For the past few weeks many of us in New England have all been condemning Indiana and Alabama for their respective passage, or almost passage, of a bill that would legalize discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender expression for all for-profit businesses. Numerous thought leaders, elected officials, and opinion leaders throughout the state have espoused loudly about the backwards ways of the Midwest and South.
‘Oh, the Cretans of modern day – how can they do this!’ we wail!
As a product of the southern United States, I know what Boston thinks of the South. Yes, we might have pretty, warm beaches and awesome food, but to hear many in Boston tell it, we’re full of backwards people that still live clinging to our guns and bibles.
For the first few years I lived here, I even tried (in vain) to hide my Southern accent for fear people would think me stupid, slow, or gullible.
The last few weeks I’ve heard this entire hullabaloo and scoffed: Why are we acting so mighty in Massachusetts ?
Massachusetts itself makes it legal to discriminate against transgender people everyday, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Remember that guy in Indiana with the pizza joint that didn’t want to serve the gays. Yeah, that can happen here too.
A trans person can walk into Pizzeria Regina or a Papa Johns, or in any restaurant in the Commonwealth, and get refused service.
It is still legal to discriminate against transgender people in Massachusetts.
“What? This can’t be!” you declare. Yes, it’s very true.
You know why I know? Because I’ve seen it happen.
In 2002, I waited tables at a certain famous restaurant in the Back Bay/Theater District. One day a man and his girlfriend came in. They were a loving couple, sat on the same side of the booth and held hands. It was obvious to the wait staff that it was a “trannie” and everyone—including their assigned waiter—went out of their way to make the couple feel uncomfortable including being rude, spilling a drink on their table, and laughing at them openly and loudly from the wait station. The most egregious part was that our floor manager participated. The woman left crying and the man cursed out the manager for discriminating against them. The floor manager replied, “What did you expect?” I went to the head manager of the restaurant the next day and spoke to him about the incident. His reply, “I don’t care.”
The same restroom at the supermarket in Gary, Indiana can be a flash point for a transgender person as the Whole Foods at the Ink block in the South End.
Massachusetts likes to stand on its moral high horse from its ivory towers and pronounce discourses about how it is so far ahead of the rest of America.
However, the emperor has no clothes here.
In order to be better than the rest, we must pass the public accommodation bill this year. Now. Today.
If we don’t pass the bill this year, we are no better than the other states.
AnyI know no one on Beacon Hill wants to be compared to the governors of Indiana and Alabama.
So let’s get it together people.
Here is a link to the bill and all of its co-sponsors
Come down off your high horse and get some legislation passed.
