LGBT+ Civil Rights Advocate Says Wisconsin Wants To Ban Discrimination Based mostly On Gender Id | WUWM 89.7 FM

Wisconsin was the first state to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation in 1982. The law, signed by former Republican Governor Lee Dreyfus, meant that workers would not be fired for their sexual orientation, nor could people be denied housing, access to education or other public facilities.

Courtesy of Dick Wagner’s collection

Community activist Leon Rouse (left) and Rep. David Clarenbach (R) watched as Governor Lee Sherman Dreyfus signed the nation’s first gay rights law in 1982. It would take seven years for another state to pass similar law.

According to Megin McDonnell, executive director of Fair Wisconsin, an organization dedicated to protecting the civil rights of LGBT + people in the state, Wisconsin has fallen behind in protecting people – especially on the basis of gender identity – since the pioneering anti-discrimination legislation.

“We don’t have statewide legal protection for trans and non-binary people based on gender identity and expression, and of course that’s one of the big issues that is kind of a cornerstone of what we do at Fair Wisconsin,” she says.

Of the 30 states that have legal protection based on sexual orientation, Wisconsin is the only state that does not explicitly provide protection for gender identity or interpret applicable law to include protection for gender identity. In 2019, Governor Tony Evers issued an executive order banning gender discrimination for civil servants.

McDonnell says one gender identity discrimination issue that is gaining prominence in Wisconsin law is the proposed banning of transgender girls and women from all sports in the state. Proponents of the ban say trans women who play sports would take chances from cisgender women, a claim McDonnell says there is “no evidence” to support them.

READ: Wisconsin GOP Bill Aims to Ban Transgender Athletes From Women’s Sports

Instead, McDonnell believes some lawmakers are pushing this issue to divide people over transgender rights in hopes of political gain.

“In the past few months we’ve had massive public hearings, hundreds and hundreds of phone calls to lawmakers, and they still couldn’t find a single example of this problem actually occurring in Wisconsin,” she says.

In addition to protecting gender identity, McDonnell says Fair Wisconsin is working to end conversion therapy for minors and change the language in state laws to reflect the existence of LGBT + people in the state. She says that it is necessary at all levels of government to organize in order to make progress on these issues.

“Wins and wins at the local level can help the state level get going, and wins at the state level across the country help build that momentum and support for things like the equality law [on the federal level],” She says.