Palm Beach County Votes to End Transgender Discrimination

The Palm Beach County, Fla., board of commissioners voted Tuesday to prohibit discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations based on gender identity or expression, according to a press release from the Palm Beach County Human Rights Council, a local nonprofit organization dedicated to ending discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.

Jeff Koons, board vice chairman, initiated the proposal to amend the county's Equal Employment Ordinance and Fair Housing Ordinance at the request of the Human Rights Council. In late May, council president Rand Hoch requested that Koons take the lead in urging the county commissioners to amend the two nondiscrimination ordinances. "No one should be fired, harassed, or denied promotion simply because they don't fit the stereotypes for masculinity or femininity," Hoch told Koons at the time, according to the release.

Koons, a longtime advocate for equal rights, initially raised the issue with the county commissioner at a meeting held on September 11. The commissioners formally voted to direct staff to amend the two ordinances to include "gender identity or expression" at their October 2 meeting. In the weeks that followed, assistant county attorney Tammy Fields, with input from the Human Rights Council, drafted the amendments that were adopted at Tuesday's meeting. "For the third time this year, elected officials in Palm Beach County have acted promptly to bring an end to legal discrimination," said Hoch in the statement.

With almost 1.3 million people, Palm Beach County will become one of the nation's largest jurisdictions to prohibit discrimination against transgender persons. "Based on estimates from the National Center for Transgender Equality, between 5,000 and 10,000 people in Palm Beach County are living as members of the opposite gender," said Heather Wright, who transitioned from male to female seven years ago, in the statement.

Last month, at the request of the Human Rights Council, Rep. Kelly Skidmore of Boca Raton introduced legislation that would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression throughout Florida. More than 10% of the members of the Florida house of representatives -- including local state representatives Mary Brandenburg, Susan Bucher, Richard Machek, Maria Sachs, Priscilla Taylor, and Shelley Vana -- have already signed on as cosponsors of Skidmore's antidiscrimination bill.

In over 90 U.S. cities and counties it is now illegal to discriminate based on gender identity or expression. Thirteen states (California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington) and the District of Columbia have enacted laws prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity or expression. (The Advocate)