15 responses to “GLBT Rights in ND”

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  Jenney January 12th, 2009 at 16:19

  Will this legislation cover gender expression or is it limited to sexual orientation?

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  Dan T January 12th, 2009 at 18:11

  As far as the legislation is concerned Yes there is gender identity in the bill. Have any transgendered persons e-mailed NDHRC to testify. This is very important for the cause! Without your support it will be hard to make our claim for equality.

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  Dan T January 12th, 2009 at 18:19

  I would like people to start getting involved with the letters and e-mails to your legislature in you district. We will be going public with a press release on Martin Luther King Day.If anyone is wondering what district that you live in you can go to http://www.nd.gov click on the legislature and you can find a spot where you can find a map of the state with districts and the names of your legislatures in your district. We have a long way to go and without support it will be hard to make our cause. Please keep all e-mails positive !!!! we want to send a positive message to our law makers !!!

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  Jenney January 12th, 2009 at 18:34

  Does someone have a link to the bill? I tried to find it and came up with nothing. Not even a summery. I will write something to my representive, but need to read the bill first.

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  Dan T January 13th, 2009 at 00:02

  Hi jenny, The bill probably won’t be released until we go public with it. If you would like to view the bill e-mail NDHRC and ask to see it. I think that Mitch the director would like to hear from your group.
  Thanks for the interest

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  krten January 26th, 2009 at 18:12

  Just an update…

  It is SENATE BILL NO. 2278, Text 90392.0100

  http://www.legis.nd.gov/assembly/61-2009/bill-text/senate-bill.html
  http://www.legis.nd.gov/assembly/61-2009/bill-actions/ba2278.html

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  Dan T January 26th, 2009 at 21:07

  I have been asked by Mitch Marr the Exucutive Director of the North Dakota Human Rights Coalition. To ask everyone to get all your friends straight and gay to start writing letters to your Legislative senators in your disricts now. Our Senators need to hear from us as this bill goes to the committee hearing that will eather give the bill a passs or do not pass. If we can get a pass from the committeee hearing it will help our cause. It is very important that we start a letter campaign eather by e-mail or letter style to support the legislation that SB2278 spells out. Without the voices behind this bill it will not have much strength. You can go to the http://www.ndhrc.org and see where exactly your district is and who is the Senator for the district. Please keep all letters very positive as we are trying to run a positive campaign on this bill. I understand that ther will also be a sample letter to help us in the language to use in your letter. This is not alot for us to do so please help the people that have worked hard on this legislation to make a positive change for us North Dakota gays and lesbians

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  Dan T January 26th, 2009 at 21:14

  Please also stay tuned to the website as there will be an anouncement on what day that there will be the Senate Committe Hearing regarding this bill. If we can fill the committee room at the capital the day of the hearing we will definatley leave a message to our Senate committee members. We are also looking for people to tetify that day. If you have been discriminated in ND do to your sexual orientation or gender identity in fair housing or on the job, now is the time to contact http://www.ndhrc.org and sign up to testify. We will help out anyone as much as possible!Tell all your friends that this is really important. WE DO HAVE A GOOD CHANCE FOR A PASS!!! We just need everyones help NOW!

  Thank you Dan

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  Jenney January 27th, 2009 at 09:35

  I do hope people do come and support this bill and it does pass. I also do appreciate the work that went into it, but it appears to me that there was little to no input from the trans community in drafting the bill.

  I personally find it rather frustrating that gender identity was defined as part of sexual orientation. It would have been easy enough to define it within the bill. I do think they should be in the same bill, as many people link them in their minds, but by not defining them separately within the bill it perpetrates the stereotype as two what gender identity is.

  An example of what could have been done is the Texas bill currently going through the process there.

  “(9-a) “Gender identity or expression” means having or
  being perceived as having a gender-related identity, appearance,
  expression, or behavior, whether or not that identity, appearance,
  expression, or behavior is different from that commonly associated
  with the person’s actual or perceived sex.
  (13-a) “Sexual orientation” means the actual or
  perceived status of an individual with respect to the individual’s
  sexuality.”

  http://www.legis.state.tx.us/tlodocs/81R/billtext/html/HB00538I.htm

  Or it could have been based on Amnesty International:

  “Sexual orientation covers sexual desires, feelings, practices and identification. Sexual orientation can be towards people of the same or different sexes (same-sex, heterosexual or bisexual orientation).”

  “Gender identity refers to the complex relationship between sex and gender referring to a person’s experience of self expression in relation to social categories of masculinity or femininity (gender). A person’s subjectively felt gender identity may be at variance with their sex or physiological characteristics.”

  http://www.amnesty.org/en/sexual-orientation-and-gender-identity

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  Dan T January 28th, 2009 at 16:56

  Jenny, I’m sorry to say that when we were looking for the trans community to be part of the meetings. There was only representation by 1 transgendered person and she does not even live in this state. I’m really sorry that you feel slighted. I wish that the Trans people in this state would be more visable at leaset to the GLB community. Where has the representation been in things like The state prides and such. Everyone is welcome. I hope that things will cxhange as time goes on for all of us. It is just hard to be a voice for a group that does not voice. Sorry again

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  Jenney January 31st, 2009 at 22:04

  I will say I did not feel slighted, just frustrated.

