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From Baltimore Gay LifeGovernor Prohibits Transgender Discrimination in State Employment
Friday, September 21, 2007
Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley recently updated the state's Executive Order prohibiting discrimination in state personnel actions to include "gender identity and expression." Earlier this year a measure that would have prohibited transgender discrimination was defeated in Senate committee by one vote.
"We are delighted with the Governor's continued leadership in making the state a progressive workforce where discrimination will not be tolerated," said Equality Maryland's Policy Director Carrie Evans. "We hope the General Assembly will follow the lead of the Executive Branch and thirteen other states by moving forward transgender anti-discrimination legislation in short-order in 2008."
In 2007 alone, four states (Colorado, Iowa, Oregon and Vermont) have joined the more than one hundred jurisdictions prohibiting discrimination against the transgender community. O'Malley stands with the governors of Indiana and Kansas who also banned transgender-motivated discrimination in the state workforce this year.
In 2002, when he was mayor of Baltimore, O'Malley introduced a measure prohibiting transgender discrimination citywide, which was passed unanimously by the City Council.