Press Release - November 5, 2007
Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:
Michelle Turner
michelle.turner@mcpscurriculum.org
(301) 335-6042

MONTGOMERY COUNTY COUNCIL FEELS HEAT ON
TRANSGENDER BILL
OPENING FEMALE LOCKERS, SHOWERS, AND RESTROOMS
TO BIOLOGIC MALES

Montgomery County, MD – The Council, under increasing public pressure to eliminate an amendment to its ‘gender identity’ non-discrimination act which allows biological males who believe they are female open access to girls’ and women’s facilities, is lashing out at its critics, according to Citizens for a Responsible Citizens, a grassroots non-profit organization of parents and citizens. The group sees the amendment as an assault on privacy rights and safety, especially in the public schools.

Thousands of emails and calls have flooded the Council’s offices since CRC focused public attention on the proposal through talk shows, its web site, and a popular internet news site. WMAL’s Andy and Grandy Morning Show and The Sean Hannity Show both carried news of the Council’s pending passage of Bill 23-07 as did World Net Daily, which has carried two stories on the controversy.

A CRC protest at the Germantown Indoor Swim Center sparked hundreds of “thumbs up” as parents escorted children to various activities, according to the group, which handed out almost a thousand flyers and held up signs of protest. The site was chosen due to a Council member George Leventhal’s email to a Germantown parent of a 10-year old girl. She had emailed Leventhal (At Large) about the possibility of her daughter running into a nude male in the common dressing room at the Center under the provisions of the Bill. His response: “I cannot absolutely put to rest your concern that girls might find themselves in a locker room or dressing room in the Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum www.mcpscurriculum.com presence of a person who expresses or asserts herself as a woman but who still has male genitals….” prompted the last minute protest.

The Council issued a statement on Saturday claiming that the opposition amounts to “a small group of ideologically motivated individuals [who] raise fears and continue discriminatory policies….” It also claims that a 2002 case decided in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit made a landmark ruling on the issue. However, the case concerned a narrow issue involving an employer-employee relationship, not the broad access to female-only facilities by male transgenders that Bill 23-07 seeks and no jurisdiction over Maryland.

In fact, a 2007 Federal level bill which would have legislated “gender identity” protection nationally was recently put on hold. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), proposed by Rep. Barney Frank (MA), has stalled over the inclusion of “gender identity”. The national bill specifically excluded public accommodations involving nudity and was limited to regulating employment practices.

Before passing the amendment, the Council reviewed six differing standards of facility use from around the country, from remaining silent on the question, i.e., not addressing facility use at all, to the most liberal option, adopted by Oakland, CA, and NJ, which allows unlimited use by transgenders. The Council first defined facility use as including both bathrooms and locker rooms. The Council chose the Boston model which allows public use to those who have “publicly and exclusively expressed or asserted” themselves as the opposite sex.

The Council is planning to vote on the bill November 13.

CRC is focusing on female facilities because there are three times more male to female transgenders than female to male.

Dr. Ruth Jacobs, an infectious disease specialist and CRC member, testified before the Council on October 2. She informed the members that gender identity is classified as a mental disorder by the American Psychiatric Association.

“Instead of protecting bathroom privacy for the half of a million women and children of Montgomery County, as I recommended, the Council is amending the Bill to take away the current privacy and safety protection for women and children. This protection would be lost not only in bathrooms, but in locker rooms and showers. This amendment would legislate shared nudity not only with transsexuals who had completed sex reassignment surgery, but with biologic males who had not completed sex reassignment surgery and who never intended to complete sex reassignment surgery,” she said.