  The trans community is not as visible as the the GLB community as there is a lot less of us and you also have to realize that the trans community is many years behind where the GLB community is in public acceptance. It is only in the last year or two that positive portrayal of trans people has taken place on TV. To most we are a joke to be used for a laugh on cable TV.

  Tristate TG out of Fargo is active in the GLBT community and enters the parade every year, meets at the pride collective on a regular basis and has members that do outreach throughout the City. There is no reason the ND trans community should not have been found and the word spread through them that input was wanted on upcoming legislation. Anybody who has taken any step to make contact with another trans person in North Dakota is a member of this group or knows a member. It was through Tristate that I learned about the bill, a couple weeks before it was to be introduced. Input from the ND transgendered community really should not been hard to find.

  The bulk of the trans community is made up of Crossdresser’s, many of who are married; most of them are not out to anyone! Sometimes not even their wifes, or if they are out to their spouse, she thinks it is nothing more than a panty fetish; well the husband screams on the inside at what they are, but is to afraid to let it out, less they loose everything! You sure are not going to see them at a pride event.

  Even trans people I have met in real life, talked with on line go out of their way to hide their everyday lives, they are so afraid of being outed they will not even trust a person in the same position as them.

  I am trying to do what I can to pull the Bismarck Trans Community together, but it’s not the easiest thing to do when your target is very well hidden. One of the big question’s in the ND trans community is how do we locate more of us, get more of us together, when the bulk of us hide it from everyone, including ourselves at times. So many do not want to be found!

  I am a very happily married man, who loves his wife and who’s wife loves him, but she struggles everyday to understand what this thing is that intrudes in on her otherwise heteronormative life. Some-days it can be ignored, other days it drives her to tears. To be out and proud for me, is to drag one I love with me, one who never asked to have her perfectly mundane understanding of the gender binary shattered.

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  Jenney February 18th, 2009 at 17:15

  Human rights bill passes N.D. Senate

  BISMARCK – The North Dakota Senate voted 27 to 19 today in support of a bill that adds gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals to the protected classes in the state Human Rights Act.

  By: Amy Dalrymple , INFORUM

  BISMARCK – The North Dakota Senate voted 27 to 19 today in support of a bill that adds gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals to the protected classes in the state Human Rights Act.

  Sen. Tom Fiebiger, D-Fargo, the prime sponsor of the proposal, said Senate Bill 2278 prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

  The bill would prohibit discrimination in housing, employment, credit transaction and use of public accommodation.

  Mitch Marr, executive director of the North Dakota Human Rights Coalition, said he and many other supporters of the bill watched the vote through an online webcast.

  “I’m pretty ecstatic with that vote,” said Marr, noting that both Democrats and Republicans supported the bill. “I thought it was pretty significant and large margin of victory.”

  The bill now goes to the House.

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  lisa February 18th, 2009 at 18:55

  Good job to all who helped with this, we still have a ways to go but we are making progress. Part of the testimony read today came from what sue and i wrote one night. Go sue!! Dont forget to write the house members too now that it will go there next! Our voice is being heard!!

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  Dan T March 3rd, 2009 at 20:43

  Now that we have been succesful in the Senate I ask that all of you get everyone that you know to contact your Representatives in your district and also the members of the Human Services Committee. Once again keep it Positive and to the point. It is what helped us in the Senate! WE CAN WIN THIS INITIATIVE!!! WITHOUT THE HELP OF YOU CONTACTING OUR LEGISLATURES IT WILL MAKE US LOOK WEAK. It only took me a few minutes to contact Rep Porter and Kelsch now would you all take a few minutes. It’s a wonder what a few minutes of work can do to make the work that the task force has been working on efective. Lets WIN SB2278

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  Dan T March 15th, 2009 at 11:37

  The Human Servise Cimmittee has posted the hearing on SB2278 it will be in the Brnynhod Haugland Room on the main floor of the State Capital on March 18 at 10 am. Please come and be a part of what we hope to be another yes vote by the committee so that the bill can go to the floor of the House. With a large body of GLBT and friends and Allies we will make a difference in the way that the committee looks at our plight. Please stay positve as the oponents have not been and we feel this is part of why they loose. Also we need a large effort of contacting the Huamn Services Committee. For information on how to contact the HS committee members go to http://www.ndhrc.org there you will find all the info neccesary to help in our victory.

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  centraldakotatsupport.org Blog » Where are all the T people in the state? February 1st, 2009 at 15:27

  [...] on the Dakota Outright Web Page under the Comment section I was taken to task for criticizing the lack of input from Trans [...]