Repeal of Houston Anti-Discrimination Ordinance Ignores Facts

In a referendum vote on Nov. 3, Houston citizens repealed an anti-discrimination ordinance by a tally of 69 percent to 31 percent. Houston’s City Council first passed the ordinance in May 2014, but opponents of the measure succeeded in challenging it in court, forcing a vote.

Supporters of the ordinance argued that 200 other U.S. cities had approved similar measures that “prohibited bias in housing, employment, city contracting and business services for 15 protected classes, including race, age, sexual orientation and gender identity,” according to The New York Times.

The opposition had a vastly different interpretation, however. Its main coalition, called Campaign for Houston, named the law the “Bathroom Ordinance,” claiming that it would allow men dressed as women to enter women’s restrooms and assault them. Houston Unites, the law’s main coalition of supporters, countered this argument on its website. “Nothing in the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance changes the fact that it is — and always will be — illegal to enter a restroom and harm or harass other people,” a paragraph on a page titled “Facts” read.

Houston Mayor Annise D. Parker called the opposition’s efforts “a campaign of fear mongering and deliberate lies.”

One would think the largest city in the U.S. to elect an openly gay mayor would be a little more accepting of people with minority identities, but apparently that’s an idealistic notion. Parker said that the opposition’s campaign was “designed to demonize a little-understood minority.”

The opposition’s campaign had no basis in reality. As supporters of the ordinance pointed out, harassment and assault would be illegal whether or not the measure passed. And yet groups such as Campaign for Houston still managed to convince 69 percent of the people who voted in the referendum that they were promoting the right agenda. Why is that? Their efforts seemed to be a gut reaction to fear of the unknown — namely, transgender people.

In that spirit, let’s learn a little bit about the discrimination transgender people, especially transgender people of color, face on a daily basis.

Seventy-two percent of the victims of LGBTQ- or HIV-motivated hate violence homicides in 2013 were transgender women, and 67 percent were transgender women of color, according to a Human Rights Campaign document. A joint survey by the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force found that the attempted suicide rate among transgender people is 41 percent, compared to 1.6 percent of the general population.

The survey also found that the unemployment rate of transgender people is twice as high as that of the general population, and transgender people are almost four times more likely to have a household income of less than $10,000. Ninety percent of transgender people surveyed reported experiencing discrimination in the workplace, 50 percent reported having to teach their medical providers about transgender care and many experienced housing discrimination.

Transgender people face an incredible amount of discrimination in our country, with negative (and sometimes deadly) consequences. The arguments of groups such as Campaign for Houston seem to further this discrimination by implying transgender women are men in bridesmaid dresses out to prey on women. News flash: they aren’t. With these numbers in mind, an anti-discrimination ordinance seems like a pretty good idea.

Despite these statistics, though, on the night of the referendum, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick of Texas told reporters, “[The ordinance] had nothing to do with equal rights. We already have equal rights guaranteed under our Constitution.”

Patrick could bolster his argument by citing the exact constitutional amendment he was talking about, but if he was referring to the Equal Protection Clause, which says “no state shall … deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,” it’s important to remember that this clause, which is part of the Fourteenth Amendment, was passed in 1868. At that time, women couldn’t vote, sodomy was illegal and the first Jim Crow laws, which legalized racial segregation in southern states, were being formulated.

Just because the Constitution says something doesn’t mean it is being enforced or is true in practice. That’s why we need laws, especially at the local level. However, it’s extremely frustrating when politicians try to take any kind of political action on the basis of misinformation.

This seems to happen time and again, most recently with the congressional hearing on Planned Parenthood, in which Republican representatives who wanted to defund the organization used false information to back up their arguments. All I want is for our representatives to fully understand a situation before they try to address it. They have a responsibility to do that. Otherwise, they waste time and can cause harm to the people they’re supposed to protect, and that’s not something any government should do.

Houston, we have a problem. Fixing it starts with us. If we, as citizens, take the time to educate ourselves about the issues our communities face and to learn a little bit about each other as humans, we will be better qualified to call out our politicians when they start to spew nonsense.

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