Hits Close To Home

Those who follow my blog know that I went to Rochester Institute of Technology for my undergraduate degree; well unfortunately it is in the news.

RIT reinstates services for transgender students at campus health center
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
By Justin Murphy,
October 31, 2018

After a year and a half of acrimony, Rochester Institute of Technology is again offering hormone replacement therapy for its transgender students.

Wendy Gelbard, the college's associate vice president of Student Health, Counseling and Wellness, wrote in a letter last month: "After many months of carefully listening and talking to students and experts in the field of transgender health care, we are pleased to be able to offer a wider spectrum of care for our transgender students, most notably the addition of gender affirming hormone therapy."

This is the service that student health center doctor Annamaria Kontor had been providing to a small number of students before being fired for doing so in May 2017. She filed a complaint with the state Division of Human Rights, which determined later that year the university had likely discriminated against her.

RIT students protested Kontor's removal and the school's general position on transgender care. After a comprehensive review of its policies, RIT will restore hormone replacement therapy at the student health center.

It is nice that they are offering healthcare to trans students but they should have never dropped the coverage in the first place.

The university tried to distract the protests by offering…

RIT otherwise has taken significant steps toward supporting LGBTQ students, including offering gender-neutral housing, but the uproar over Kontor's firing swamped those efforts.

I am deeply disappointed in RIT but this is what happens when a state refuses to pass a gender inclusive non-discrimination law. Every year since the passage of Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act (SONDA) in 2002 the Republicans have blocked the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA), instead in 2015, Cuomo signed an executive order barring gender discrimination to apply to transgender people, but we all know what one executive order does another executive order can undue.