Should trans people get equal rights to gays in Philly?
Philadelphia should be an LGBTQ sanctuary city.
That was the interesting idea proposed by longtime LGBTQ activist Kathleen Padilla. (It sorta already is, more in a moment.) She also suggested the same for Pennsylvania, but that won’t happen — yet — in a state that (as James Carville described it) is “Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, with Alabama in the middle.”
As an activist, Padilla is free to exaggerate, but she stopped just short of claiming that President Donald J. Trump will incercerate gays in concentration camps. (I have actually have heard that fear from some hysterics.) Padilla does talk about a loss of rights. But it’s not cut and dry.
In terms of trans people, Trump did ban them from military service, which does not strip them of a right, but of an opportunity.
He hasn’t banned gays from military service (at least as of now).
And the State Department, she says, has suspended issuing gender marker changes. The government probably is going to demand that people use their sex at birth on all federal documents. That can be uncomfortable for many trans people.
For some reason, Padilla mentions Trump’s desire to ban birthright citizenship. I can’t see how that connects with gender issues.
Oddly, in an essay published by the Inquirer, she does not mention Trump’s executive order banning trans women from competing in athletics against biological women in schools receiving federal funding. That is a huge gap in her argument. Inexplicable, really, because that is the one that gets the most attention. Is it because she knows Americans are wildly opposed to trans women competing against biological women?
Padilla mentions marriage equality, too, but I have never heard Trump make an issue of that. He has wobbled a little on the issue over the years, but the latest word is that he’s OK with it, and was not a campaign issue, as reported by USA Today.
Gays are fearful. I understand that.
And that’s why Philadelphia should adopt legislation to protect the rights of trans people in education, employment, housing, public accommodation, and all the rest, to parallel the protections it passed in 2017 for gay people. Broadly speaking, gays already are protected. New law would be an expansion of existing rights, not a creation of new ones.
Trans people are Americans, and are entitled to all the benefits and rights of Americans. Most Americans agree.
City Council should write and pass such legislation, specifically for trans.
At the same time, Council should end sanctuary city status for illegals, who are not Americans, and are not entitled to the benefits and rights of citizens. Most Americans agree with that, too.
Not to mention that the feds are looking to punish sanctuary cities. It’s time to end the obstructionist virtue signaling.
