Senate Testimony on SB1044

I apologize for the long post, but I felt it is important to see what some of the concerns were for the bill and how they were addressed. Even though I believe that their concerns are groundless we must address them for in their minds they are valid points of concern. We must show them that their fears are without basis this law has been in effect in numerous states and municipalities since 1975 the first city to do so was Minneapolis, MN and the first state was Minnesota in 1993. You will find that none of these states or municipalities have had any problems with teachers or students.

Here are excerpts from the testimony on SB1044, you can read the complete testimony here, and then use “Find” 1044 to get to the testimony on the bill.

The senators…
Senator McDonald (D) sponsored the bill in the Senate and is the Co-Chair of the Judicial Committee.
Senator Cappiello (R) was one of the sponsors who sponsored an amendment to exclude teachers from the bill.
Senator Kissel (R) is the ranking minority member on the Judicial Committee.

…SEN. CAPPIELLO:

Thank you, Mr. President. If I may, through you, I have a few questions to Senator McDonald.

THE CHAIR:

Please proceed, Sir.

SEN. CAPPIELLO:

Thank you, Mr. President. Senator McDonald, first of all, I would like to say I completely understand and appreciate the intent of this bill and, in most circumstances, would support it fully. But I do have one concern, and that's where my questions will lie.

Through you, Mr. President, if a school teacher in the second grade decides, for whatever reason, whether they are confused, whether they have an intention on changing genders, or they would just like to express themselves in a different manner, can someone, say, Mr. Jones, come into class and choose to dress like a woman? And would that be protected under this bill?

THE CHAIR:

Senator McDonald.

SEN. MCDONALD:

Well, through you, Mr. President, I guess I would at first take issue with some of the choice of words by Senator Cappiello. I don't believe that this is a confusion issue at all. As I indicated in my initial comments, this is an issue that goes to the heart of how an individual understands their life to be.

It's not a matter of confusion at all. It's a core element of their being. But having taken issue with the confusion component of Senator Cappiello's question, let me say that the issue of a school teacher in an elementary setting, or in any setting, is one that we considered.

And I would answer the question in this way. A teacher, or any individual who is in this circumstance, doesn't do anything precipitously or in a cavalier manner. In fact, it is a gut-wrenching process.

And oftentimes, these individuals have to deal with an incredibly complicated set of circumstances, factual, professional, personal, and emotional. And oftentimes, Mr. President, this issue is a life or death issue for transgendered individuals.

In fact, some individuals have only come to this conclusion that they must go through gender reassignment surgery in order to avoid suicide.

So I think it's important to understand that this is a much deeper issue than a choice. It is a much more profound issue than a choice.

And I think, as I said in the Education Committee, the issue of a teacher who is going through this circumstance would have clearly not only taken into consideration his or her personal life and his or her family life but his or her professional life as well.

This is not something that you do when you leave on a Friday and come back on a Monday. In fact, gender reassignment surgery often takes weeks and weeks, if not months, for recovery.

So in the circumstance of a teacher, one would expect that such an individual would be out of the classroom environment for weeks and weeks, if not months.

Having said that, I also said in the Education Committee that it is a medical condition, as I've stated. And I compared it to any other medical condition that a teacher might find him or herself involved with.

And I said, what would we do for a child when the teacher was suffering from cancer and had to have chemotherapy treatments and came back to school without any hair? Would that prove disturbing to a child? Yes, it might.

But we would use that as an opportunity to educate children, not to engender discriminatory notions about individuals who are suffering from cancer.

We would also do the same if a teacher happened to be involved in a car accident and had an arm amputated and was fitted with a prosthesis, perhaps a mechanical one with a mechanical hand. Would a child find that circumstance disturbing? Perhaps. But it was a medical condition that needed to be addressed.

And we would use that as a moment to educate a child. And the fact is that we have students in this state who suffer from gender dysphoria as well. And I am very cognizant of the fact that they suffer discrimination.

