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Pa. Township Adopts Rights Law; TV Station Gets Prurient

Pa. Township Adopts Rights Law; TV Station Gets Prurient

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The municipal commission of Susquehanna Township, Pa., Thursday night adopted an ordinance banning discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity -- and one local TV station provided some transphobic coverage of the move.

The ordinance covers employment, housing, and public accommodations. It stipulates that a volunteer township human relations commission will hear complaints and mediate disputes, while forwarding some complaints to state agencies or local courts if necessary, The Patriot-News of Harrisburg reports.

State law does not cover discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and LGBT rights group Equality Pennsylvania is pushing for local ordinances to fill the gap. Susquehanna Township, in the central part of the state, is the 26th Pennsylvania municipality to enact such an ordinance.

While some media coverage of the action, like the report in The Patriot-News, was fairly straightforward, one Harrisburg TV station provided a bizarre and sensationalistic note. "The ordinance also makes it legal for men who think they're women, and also men who think they are women, known as transgenders, to use the women's/men's restroom in the township," reported WHP-TV, a CBS affiliate. The station's reporting spent a great deal of time on public restroom use -- including the possibility that some nontransgender men would don women's clothes in order to use women's restrooms for voyeuristic purposes.

In other news from Pennsylvania, Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter Friday signed an ordinance requiring that companies doing business with the city offer equal benefits to same-sex and opposite-sex spouses of their employees, as the city does for its workforce, Philadelphia Weekly reports. The City Council passed the ordinance last month.

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Trudy Ring

Trudy Ring is The Advocate’s senior politics editor and copy chief. She has been a reporter and editor for daily newspapers and LGBTQ+ weeklies/monthlies, trade magazines, and reference books. She is a political junkie who thinks even the wonkiest details are fascinating, and she always loves to see political candidates who are groundbreaking in some way. She enjoys writing about other topics as well, including religion (she’s interested in what people believe and why), literature, theater, and film. Trudy is a proud “old movie weirdo” and loves the Hollywood films of the 1930s and ’40s above all others. Other interests include classic rock music (Bruce Springsteen rules!) and history. Oh, and she was a Jeopardy! contestant back in 1998 and won two games. Not up there with Amy Schneider, but Trudy still takes pride in this achievement.
Trudy Ring is The Advocate’s senior politics editor and copy chief. She has been a reporter and editor for daily newspapers and LGBTQ+ weeklies/monthlies, trade magazines, and reference books. She is a political junkie who thinks even the wonkiest details are fascinating, and she always loves to see political candidates who are groundbreaking in some way. She enjoys writing about other topics as well, including religion (she’s interested in what people believe and why), literature, theater, and film. Trudy is a proud “old movie weirdo” and loves the Hollywood films of the 1930s and ’40s above all others. Other interests include classic rock music (Bruce Springsteen rules!) and history. Oh, and she was a Jeopardy! contestant back in 1998 and won two games. Not up there with Amy Schneider, but Trudy still takes pride in this achievement.