Northampton, Massachusetts City Councilors Rachel Maiore and Deborah Klemer have introduced a resolution to deem Northampton a sanctuary city for gender-affirming and reproductive health care, according to a recent report on MassLive.com. The resolution gets a vote at the City Council’s meeting on October 1.
“Considering Northampton’s good-size trans and gender non-conforming population … I felt there was a need for stronger health care protections for our population,” Scotia McGillivray, a Northampton resident who approached the city councilors, told MassLive.
Reports MassLive:
The intention of this resolution is to set an aspiration for the Northampton community and set an expectation for the city’s government and employees to be welcoming and a “safe harbor” for transgender residents and visitors, Maiore said.
The work for this resolution began after it was proposed by Northampton community member Scotia MacGillivery, 61.
“I approached [Maiore] last spring after having looked through Northampton City resolutions and found very little on transgender health care protections,” MacGillivray said.
She then reached out and spoke with council members from Ithaca, New York, and Sacramento, California, who shared a basic template used to pass similar resolutions.
“Considering Northampton’s good size trans and gender non-conforming population… I felt there was a need for stronger health care protections for our population,” McGillivray said.
Dallas Ducar, who founded Transhealth in Northampton but is now solely focusing on teaching at the University of Virginia and Columbia University and activism, said she helped advise Maiore on the text of the resolution to emphasize the importance of trans protections on both the local and broader national level.
“This resolution is coming at a time when more than 650 anti-trans bills are being introduced across the U.S. targeting health care, legal recognition, fundamental rights of trans and gender nonconforming individuals,” Ducar said.
Read the complete MassLive.com article here.
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