I suspect we wouldn't tell those students that they shouldn't be in classrooms because of their core identity. So the answer to Senator Cappiello's question is, in short form, notwithstanding my lengthy answer, is that a teacher would fall within the protections of this bill and its language.

THE CHAIR:

Senator Cappiello, you have the floor.

SEN. CAPPIELLO:

Thank you, Mr. President. Another question, through you, to Senator McDonald, if I may.

THE CHAIR:

Please proceed.

SEN. CAPPIELLO:

And let me back up a little bit. First, I would like to say that on Committee, when I voted against this bill, I expressed then, as I express today, my complete empathy for someone who is going through this because, obviously, this is a very, very difficult decision to make.

And someone who is going through this must be suffering a great deal because of a change that they would like to make. So I do empathize on that issue. But let me back up and get to the specifics of this bill, if I may, through you, Mr. President.

We're adding a definition with regards to gender identity or expression. So, through you, Mr. President, would that include an individual who would not choose to go through a gender change but maybe wishes to dress like the opposite sex?

THE CHAIR:

Senator McDonald, do you care to respond?

SEN. MCDONALD:

I will, Mr. President. And the short answer to Senator Cappiello's question is if that individual self-identifies as having an identity other than the one with which that individual was born, it would fall within the definition of gender identity or expression.

And I should also hasten to add, Mr. President, that under the guidelines from the American Psychiatric Association, an individual identified with gender dysphoria actually is required to live as the self-identified gender, I believe, for up to a year before they will be permitted to have the gender reassignment surgery.

So in effect, because of their mental health condition, they would be required to dress in a somewhat different fashion than their conforming gender identity might otherwise require….

…THE CHAIR:

Senator Cappiello.

SEN. CAPPIELLO:

Thank you, and through you, Mr. President, to Senator McDonald, are there not a number of people in this world who choose not to, and have no desire to, go through a sex change, but they choose to dress like the opposite sex.

And an example I will give is many years ago, some of you may remember, there was an individual who was in a position of authority in New Haven who chose, at night, we found out through unfortunate news accounts that it was a person who, I believe, was on the board of education or was superintendent in New Haven, who just chose to dress as a woman because they enjoyed to. And, again, that's a person's choice, but I would like to know if that would be included in this bill.

THE CHAIR:

Senator McDonald.

SEN. MCDONALD:

Through you, Mr. President, I'm not certain there's a new question there. I think, if Senator Cappiello is suggesting that this is an issue that is one that is addressing cross-dressing, I don't think that's within the scope of this at all.

This goes to a deeply held belief of how an individual identifies themselves as a human being. And, you know, I also have to say, Mr. President, that no one, in rational thought, no one would ever suggest that someone would dress in a manner that is not one traditionally associated with their assigned gender because it was fun or because it was easy.

These individuals suffer incredible, incredible ridicule, scorn, mockery, disdain, and discrimination. And under this bill, we would not engraft that ridicule, scorn, mockery, and discrimination into our statutes.

….SEN. KISSEL:

Thank you so very much, Mr. President. I'd like to commend Senator McDonald for bringing this bill forward. Over the last several years, we've had transgender folks come before our public hearings, on the Judiciary Committee, on any number of matters.

And I have to say that I admire their courage for coming into the public forum and asserting their rights or asking for expansion of the law to further protect their rights in the way that we set out, that a democratic society sets out.

And the hearings have exemplified, really clearly, the painful nature of the situation that many of these folks are going through.

God bless the individual that may have been struggling with their gender identity, and they've finally figured it out, and they've made a transition. And there are some folks that have made the transition and are very comfortable with that.

But they articulated the difficulties that they had when they were struggling with not feeling right about themselves, and some folks, that I would call women now, were happily married men at some other point in their lives, but they knew that something wasn't quite right, and so they made that transition.

Some folks were in the middle of that transition when they came and spoke to us. But at the root of so many of these stories were the public, no, I wouldn't say the entire public, without a doubt, but a small segment of the public's inability to be sensitive to these issue and, certainly, a very small, very small group of individuals that were mean-spirited and intolerant.

