City Council support of Freedom for All Massachusetts’ Yes on 3 campaign to uphold the law preventing gender identity based forms of discrimination

How it started

Sep 24, 2018 · Proposed by Councillor McGovern, Vice Mayor Devereux, Councillor Zondervan, and Mayor Siddiqui: a formal request from the Council to the administration.

What happened

Sep 24, 2018 · Amendment carried Moved by Mayor Marc McGovern; carried on a voice vote.

the aforementioned Policy Order by striking out the word “protecting” in the sixth paragraph and inserting in place thereof the word “preventing.”

The clerk's words, from the minutes of Sep 24, 2018, p. 22.

Sep 24, 2018 · ✅ Order adopted as amended

View the roll call

Present and voting at this meeting (9)

Alanna Mallon
Craig A. Kelley
Dennis Carlone
E. Denise Simmons
Jan Devereux
Marc McGovern
Quinton Zondervan
Sumbul Siddiqui
Timothy J. Toomey

Adopted by voice vote. A voice vote records the outcome, not individual positions. No member's yes or no is on the record (though a member can ask to be recorded in the negative in the minutes). Showing the members who cast recorded votes at this meeting. Rule 6 requires a roll call for spending over $50 or on any member's request; state law requires one for every vote when a member participates remotely. · photos: City of Cambridge

What’s next

⌛ No response on the docket: nothing has been filed back under this request's number. Answers sometimes arrive as other items; this ledger tracks only this one.

The document Agenda item attachment · 1 page

🏛 This item on the city's site 📄 Download original PDF

O-5

ORIGINAL ORDER

Cambridge has long been at the forefront in protecting against discrimination; the City Council first enacted protections against gender-based discrimination on February 24, 1999, when it passed the Human Rights Ordinance with unanimous support; and

In 2016, the Massachusetts Public Accommodations Law was updated to protect

against discrimination based on gender identity statewide; and

The November 6, 2018, statewide ballot includes a question seeking to strip away the provision in the Massachusetts Public Accommodations Law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender identity in places of public accommodation; and

Such “public accommodations” where protections for transgender and gender- nonconforming people would be withdrawn should this regressive, discriminatory ballot referendum succeed encompasses “any place, whether licensed or unlicensed, which is open to and accepts or solicits the patronage of the general public,” to include not only public restrooms, but also hotels, stores, restaurants, hospitals, banks, museums, public swimming pools, and homeless shelters; and

Repeal of this law would be devastating for transgender and gender-nonconforming people across the Commonwealth, and would be antithetical to the core values our city proudly upholds and affirms; now therefore be it

RESOLVED: That the City Council go on record as standing in vigorous support of Freedom for All Massachusetts’ Yes on 3 campaign to uphold the law protecting gender identity based forms of discrimination; and be it further

RESOLVED: That the City Clerk be and hereby is requested to forward suitably engrossed copies of this resolution to the Massachusetts Legislative Delegation and the Freedom for All (Yes on 3) campaign on behalf of the entire City Council.

🗓 The meeting where this was taken up: Sep 24, 2018