Gov. Charlie Baker on Friday afternoon signed into law legislation to guarantee access to public facilities, including sex-segregated bathrooms and locker rooms based on their self-selected gender identity.
"No one should be discriminated against in Massachusetts because of their gender identity," Baker said in a statement announcing he'd signed the bill. "This compromise legislation extends additional protections to the Commonwealth's transgender community, and includes language to address the public safety concerns expressed by some by requiring the Attorney General to issue regulations to protect against people abusing the law."
Wednesday night's AWANA night. The kids have been in the program for three years, and you could say the Wednesday AWANA drill's pretty well established.
One Wednesday night a month or two ago I was pulling out of the church parking lot after dropping my kids at AWANA. The colors of dusk were coming up in the spring sky. I saw two minivans, carbon copies of my own, moving through the lot. I instinctively placed the vans – the moms who drove them, the kids who were in them. And just as instinctively, I knew they knew me too; there was mutual regard between us. And I can't even remember if we waved or not, got close enough to, at that 5:30 pm dropoff passing, but an unbidden feeling of warming washed over me. I felt among friends. I felt, all of a sudden, profoundly thankful for the gift of this town, and of having place in it. For community: knowing and being known.
