals, including all New England states except N.H.  Our state has been a national leader standing with our gay and lesbian residents, but as yet has not stood with our transgender citizens.  But that can change, and I trust it will.

I've had the unique perspective of being able to see first-hand the evolution of these issues through the years.  I was Portsmouth Assistant Mayor in 1993 when I unsuccessfully proposed the ordinance for gay and lesbian protections, and while holding that position again this past Monday I watched unanimous passage of the resolution for transgender non-discrimination.

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As a N.H. State Representative, I watched passage of the 2007 Civil Unions bill followed just two years later by the marriage equality law.  I've seen our local and state leaders come from divided indifference, sometimes facing hostile criticism and hateful remarks, to become strong committed advocates for equality.  That is something of which we should all be proud.   

The fight continues nationally on issues of discrimination against gay and lesbian people, and transgender individuals.  In the nation of "...with liberty and justice for all," we still have a long way to go. 

Every city and town should join Portsmouth in adopting resolutions of support for our transgender individuals, and call on our legislators and governor to act.  The wave of support for equality will eventually win out, and is impossible to stop once it rolls.  It often takes a long time, and it's a hard fight. 

But it is a fight worth waging, and it has to be won.   Because on this planet, there is nothing more important than the way we treat each other. 

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