Members of Austin's transgender community can count the city as an ally following an Austin City Council decision last week to pass an ordinance adding "gender identity" to the classifications protected against discrimination in housing, public accommodation and employment.
"It's one of the biggest issues in the transgendered community nationwide," said Lisa Scheps, chair of Transgender Advocates of Central Texas, a group formed about a year-and-a-half ago with the objective of helping push through this ordinance.
Scheps said the lack of protection really hit hard due to the inability of transgender people to hide their status.
"You can't really stay in the closet," she said. "Before this, you could lose your job or your housing based on your status as a transgender person."
With this new protection, Austinites who experience discrimination based on gender identity have a voice. The lack of a means to report such discrimination made it difficult to accurately estimate its frequency in Austin.
"Up until now people have not had a forum to make complaints," Scheps said. "All we've had has been mainly hearsay."
Transgender advocacy groups have been pushing for this development for about three years, Scheps said. Over the past year, her organization has worked in close conjunction with city officials to help draft the ordinance.
The city's Human Resources Department worked with the Austin Human Rights Commission to propose this ordinance and bring the city's antidiscrimination laws up-to-date. The passing of similar ordinances in Dallas in 2002 and El Paso in 2003 helped spur the city into action, said Vanessa Downey-Little, director of human resources for the city. So far, about 71 municipalities and four states nationwide have enacted similar laws.
"The commission wanted [Austin] to be one of these cities," said Downey-Little.
The ordinance will not affect state or federal employees like those at the University, which does not include gender identity as a protected classification in its equal opportunity code.
"We are governed by equal employment opportunity guidelines at the federal and state levels," said Kyle Cavanaugh, associate vice president for human resources at the University.
He said federal law and Texas law don't provide protection based on gender identity, and it doesn't look like that will change anytime soon.
"I, personally, haven't seen a lot of push on the federal level," Cavanaugh said.
Meanwhile, city officials and transgender advocacy groups will try to spread awareness of the ordinance around the city.
"All that remains now is making sure that there's compliance," said Scheps.
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