In NYC: Citywide Ad Campaign Affirming Right to use Bathrooms Consistent with Gender Identity

This is a great to see! Mayor Bill de Blasio launched citywide campaign on bathroom use and gender identity.

Here's more from the press release

Mayor Bill de Blasio and the New York City Commission on Human Rights today launched the nation’s first government-led citywide ad campaign affirming every New Yorkers’ right to use the bathroom consistent with their gender identity, regardless of their sex assigned at birth.

“No one deserves to be denied access to bathrooms or discriminated against for being who they are. Every New Yorker has the legal right to use the bathroom consistent with their gender identity, no questions asked – and these powerful ads affirm this right,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. “New York City has long been a leader in the fight for LGBTQ equality, and these ads are further evidence of the City’s unwavering support of our diverse communities. While other cities and states are legislating intolerance and taking away individuals’ right to use bathrooms consistent with their gender identity, we are proudly standing with our transgender and gender non-conforming New Yorkers.”

“Every New Yorker has the right to use the restroom that matches their gender identity and where they feel comfortable and safe," said First Lady Chirlane McCray, Honorary Chair of the Commission on Gender Equity. "No New Yorker should have to worry about hiding their gender identity to take care of basic human needs. Others may advance hateful agendas that discriminate based on gender or gender identity, but that kind of bigotry will never be acceptable here, and we will keep fighting to root it out until no New Yorker feels discriminated against."

The campaign, which kicks off LGBTQ Pride Month, includes ads and videos featuring transgender New Yorkers and instructs readers to “look past pink and blue” and to “use the restroom consistent with who you are.” The ads will appear in subway cars, bus shelters, phone booths, ethnic and community newspapers, and in ads in digital publications and across social media in English and Spanish. Ethnic newspaper ads will appear in Spanish, Korean, Chinese, Russian and Bengali. Later this month, the Commission will release two digital videos, also featuring transgender New Yorkers, as part of the campaign affirming the bathroom access rights of transgender and gender non-conforming New Yorkers.

READ This Silly Religious Group Response to the LGBT Executive Order

The bishop-Chairmen of two USCCB Committees responded with great concern to President Obama’s July 21 executive order to prohibit federal government contractors from what the Administration deems “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” discrimination and to forbid “gender identity” discrimination in the employment of federal employees. The problems the bishops identify in the order relate both to the flaws in its core prohibitions, and to its lack of religious freedom protection.

Two USCCB Chairmen – Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore, Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty and Bishop Richard J. Malone of Buffalo, Chairman of the Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth – together issued the following statement.

Today’s executive order is unprecedented and extreme and should be opposed.

In the name of forbidding discrimination, this order implements discrimination. With the stroke of a pen, it lends the economic power of the federal government to a deeply flawed understanding of human sexuality, to which faithful Catholics and many other people of faith will not assent. As a result, the order will exclude federal contractors precisely on the basis of their religious beliefs.

More specifically, the Church strongly opposes both unjust discrimination against those who experience a homosexual inclination and sexual conduct outside of marriage, which is the union of one man and one woman. But the executive order, as it regards federal government contractors, ignores the inclination/conduct distinction in the undefined term “sexual orientation.” As a result, even contractors that disregard sexual inclination in employment face the possibility of exclusion from federal contracting if their employment policies or practices reflect religious or moral objections to extramarital sexual conduct.

The executive order prohibits “gender identity” discrimination, a prohibition that is previously unknown at the federal level, and that is predicated on the false idea that “gender” is nothing more than a social construct or psychological reality that can be chosen at variance from one’s biological sex. This is a problem not only of principle but of practice, as it will jeopardize the privacy and associational rights of both federal contractor employees and federal employees. For example, a biological male employee may be allowed to use the women’s restroom or locker room provided by the employer because the male employee identifies as a female.

In an attempt to avoid these needless conflicts, states that have passed “sexual orientation” or “gender identity” prohibitions have overwhelmingly included protections for religious employers. When the U.S. Senate, which is controlled by the President’s own party, passed the similar Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) last year, it included religious liberty protections as well. Indeed, all prior versions of ENDA had at least some religious liberty protections. But the executive order is an anomaly in this regard, containing no religious liberty protections. In this way, the order, which is fundamentally flawed in itself, also needlessly prefers conflict and exclusion over coexistence and cooperation.

Regarding federal contractors, the Executive Order will take effect after rules to be promulgated by the Department of Labor implementing the Executive Order become final. Regarding federal employment, the Executive Order is effective immediately.

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