Session Ends—-Bill Stalls in House

This e-mail was sent out from Jerimarie of Connecticut TransAdvocacy Coalition and I wanted to share it with all our readers. Jerimarie is also a founding member of Queers Without Borders, Hartford Ct.

 Session Ends…Bill Stalls In House.

Thank you for getting us this far.

Thanks to you we had a remarkable year with HB 5723 An Act Concerning Discrimination. We kicked off this short legislative session with an overwhelming turnout for Trans Lobby Day at the Capital. This was followed by testimony form Child Psychiatrists, Parents, Allies, Trans Folk, Executive Directors and many more that revealed the depth of growing support we have for Trans Equality! The Judiciary vote was an overwhelming bipartisan support for HB5723 and Trans Equality. Your calls, your advocacy and your support has moved more and more legislators in support of HB5723. Unfortunately, this bill was raised in a short session that saw many critical bills being raised as well as a challenging budget issue that time simply was not on our side this year. However, we are already preparing for next years session and your continued support and advocacy will be mandatory for us to secure Equal Rights. We recognize that achieving this equality is not as simple as waking up one morning and reading in the paper that HB5723 was passed. It requires a vital amount of public and personal advocacy, meeting and calling your legislator, mobilizing your friends and neighbors to become advocates and continually educating and increasing the drumbeat that this legislation is not about Special Rights but about Human Rights.

TransAdvocacy would like to thank all of its Coalition partners in our Trans Legislative work, with a special thank you to Sally Tamarkin, CWEALF’s intern who worked tirelessly on this legislation during this session.

Please drop your supportive legislator a Thank You..

Since we will be raising this bill next session, please be sure to call or send an email to your legislator(s) today if they were supportive of this bill. Also do send a special thank-you to Senators McDonald and Kissel as well as Representative Lawlor whose unending support for this bill has been critical.

We also encourage you to take a spiritual moment and reflect on the marvelous impact each and everyone of you had this year. I know I have, and I am so very proud of all of you and all our voices, hard work and persistence to get us so far in one short year.

I also encourage you to reflect on the immortal words of Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, that is the only thing that ever has.”

Those words apply to all of you, for though we may be a small cadre of passionate and determined voices and spirits, we have created an empowering movement and change for all Trans and Gender non-conforming peoples of Connecticut.

Thank you so very, very much!!

 And we at Queers Without Borders thank our sister Jerimarie for all of her hard work. You are truly an inspiration to all who fight for justice, equality and peace.