trans | Oakland Park, FL moves to ban transgender discrimination

Oakland Park - The city is one step closer to becoming the first in Broward County to protect the rights of its transgender employees.

Commissioners recently gave tentative approval to a proposal to add gender identity and gender expression to the city's anti-discrimination policy.

Commissioner Suzanne Boisvenue proposed adding the two categories to the city's policy, which already protects municipal employees based on race, religion, sex, national origin, age and disability. The city passed its current anti-discrimination policy in July 2002. It is unclear how many, if any, transgender people work for the city.

"Discrimination should not be tolerated, any place, any time," Boisvenue said. "Oakland Park is known, rightfully so, for fair and equal treatment of people."

Others on the dais echoed the remarks.

"We've proven, over and over again that we don't tolerate discrimination here," Commissioner Layne Walls said when commissioners first discussed the ordinance.

Several gay, lesbian and transgender activists spoke at the meeting in support of the proposal, including one transsexual woman. No one spoke against it.

"It's wrong to terminate or to make judgment on a person's ability to do a job simply because they must dress from the other side of the closet," said Jacqui Charvet, a North Lauderdale resident who told commissioners she lost her job five years ago when she came out to her employer as a transgender woman.

"This is my life, not because I chose it to be but because it had to be to make my self feel right within my body," Charvet said. "Remember, straight, gay or transgender, black, white or red, discrimination is still discrimination."

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation defines transgender people as those who feel an innate sense of gender other than their birth sex. This includes transsexuals, cross-dressers and people who simply feel their biological sex fails to reflect their true gender.

Commissioners are scheduled to vote on the second and final reading of the ordinance at their Wednesday meeting.

If approved, Oakland Park would join more than 100 governments nationwide that offer some form of protection to transgender people. Among them are Lake Worth, West Palm Beach and Miami Beach.

Oakland Park's decision to vote on protecting the rights of transgender employees comes as county commissioners discuss providing protection in housing and employment to transgender people, including those in the private sector.

Mayor Larry Gierer said extending anti-discrimination protection to transgender people is "a matter of housekeeping for what we put into our practices in 2002 ... This is something the city has always been very supportive of."

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