VICTORY! WA Senate defeats bill to roll back protections for transgender individuals

In a vic­to­ry for LGBT civ­il rights, a dis­crim­i­na­to­ry bill that tried to roll back pro­tec­tions for trans­gen­der indi­vid­u­als has died on the floor of the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate today after being defeat­ed by the nar­row­est of margins.

The mil­i­tants who con­trol the Sen­ate Repub­li­can cau­cus, includ­ing Tim Eyman’s pals Doug Erick­sen, Michael Baum­gart­ner, Pam Roach, and Don Ben­ton, tried to push through a bill (SB 6443) that would have repealed Wash­ing­ton State Human Rights Com­mis­sion rules (cod­i­fied as WAC 162–32-060) that allow trans­gen­der peo­ple to use wash­rooms and bath­rooms con­sis­tent with the gen­der they iden­ti­fy with.

Erick­sen and Baum­gart­ner were suc­cess­ful in get­ting the bill through com­mit­tee and onto the floor, but today, they were defeat­ed when the bill came up for a vote.

Three Repub­li­cans broke away from their cau­cus to vote against the bill: Andy Hill, Steve Lit­zow, and Joe Fain, while one Demo­c­rat crossed over to vote for the bill (Jim Har­grove). That left the Repub­li­cans one vote shy of twen­ty-five, which is the thresh­old for pas­sage of leg­is­la­tion in the Sen­ate. SB 6443 is dead, and hope­ful­ly this is the last time a bill like this will even make it onto the Sen­ate floor.

The roll call vote was as follows::

SB 6443
Gen­der seg. facil­i­ty rules
Sen­ate vote on 3rd Read­ing & Final Passage
2/10/2016

Vot­ing Yea: Sen­a­tors Angel, Bai­ley, Baum­gart­ner, Beck­er, Ben­ton, Braun, Brown, Dammeier, Dansel, Erick­sen, Har­grove, Hewitt, Hon­ey­ford, King, Milos­cia, O’Ban, Pad­den, Par­lette, Pear­son, Rivers, Roach, Schoesler, Shel­don, Warnick

Vot­ing Nay: Sen­a­tors Bil­lig, Car­lyle, Chase, Cleve­land, Con­way, Darneille, Fain, Fras­er, Frockt, Habib, Hasegawa, Hill, Hobbs, Jaya­pal, Keis­er, Liias, Lit­zow, McAu­li­ffe, McCoy, Mul­let, Nel­son, Ped­er­sen, Ranker, Rolfes, Takko

NPI thanks the Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus (minus Jim Har­grove — shame on you, Sen­a­tor) and Repub­li­cans Andy Hill, Steve Lit­zow, and Joe Fain for their no votes. This bill would not have even received a vote in a Demo­c­ra­t­ic-con­trolled Sen­ate, but at least three Repub­li­cans stepped for­ward to pre­vent the Sen­ate from pass­ing this dis­grace­ful, mean-spir­it­ed, and unnec­es­sary dis­crim­i­na­to­ry legislation.

“The peo­ple of our state val­ue gen­eros­i­ty over fear, abun­dance over scarci­ty. We val­ue the whole per­son, no mat­ter who they are,” said Sen­a­tor Prami­la Jaya­pal fol­low­ing the vote. “That was proven today when Sen­ate Repub­li­can lead­er­ship brought a bill to the floor that would have rolled back the civ­il rights and basic safe­ty pro­tec­tions for trans­gen­der Wash­ing­to­ni­ans, but it failed to pass.”

“I am a par­ent, and I know what it is to fear for the safe­ty of my child. But the his­to­ry of civ­il rights has always been tied to fear. The truth is, there is no rea­son to fear trans­gen­der indi­vid­u­als — they are our daugh­ters, sons, sis­ters, broth­ers and neigh­bors. Most impor­tant, we should nev­er give in to stereo­types or mis­con­cep­tions that play on our fears and blind us to our own humanity.”

“In fact, if there is any­one who has some­thing to fear it is trans­gen­der indi­vid­u­als them­selves. Accord­ing to the U.S. Depart­ment of Jus­tice, trans­gen­der indi­vid­u­als expe­ri­ence ‘shock­ing­ly high lev­els of sex­u­al abuse and assault’ – as high as 66 per­cent. That num­ber increas­es for cer­tain sub­groups includ­ing trans­gen­der youth and peo­ple of col­or. That means a sig­nif­i­cant major­i­ty of this pop­u­la­tion is expe­ri­enc­ing sex­u­al, phys­i­cal and oth­er forms of violence.”

“I hope in the future we bring that issue up in the Sen­ate, rather than vot­ing on ways to add to the dan­ger trans­gen­der Wash­ing­to­ni­ans already face every day,” Jaya­pal added. “I under­stand this is new ter­ri­to­ry for many of us, but the real­i­ty is these pro­tec­tions have been in prac­tice for a decade with­out incident.

“The Sen­ate took up the issue today of who we are as a state – are we a Wash­ing­ton that acts on fear, or val­ues equal­i­ty? Equal­i­ty won out. That is Washington.”