Most members of Congress from Massachusetts are backing something called the Transgender Bill of Rights.
The bill (S.Res.144), introduced in the U.S. Senate by Ed Markey (D-Malden), would have a broad range of effects, including expanding transgender rights, legalizing elective abortion nationwide, and banning conversion therapy.
Here are the key provisions of the proposal, according to a press release from Markey’s office:
1. Ensuring that transgender and nonbinary people have equal access to services and public accommodations by amending the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include gender identity and amending Title IX to clarify that it protects students from discrimination based on gender identity and sex characteristics.
2. Recognizing the right to bodily autonomy and ethical healthcare by expanding access to gender-affirming medical care, codifying the right to abortion and contraception, protecting transgender people from discrimination in healthcare, and banning forced surgery on intersex children and infants in violation of ethical standards of care.
3. Promoting the safety of trans and nonbinary people by investing in community services to prevent violence against trans and nonbinary people and expand services for survivors, investing in mental health services designed for transgender and nonbinary people, and banning “conversion therapy” practices.
4. Enforcing the civil rights of transgender people by requiring the Attorney General to designate a liaison within the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice dedicated to advising and overseeing enforcement of the civil rights of transgender people.
Markey said he filed the bill to combat legislation from conservatives concerning transgenderism.
“Lives are at stake,” Markey said in the written statement. “The health, safety, and freedom of trans people are at stake. Congress must take a stand in the face of dangerous, transphobic attacks waged by far-right state legislatures and once again reaffirm our nation’s bedrock commitment to equality and justice for all.”
Other members of Congress from Massachusetts who support the measure include U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Cambridge) and six of Massachusetts’s nine members of the U.S. House of Representatives: Bill Keating (D-Bourne), Stephen Lynch (D-South Boston), Jim McGovern (D-Worcester), Seth Moulton (D-Salem), Ayanna Pressley (D-Hyde Park), and Lori Trahan (D-Westford).
Only three of the state’s U.S. House members are not co-sponsors of the bill: Richard Neal (D-Springfield), Jake Auchincloss (D-Newton), and Katherine Clark (D-Revere).
The bill had 121 co-sponsors in the U.S. House as of Wednesday, June 27, all Democrats. The bill has only eight co-sponsors in the U.S. Senate, all Democrats.
The bill is in the Committee on the Judiciary along with several other committees of the U.S. House, but no action has been taken on it.
The bill has no chance of becoming law this session because Republicans control the U.S. House of Representatives.
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