PROP 1 DECISION: THIS IS WHY I’M AT FAULT

Recently there has been controversy within several states involving civil rights within the LGBT community, most recently North Carolina overturned an anti-discrimination law against LBGT people. This new bill was not only overturned, but prevented other local governments from passing their own discrimination laws.

Several months ago I wrote about the HERO Prop 1 ordinance that was voted down last year in Houston. These marketing tactics are cloaking real discrimination laws into a bathroom only situations and diminishing the threat of actual sexual assault. This is not only dangerous, but irresponsible.

Just thought I would re-visit this…

The story of Proposition 1 in Houston has been a hot bed in the community within the macrocosm of gender issues in this country. As a fairly new Houstonian, I was super green on the current issues going on in the city and all I really knew was what I saw on the national news. Generally, Texas is a red state, but living in the third largest and diverse city in America, conservatives don’t show their faces often.

Last year, I vaguely heard about a referendum concerning an ordinance known as the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO), which was balloted as “Prop 1”. HERO was implemented as an anti-discrimination law which prevented discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. This law covered areas of discrimination not covered by the federal law which protected rights of city employment, city services, city contracting practices, housing, public accommodations and private employment etc… Although HERO covered a multitude of discrimination forms, the controversy at the head of the table was gender identity.

The HERO law initially was pushed by our Mayor, Annise Parker and passed by the city council last year. The contention was pressured by a signature gathering campaign that went all the way to the Texas Supreme Court. Before the law, Houston relied on the federal and local state law which didn’t include gender identity.

When it was brought to my attention that HERO strike-down was a scapegoat to discriminate against transgender people, I was floored. At the time I didn’t even know the extent of what the ordinance covered and I didn’t know why people were mad on both sides of the aisle. Pro-HERO residents were mad because it made is legal to especially discriminate against transgender people who used their gender specific bathrooms, who were publicly and privately employed and who should even decide to purchase or rent housing. Anti-HERO residents saw the this as a way of protecting their families from “predators”.

The following question appeared on the ballot:

“Are you in favor of the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, Ord. No. 2014–530, which prohibits discrimination in city employment and city services, city contracts, public accommodations, private employment, and housing based on an individual’s sex, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, familial status, marital status, military status, religion, disability, sexual orientation, genetic information, gender identity, or pregnancy?”

The voter turn out was at 27% which made the blow to HERO a particularly disappointing one. I was miseducated on the matter and didn’t take myself to the voting booths like the majority of Houstonians. I regret that I’m just as at fault. I’ve always made an astounding point to always be inclusive with personal acceptance, when it came time to walk that walk, I didn’t follow through. Local transgender activist Dee Dee Watters stated in a Black Lives Matter forum I attended that these laws were set in place to particularly discriminate against transgender persons — so much so that it was unofficially deemed the “bathroom bill”.

The argument that ensued was that of the definition of transgender from a heteronormative standpoint. That being the politicians discrediting HERO are not transgender and have no ideas of what a transgender persons life may look like. The gray area was the concern of cis-gendered men pretending to be women so they can walk into women’s restrooms for what ever reason. That may be plausible, but absolutely not any more unlikely than it already is without this bill.

I want these uneducated politicians and community organizers to know that you don’t have to understand another person in order to give them equal rights. I myself will never understand being transgender amongst so many other things in this world, but I will never compare a sexual predator to that of something I know nothing of as a flippant excuse to stay comfortable in my ignorance.