I just heard about house bill 2796 a bill that has recently been proposed and I’m pretty fucking scared by it.
The gist of the bill is this:
“This bill prohibits the word “sex” or “gender” from being interpreted to mean “gender identity,” and requires “man” or “woman” to be interpreted to refer exclusively to a person’s genetic sex, for purposes determining the meaning of federal civil rights laws or related federal administrative agency regulations or guidance.“
This is some scary ass shit and we need to fight it with whatever we can, every step of the way.
that “genetic sex” bit really makes it obvious the people responsible have no idea what they’re doing and are all the more dangerous because of it.
The bill is before the House Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice. Of the eight representatives on the committee two are sponsors of the bill. The members of the committee are:
Steve King (Iowa 4) (Sponsor) Ron Desantis (Florida 6) Trent Franks (Arizona 8) (Sponsor) Louie Gohmert (Texas 1) Karen Handel (Georgia 6)
Steve Cohen (Tennessee 9) Jamie Raskin (Maryland 8) Jerry Nadler (New York 10)
Information current as of July 16th.
TO BE CLEAR: H.R. 2796 – called the “Civil Rights Uniformity Act of 2017″ – is a direct attempt to repeal the Obama administration’s protections for people who identify as LGBTQ, and specifically, people who identify as transgender, intersex, or gender-nonconforming.
Under President Obama, the U.S. Departments of Justice, Education, and Health and Human Services all issued rulings that redefined “sex discrimination” and “gender discrimination” to include discrimination against a person’s gender identity and/or expression.
This is about Equal Employment protections. This is about access to bathrooms. This is about transgender people having health insurance to cover “gender transition treatments or sex change operations” under the Affordable Care Act.
In addition to reversing the Obama administration’s protections against gender identity discrimination, the bill would also prohibit the executive branch (i.e. the President) from ever reinterpreting the definitions of “sex” and “gender” to include gender identity, and would instead require an act of Congress to add protections against gender identity discrimination in any matter governed by federal law.
H.R. 2796 was introduced on June 7 and referred to the House Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice (a subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee) on July 12. As the last post stated, two of the committee members are co-sponsors of the bill – including the committee chairman, Rep. Steve King of Iowa.
Now, the same bill was introduced last year and was also referred to the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice. No hearing was ever held on the bill, nor any action taken – but last year, none of the committee members were co-sponsors of the bill and we had a president who would have vetoed it even if it had gotten through.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
If you’re a constituent of one of the above-listed subcommittee members – call them. Call them today, tomorrow, the day after. Call them as much as you can. Ask your friends and relatives to call them. Tell them this bill is an unambiguous attack on civil rights in the United States.
If you’re not a constituent, you can still call them. Call up the subcommittee members or the Judiciary Committee’s general phone line and tell them how fucking pissed you are.
Keep an eye on the Judiciary Commitee’s calendarin case they decide to hold a hearing on H.R. 2796. (As of July 16, there are no hearings scheduled yet.)
Call or write to The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, CNN, the Huffington Post, or whatever national or local media source you get your news from to tell them that they need to be covering this bill so it doesn’t get swept under the rug.
Call or write to GLAAD, the Human Rights Campaign, and the ACLUto make these organizations aware of this bill and tell them you’re counting on their resistance.
The Carving Witch 