Transgender is Good - A Look Back

If you don’t learn from the past, you are doomed to repeat it. Doing a little research on the history of the University of Maryland’s Human Relations Code, I found an example of just that.

Digging through old bound copies of The Diamondback, I found one news story and one editorial that shine some light on how the mistake to exclude the transgender community from the Human Relations Code in 2003 mirrors a similar mistake in 1974.

In 2003, the university’s Senate voted unanimously to add “gender identity and expression” to the Code – an addition that would have directly protected transgender university community members from discrimination.

Although President Dan Mote immediately signed off on the addition in approval, the state attorney general’s office suggested the addition was unnecessary, and the Board of Regents never approved the addition.

Instead, President Mote told the campus community that the university would interpret the code to protect transgender community members.

The following news story and editorial from The Diamondback of 1974 shine light on how the same mistake was made concerning the addition of sexual orientation to the Human Relations Code that year.

“Gays object to being excluded from relation code’s protection
By Harvey Schevitz
The Diamondback
Friday, October 18, 1974

After four years of attempting to set up a human relations code that would guarantee protection to everyone, the University has a code which leaves homosexuals out in the cold.
Homosexuals were denied protection because the Board of Regents recommended not to include them, according to Human Relations Director Yolande Ford.
The board took this action because of a legal requirement to do so, said Louis L. Kaplan, board chairman.
“As a state agency, we cannot go beyond the state or the county code on human relations,” Kaplan said. “We adopted the language used in the Prince George’s County code.”
The code provides for protection from discrimination on the basis of “race, color, creed, sex, age, marital status, political opinion, national origin, personal appearance and occupation,” according to Betty Lee, an employee of the county’s Human Relations Office.
It applies to any resident or person served by the county in the areas of housing, law enforcement, public accommodations, community services and employment, Lee said.
“Homosexuals are not covered per se,” she said, “but they could be covered under the other areas, if they are applicable.”
However, if no other criteria fit the person, they are not protected from discrimination, Lee said.
The code, adopted earlier this month by the College Park Senate, is the result of four years of bickering between the senate and the regents over the extent of protection to be included in the University code.
The senate approved a code last semester which did extend protection to homosexuals, but it was rejected by the regents. The approved code was amended to comply with the regents’ recommendations.
The University’s code includes all measures of protection mentioned in the county code. It will go into effect after Dorsey forwards it to Elkins if it is approved by the state Attorney General, Ford said.
Don Cris, a spokesman for the Gay Student Alliance, said “I don’t see why they used the Prince George’s County code, this is a state university.”
He said he has sent letters to Acting Chancellor John W. Dorsey and University President Wilson H. Elkins explaining the GSA’s position, and he plans to write a letter to the editor of the Diamondback.
Cris admitted there is little to be done now, “but we’re going to do what we can.”
Ford said she regrets the lack of protection for homosexuals. “I hope we’re able to make more progress in the area of covering homosexuals,” she said. “They appreciate efforts being made in their behalf.”
Ford said her office will continue to talk to people who may be able to win legal protection for homosexuals.
“We will lobby and try to persuade people in this county to help us,” she said.
Under the present code, homosexuals are covered under a category if they fit the description, she said, but “They will suffer extreme discrimination” without a separate grouping for sexual discriminations.
She was unable to provide information concerning the frequency of discriminations toward homosexuals, but she said it could happen frequently since there is no protection for them.
Kaplan said if homosexuals want “specific mention” in the code, they will have to “try and get it themselves.””

A couple days later, an editorial titled “backtalk: Gay is good” was printed in The Diamondback:

“We, the members of the Gay Student Alliance, in order to promote the cause for humanity, establish justice and ensure civil liberty, hereby request a reversal in the decision to exclude homosexuals from the human relations code. We decry this order as being unfounded in the principles of ethics and self-defeating in its state purpose.
Therefore, we call upon the Board of Regents and the College Park Senate to recall the code before its final approval, to reinsert the clause prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and to repass the code in this form.
Merely a year ago, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, a classification of mental disorders. Also, in that same year, the D.C. Court of Appeals passed Title 34, which guarantees equal rights to gay people in housing and employment in the nation’s capital.
We can only view this recent shift in the human relations code as a giant step backwards in the struggle for civil rights and matters of free choice. It is time for the administration to wake up, change their medieval attitudes and amend the present code in order to serve the basis needs of the gay community at the University. Gay is good.

Gay Student Alliance
Don Cris
Senior”

If nothing else, this is much to think about – and hopefully, learn from.

Transgender is good.