Like Sexual Orientation? Like Gender?: Transgender Inclusion in Nondiscrimination Ordinances
Document Type
Contribution to Book
Publication Date
2009
Abstract
This chapter interrogates how local political actors create and enact social perceptions about the importance of transgender protections. These political actors develop their own moral and definitional perceptions of transgender inclusion and make either "like sexual orientation" or "like gender" analogies, with consequences for the language of transgender protections. These perceptions are part of a larger construction of transgender protections. These perceptions are part of a larger construction of transgender as a new minority, one that is inextricably linked to the LGBT movement. In this chapter I compare two Michigan cities—Ypsilanti and Ferndale—where public officials passed transgender-inclusive non-discrimination ordinances in the late 1990s. In both of these cases, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and heterosexual ally (LGBH) activists were critical in communicating the necessity for transgender protections. Both LGBH activists and local public officials rarely had definitional perceptions of transgender issues but were swayed by moral concerns about discrimination.
Editor
Scott Barclay, Mary Bernstein, & Anna-Maria Marshall
Publisher
New York University Press
City
New York
ISBN
9780814791318, 9780814791301
Repository Citation
Stone, A. L. (2009). Like sexual orientation? like gender?: Transgender inclusion in nondiscrimination ordinances. In S. Barclay, M. Bernstein, & A.-M. Marshall (Eds.), Queer mobilizations: LGBT activists confront the law (pp. 142-157). New York University Press.
Publication Information
Queer Mobilizations: LGBT Activists Confront the Law