Trailblazing in Badgerland: Madison becomes first Wisconsin city with gender identity protections
by Karen Hawkins
With a unanimous voice vote Sept. 19, Wisconsin’s capital, Madison, continued its trend as a progressive pioneer to become the first city in the state to add gender identity to its nondiscrimination ordinance.
Madison was also the state’s first city to add sexual orientation to its human-rights ordinance in the early 1970s.
“Madison has a proud tradition of embracing, and of being on the cutting-edge of embracing, civil and human rights and gender rights, and it’s important that Madison’s human-rights ordinance be kept current,” said Ald. Michael Verveer, main sponsor of the proposal and one of three openly gay aldermen on Madison’s 20-person council.
The amendment adds gender identity to the city’s nondiscrimination ordinance and goes on to give a broad definition of what gender identity means.
“It clearly covers transsexuals and transgendered persons, but it also covers people who are gender variant from the norm, meaning people who dress androgynously, effeminate men and masculine women,” said Debra Weill, executive director of Outreach, Madison’s GLBT community center. “All of those people were inadequately protected before,” she said.
The ordinance’s protections extend to categories including employment, housing and public accommodation.
Weill said that during initial conversations with city officials earlier this year, several aldermen assumed that the nondiscrimination ordinance already protected transgendered people.
According to the city attorney, however, “narrow areas of dress were protected, but people in transition and people going through surgery really weren’t protected,” said Ald. Gary Poulson, another of the proposal’s co-sponsors. “A number of alderpeople got together to change that,” Poulson added.
“I considered it … an oversight that we corrected Tuesday night,” Verveer said. “People shouldn’t be discriminated against because of the way they express their gender.”
Both Madison activists and aldermen said they weren’t expecting to see the amount of support the proposal received. Not only was the vote unanimous, nearly 50 people registered their support for the measure with the city, and all of the 11 citizens who spoke during the Sept. 19 meeting were supporters.
“I’m very proud that the vote was unanimous,” Verveer said, noting that despite Madison’s reputation as a progressive city, its City Council does have its share of conservatives.
“In a way I was surprised. Quite frankly, I know there were a couple people who were uncomfortable with it,” Poulson said.
“It was really a wonderful moment to have witnessed,” Weill said.
Neither Poulson nor Verveer have heard any negative feedback about the vote from constituents, and Verveer said his only correspondence from citizens has been “just a few congratulatory e-mails.”
With the vote Madison became the 28th city in the country to include gender-identity protections. Other cities include Boulder, Colo., Ann Arbor, Mich., Evanston, Ill., and New Orleans, the city that Madison used as a model for crafting its ordinance.
R.I. COURT RULES IN FAVOR OF
LESBIAN MOM IN VISITATION DISPUTE
The Rhode Island Supreme Court ruled Sept. 25 in favor of a lesbian co-parent who had sought the assistance of the Family Court in resolving issues of visitation rights with the child she had raised with her former partner, the biological parent of their son.
In a 3-2 decision, the Court ruled that the Family Courts of Rhode Island have the power to hear claims raised by defacto parents and to determine the interests of children born to unmarried couples. Mary Bonauto, an attorney at Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief for Rubano on behalf of a wide variety of civil-rights and child’s rights organizations, stated, “This is a win for the children of Rhode Island who now know that custody and visitation disputes can be sorted out in court according to what is in their best interests.”
Rubano and the child’s birth mother, Concetta DiCenzo, had jointly decided to have a child. Rubano’s name appeared on his baptismal certificate, and they used their hyphenated names as his surname. Birth announcements sent out by the couple identified both women as the child’s parents. Rubano helped to raise and nurture the child for four years before the couple separated. Although visitation continued for about a year after the separation, it became erratic. When DiCenzo refused further contact between Rubano and the child, Rubano went to court. The parties entered into a visitation agreement which became a court order. When DiCenzo changed sought to nullify the agreement, the Chief Judge of the Family Court asked the Supreme Court for guidance.