San Jose adopts gender-identity protection

Prompted by the recent slaying of transgendered teen Gwen Araujo in nearby Newark, Calif., the San Jose city council voted unanimously Tuesday to add transgendered people to the list of groups protected under the city's antidiscrimination policy, reports The [San Jose] Mercury News. Councilman Ken Yeager proposed changing San Jose's harassment policy after learning about the beating death of Araujo last month. Araujo was murdered when some men with whom she'd had sexual relations discovered she was biologically male. Members of the Bay Area Municipal Elections Committee, a gay and lesbian political advocacy group that Yeager cofounded in 1984, approached Yeager and Mayor Ron Gonzales about amending the city's antidiscrimination policy to add protections for gender identity. Current classes covered include race, color, ethnicity, national origin, disability, age, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, and religion.