The following guest editorial by Massachusetts Senate President Stan Rosenberg appears in the current July/August 2016 print edition of Boston Spirit magazine:
After the terrible tragedy in Orlando, it is natural to want to say that standing up for LGBTQ rights is more important than ever. But the truth is that standing up for LGBTQ rights was just as important [before the mass shooting] as it is now. As a foster child who grew up as a ward of the state, as a gay man, and as a Jew, I understand what it is like to be cast as an outsider, and for those still considered outsiders under the law, nothing has changed.
What has changed is the amount of pride I feel in the Massachusetts State Senate for voting last November to guarantee equal protection under the law for transgender people. We did this not because it was the hot button issue of the day, and not because there was political pressure. The Massachusetts State Senate voted to expand legal rights for transgender people simply because it was the right thing to do.
This is nothing new in Massachusetts. Our history is full of examples of certain groups both defined and vilified by the majority, and persecuted for their differences. Before the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights was written and adopted, innocent people in Salem were prosecuted and hanged for being “witches.” Yet the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts was the first court in the country to recognize marriage equality, and I am proud to have been a member of the legislature when we defended that right. Thirty seven states then followed our lead until the Supreme Court of the United States upheld marriage equality and made it the law of the land.
Through the perseverance of good people who stood up time after time after time for what is right, Massachusetts is on the verge of becoming the next state in the country to recognize full equal rights under the law for transgender people. It is my hope that passage of the transgender rights bill will lead to a further expansion of equal rights for all persecuted and discriminated people in the Commonwealth.
Our history has shown that guaranteeing equal rights only makes us stronger. By giving every transgender person in Massachusetts the legal right to be where they need to be, whether at work, their home, or anywhere they go, free from the fear that they can be discriminated against without recourse, we are freeing them, and empowering them to work to free others from discrimination and oppression.
That is the core of what passage of the transgender rights bill means to me. Am I proud? More than I can say.
— Stan Rosenberg, Massachusetts Senate President