And I'm a live-and-let-live kind of person, and I think the State of Connecticut is a live-and-let-live state. Sort of been our nature for hundreds of years. Maybe that's why the rest of the nation looks at New England and calls us liberal. I don't call being tolerant liberal.

I call being tolerant being tolerant, being sensitive and understanding that we are all different. We can categorize each other, but we are all fundamentally different, all God's creatures, whether you believe in God or not, and that's your right too.

I find it abhorrent that we would set up a construct where individuals would be discriminated against because they had gender dysphoria, I think, is the correct terminology. They were unsure of themselves.

And we had clear public testimony that an individual, a good worker at his company, went through this and, bam, was fired. That's wrong. I don't care how you cut it. That's wrong.

There was nothing, that individual could not point to anything that he, and that's a tough one, now she, did on the job to merit being fired.

So he knew what it was all about. He went, unfortunately, one of the big lessons here is, and I hope anybody watching at home that might be, or reading the record, one of the lessons that was clear during the public hearings was do not settle quickly with your employer if you feel you've been the victim of this because you do have rights.

And unfortunately, a lot of these folks, they're so intimated, and they're so nervous about having to go through this transgender change, that they just sign on the dotted line because they need to pay the monthly bills. That was a horrible thing.

I mean, not only did the businesses fire these individuals, but then they quickly sent out their attorneys to get them to sign an agreement, to sign away whatever rights they may have had. That was abhorrent to me too.

I believe, in the State of Connecticut, the vast majority of corporations are sensitive to these issues, and they reach out to their employees, and that there's a deep well of respect and tolerance in our state.

But unfortunately, this is an area where we need to put this law on the books so that people that are struggling with this, and I agree with Senator McDonald, one would not go through with this lightly, but so that people who are struggling with this really have their rights protected.

And with your indulgence, I'll just leave you with this one thing. The other evening, I was watching one of my favorite programs, Law and Order. And the particular episode that I saw had to exactly with a transgender individual.

And it was a woman, a man who felt that they should be a woman, and had gone through the hormone treatment and everything else but hadn't gone through the final surgical proceeding and was lashed out at an individual for attacking them and was then put on trial herself, even though hadn't gone through the surgeon.

But in every other sense of the word, if you looked at the program, you would say this individual was a woman. And the whole issue had to do with, in New York, where, upon conviction, would that individual be housed?

And it had a very sad and horrible ending, where the woman, in every sense of the term, was sent to the men's prison and was beaten upon horribly.

And I haven't even gotten to this issue in this year's Legislature, when that program aired, but it makes you think, in so many areas of our society, society is moving so rapidly, in so many ways, the institutions that we've created have to catch up.

But I think that we have it within ourselves, and I actually believe our young people have the greatest capacity to accommodate change. I always have this conversation with my children, especially my son, Nathaniel, because his whole notion is change is good.

I can see, as I'm getting older, like when things change, I'm driving down the street, and something has been torn down and built up, the hardest thing to deal with is change is constant. We can never hold onto anything.

If something has been good, appreciate it because you can wake up tomorrow, and, boom, it's changed. But young people, they love change. Change is good because they're constantly changing. They're growing. Every new day brings something new.

So their view of it is different. So maybe when it comes to things like transgender and individual's rights and things like that, we need to think more like our children, and for some of us in this Circle, our children's children.

So there may be these issues. I think the law has been drafted in a way, narrowly tailored to acknowledge the rights of religious institutions, as we do with so many of our other discrimination statutes.

But in this instance, the testimony that we've heard at the public hearing for the last few years has made it very clear to me that this is a group of individuals in our state that deserves every amount of respect and dignity and rights as each and every one of us in this Circle. And that's why I strongly support this bill before us. Thank you, Mr. President...

And in the end the vote was almost unanimous, it was 30 Yeas, 4 Nays and 2 Absent. One of the Nays was Senator Cappiello.