New York Governor Acts Unilaterally to Protect Transgender People From Discrimination

Transgender New Yorkers will now be afforded the same anti-discrimination protection as racial minorities, women, and gays in both the public and private sector. Governor Cuomo implemented the new protections in an executive order announced Thursday, calling it the most sweeping safeguard for transgender people in the entire nation.

"After years of tireless advocacy, we've won a tremendous victory for transgender civil rights with Governor Cuomo's announcement," Nathan Schaefer, executive director of the Empire State Pride Agenda, said. "We look forward to working with the administration to quickly implement these regulations so transgender New Yorkers are protected from discrimination — a basic civil right that is long overdue."

Cuomo's move will direct the State Division of Human Rights to come up with specific regulations that will include gender identity, transgender status, and gender dysphoria in their list of protected statuses.

"We haven't seen the final rules and regulations yet, we can't confirm that they are the best anywhere," said Mara Keisling, the executive director for the National Center for Transgender Equality. "I don't mean to diss it, we are very happy he did it, we just don't know all the details yet."

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Over the past year, a number of similar measures had been repeatedly blocked in the New York State legislature. Speaking at a dinner hosted by the Empire State Pride Agenda gay rights group on Thursday, Andrew Cuomo announced he would bypass the legislature, and use his executive authority to expand the scope of anti-discrimination protection unilaterally.

"It is intolerable to allow discrimination of transgender individuals and they are one of the most abused, harassed groups in society today," Cuomo said at the dinner. "Our law… covers them all."

The move will make it illegal for employers, housing providers, businesses, creditors, and others to discriminate on the basis of gender identity. The governor's office is calling it the most sweeping protection for transgender people in the country.

With the executive order, Cuomo becomes the first governor in the US to bypass the legislature in order to ban the discrimination and harassment of transgender individuals in both the private and public sectors.

"While discrimination against transgender people has been specifically forbidden in New York State by Executive Order since 2009, in practice that order only protects state workers," Cuomo's office explained. The new order will extend this protection to millions of private sector workers in New York state.

The decision by Cuomo, a Democrat, to use his executive power to expand the law comes after years of lobbying efforts by transgender advocates in Albany. Those efforts have been repeatedly stymied by the Republican-led Senate.

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The most recent attempt came in June, when Republicans blocked the Gender Expression Nondiscrimination Act, or GENDA, in the New York legislature. At the time, Schaefer called the GOP move a "shameful betrayal."

The National Center for Transgender Equality's Keisling applauded Cuomo for wielding his executive authority.

"He deserves credit for being the first governor to protect private employees with an executive action," she said. "But there are 19 other states who have been able to do that through the legislature… New York has been very much behind the curve."

New York's existing anti-discrimination law already makes it illegal to discriminate against any person based on creed, color, disability, national origin, sexual orientation, military status, age, sex, marital, or family status.

Keisling said that those laws should already protect transgender people.

'It's our position that transgender people are protected by current sex discrimination laws," she said. "But what's lacking is clarity, both for employers and for transpeople."

She hopes Cuomo's executive action will make it clear to employers and employees alike that transgender discrimination will not be tolerated.

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Over the next 45 days the public will be given an opportunity to comment on the new protections. Then, any individual will be able to report discrimination  that's specifically based on their transgender identity to the State Division for Human Rights, the Attorney General's office, or in court.

Several states have also expanded or enacted anti-discrimination laws to include transgender people in recent years.

In 2014, Maryland's former governor Martin O'Malley, now a Democratic presidential candidate, signed legislation prohibiting discrimination on matters relating to housing, employment, credit, and the use of public restrooms. Republican opponents ridiculed the measure as the "bathroom bill."

And just this week, California became the first state in the nation to agree to pay for a transgender inmate's sex reassignment operation.

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