The Human Rights Commission’s quest to include gender identity in the city’s anti-discrimination code faces its final steps this summer, with a vote expected in June or July that would send the code change to the Eugene City Council.
The commission will hear public comment at its June 21 meeting and City Councilor David Kelly, the acting councilor on the commission, said he expects the council to wait until school begins in September to hold a public hearing to give students equal opportunity to participate.
Eugene’s current anti-discrimination code prohibits discrimination in housing, employment and work places based on race, age, gender, disability and other personal traits. City officials have discussed including gender identity in the anti-discrimination code for several years — a mayoral veto in 2002 struck down a similar ordinance.
The Human Rights Commission formed an ad hoc committee this year to work on drafting a proposed code change and fine-tune the language to make it legally sound. Kelly said the group held its last meeting on May 11 and concluded that it had done all it could with the specific language. He said the commission is supportive of the ordinance and is optimistic that it will be passed after the appropriate opportunities for public comment.
“Barring any surprises in the testimony, HRC will probably vote to move it onto the council,” Kelly said.
A public hearing originally scheduled for
May 23 was pushed back into what Kelly and others involved said was a rather routine delay to ensure the legal language of the ordinance is flawless.
University graduate Toby Hill-Meyer served on the committee and said members worked with a city attorney and a national gay and lesbian transgender task force member who had experience passing similar ordinances in other jurisdictions.
“It was a fairly lengthy process to come up with the most comprehensive language we could while, at the same time, being easily communicable and politically viable,”
Hill-Meyer said.
Kelly said a tentative timeline was created early on in the process to let everyone know the large amount of time involved in writing and voting on such an ordinance and to “give everyone a sense that this is not something that would happen overnight.”
Kelly said one of the biggest things looming over the heads of those involved in writing the actual ordinance is the common fear
that allowing transgender people and people with differing gender identities equal access to bathrooms will be seen by sexual predators as an invitation to start hanging out in
bathrooms looking for victims.
“Some of the people who are expressing concern seriously fear that something will change dramatically, that women in particular will be less safe in restrooms than they are now, but that’s certainly not the case,” Kelly said.
The code the commission is drafting would make it illegal to prohibit transgender people from, among other things, using a bathroom of their choice.
Mike Jaskilka, a pastor of Berean Baptist Church in Eugene, said he does not support the ordinance for a number of reasons.
Jaskilka said he has talked with many women in the community who are concerned about allowing transgender people access to whichever bathroom they choose.
“I’ve talked with many, and they all feel that this policy threatens their sense of privacy and safety,” Jaskilka said.
Kelly said such fears are typically the result of severe misunderstandings about what the ordinance intends to do. He said allowing transgender people access to the bathroom of their choice does
nothing to make bathrooms more accessible to sexual predators.
“There’s no physical bar at the entrance of bathrooms,” Kelly said, referring to the current lack of laws or ordinances that prohibit members of the opposite sex from entering any bathroom they choose.
Jaskilka said he also opposes the code change because gender identity is recognized as a psychiatric disorder. “I think that’s where help
needs to be offered, rather than attempting to make it sound normal,” Jaskilka said.
Hill-Meyer said if being transgender or having an alternate view of gender identity is truly a psychiatric disorder then it should be protected in the Americans with Disabilities Act, which it isn’t.
Jaskilka said he does not see
the reason for the code change because of the lack of documented incidents of discrimination based on gender identity.
He said the proposal for the code change mentions findings that show a discriminatory environment for transgender people — findings he said he has been unable to obtain in actual paper form from various city officials he has contacted.
“I’ve called three times and asked for the findings, and there are no findings,” Jaskilka said. “I just don’t see it as a necessary thing at all, and I think a lot of people feel that way.”
Maceo Persson said transgender people live in such isolation that a of lack documented incidents of discrimination is to be expected.
Persson, who served on the commission’s ad hoc committee, said a major reason for passing the code change is “getting the point across that gender-varient people have issues” that need to be publicly addressed to avoid isolating and disenfranchising them further.
Kelly said more than 70 jurisdictions have passed ordinances similar to the code change currently being examined and that no incidents
involving sexual predators hanging out in bathrooms came about as
a result.
Hill-Meyer said the concerns
being expressed about the change in Eugene are the same concerns that were expressed elsewhere and that they were proven to be ill-conceived.
Both Hill-Meyer and Kelly said they are optimistic about the chances of the ordinance
winning City Council approval, but both say they have not disregarded the possibility of something
coming up that would slow down or halt the process.
Hill-Meyer said a referendum passed in the late 70s reversed a change that had added sexual orientation to the anti-discrimination code. Hill-Meyer said a well-organized group of people spearheaded the referendum effort back then and that people involved in this year’s effort have resigned themselves to the possibility that such action could be taken again.
“There’s definitely the possibility of a referendum within our mind,” Hill-Meyer said.

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