The Issues:
Transgender Discrimination
In Maryland, transgender people are not currently protected under statewide anti-discrimination laws that include coverage for discrimination based on sexual orientation; in order to protect them, discrimination based on "gender identity or expression" must be prohibited. Only Baltimore City provides such protections for the transgender community. Transgender people experience bias in a number of areas related to employment, housing, healthcare, and public accommodations.
In employment, discrimination against transgender individuals can occur most glaringly during the application process, but also when they come out on an existing job, or when they seek promotion. It is not uncommon for an employee to experience discrimination or harassment in the workplace if he or she appears "too masculine" or "too feminine," even if that individual does not identify as transgender. In addition, an individual who is transitioning to a different biological sex may find that coworkers or employees make their lives on the job so difficult that they feel they must quit.
I run a Transgender Support Group here in Hagerstown, Md., and a young woman is one of my members. She's eighteen years old and a senior in high school. She's been bounced around from one school system to another ever since she started transitioning at the age of fourteen. Frankly, I can't begin to imagine what she has had to go through. I do know what I've had to go through, but I didn't start this journey until I was in my latter years of adulthood. It boggles my mind to think about her day-to-day existence in public school. She's considered a trouble child by the school systems because they try to make her be a male and she is very strong-natured and doesn't give in easily. She's been punished for wearing women's clothes to school and has had problems with what bathrooms she's supposed to use. Some of the petty silliness that she has had to endure at the hands of the schools administration and faculty is just plain criminal, let alone the harassment she has endured at the hands of cruel and hateful students. She's an "A" student to boot! She has hopes and dreams for her future and she is a beautiful woman. I wish there was a way that I could require the people who are making decisions that affect her every day to just sit down long enough to tell them what exactly they are doing to her. But I can't. You see, it's not against the law for her to be treated the way she is. In fact, the laws cited by her school's administration are very biased against her and makes it easy for people in control to ignore and abuse her.
– Terri Lee Bell, Hagerstown
Transgender people also frequently suffer discrimination when health care professionals deny treatment because of gender identity or expression, ridicule a patient, or refuse to recognize the gender identity of a patient. Transgender people may be discouraged from using either a male or female bathroom facility. In other areas of public accommodations, transgender people might be refused service at a restaurant or in a gender-specific department at a store, or simply ignored by staff. Transgender individuals also may be denied access to social service like shelters or rape crisis centers.
Transgender people often experience difficulty or rejection when trying to obtain or renew driver's licenses. If one's perceived gender does not match the "F" or "M" on a license, transgender people are often humiliated and denied their rightful license. This discrimination can also occur when transgender individuals are attempting to use their licenses for identification at bars, government buildings or to obtain official documents like a passport. (For information on how to change driver's license information, click here.)
BALTIMORE CITY ORDINANCE
Although there is not yet a state law barring discrimination on the basis of gender identity, there is such a law in Baltimore City.
On December 6 2002, Mayor Martin O'Malley signed into law Council Bill 02-0857 (PDF, 720 kb), which prohibits discrimination based on gender identity or expression in the areas of employment, housing, and public accommodations. The ordinance provides similar protections to transgender people in Baltimore City as those provided to lesbian, gay and bisexual Marylanders under the statewide Anti-Discrimination Act of 2001.
Click here to learn more about this law. If you are considering filing a complaint, click here for more information.
Click here to view Equality Maryland's fact sheet on transgender discrimination (PDF, 92 kb).
Click here to return to the Transgender Issues main page.