117th CONGRESS 2d Session |
Recognizing that it is the duty of the Federal Government to develop and implement a Transgender Bill of Rights to protect and codify the rights of transgender and nonbinary people under the law and ensure their access to medical care, shelter, safety, and economic security.
Ms. Jayapal (for herself, Mr. Cicilline, Ms. Newman, Mr. Takano, Mr. Torres of New York, Ms. Adams, Ms. Barrag n, Ms. Bass, Mr. Blumenauer, Ms. Blunt Rochester, Ms. Bonamici, Mr. Bowman, Mr. Brown of Maryland, Ms. Brown of Ohio, Ms. Brownley, Ms. Bush, Mr. C rdenas, Mr. Carson, Mr. Casten, Ms. Castor of Florida, Ms. Chu, Ms. Clark of Massachusetts, Ms. Clarke of New York, Mr. Connolly, Mr. Danny K. Davis of Illinois, Ms. Dean, Mr. DeFazio, Mr. DeSaulnier, Mr. Doggett, Ms. Escobar, Ms. Eshoo, Mr. Evans, Mr. Garamendi, Mr. Garc a of Illinois, Mr. Gomez, Mr. Green of Texas, Mr. Grijalva, Mrs. Hayes, Mr. Higgins of New York, Ms. Jackson Lee, Ms. Jacobs of California, Mr. Johnson of Georgia, Mr. Jones, Mr. Keating, Mr. Khanna, Ms. Kuster, Mr. Langevin, Mr. Larson of Connecticut, Mrs. Lawrence, Ms. Lee of California, Ms. Leger Fernandez, Mr. Levin of Michigan, Mr. Lowenthal, Mr. Lynch, Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney of New York, Ms. McCollum, Mr. McGovern, Ms. Meng, Ms. Moore of Wisconsin, Mr. Nadler, Mrs. Napolitano, Ms. Norton, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, Ms. Omar, Mr. Panetta, Mr. Payne, Ms. Pingree, Ms. Porter, Ms. Pressley, Mr. Quigley, Mr. Raskin, Ms. S nchez, Ms. Schakowsky, Mr. Smith of Washington, Mr. Soto, Ms. Speier, Ms. Stevens, Ms. Titus, Ms. Tlaib, Mr. Tonko, Mrs. Trahan, Ms. Vel zquez, Mrs. Watson Coleman, Mr. Welch, Ms. Williams of Georgia, and Ms. Wilson of Florida) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and in addition to the Committees on Education and Labor, Energy and Commerce, Financial Services, and Oversight and Reform, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned
Recognizing that it is the duty of the Federal Government to develop and implement a Transgender Bill of Rights to protect and codify the rights of transgender and nonbinary people under the law and ensure their access to medical care, shelter, safety, and economic security.
Whereas an estimated 1,400,000 transgender adults live in the United States;
Whereas title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires equal treatment under the law regardless of sex;
Whereas the Supreme Court affirmed in Bostock v. Clayton County that Federal protection against discrimination on the basis of sex includes protection from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity;
Whereas despite these protections, transgender people still experience discrimination in medical care, employment, housing, education, lending, and other basic necessities;
Whereas the right of transgender and nonbinary people to seek lifesaving, gender-affirming care and counseling is under threat across the Nation;
Whereas transgender and nonbinary people face significant barriers to legal recognition of their truest selves on government documentation and identification;
Whereas transgender and nonbinary people experience disproportionately high rates of poverty, homelessness, violence, and suicide; and
Whereas transgender and nonbinary people detained in jails, prisons, and immigration detention centers are especially vulnerable to violence and abuse and are often deprived of gender-affirming supplies and care: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that
(1) it is the duty of the Federal Government to protect the rights of transgender and nonbinary people as outlined in this Transgender Bill of Rights by
(A) ensuring transgender and nonbinary people have equal access to services and public accommodations that align with their gender identity by
(i) amending the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, including gender identity and sex characteristics in public accommodations and federally funded programs and activities;
(ii) expanding the definition of public accommodation to address the full range of places and services that members of the general public utilize;
(iii) explicitly clarifying that it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of sex, including gender identity or sex characteristics in public accommodations and services on religious grounds; and
(iv) amending Federal education laws to ensure that they protect students from discrimination based on sex, including gender identity and sex characteristics, and guarantee students right to
(I) participate in sports on teams that best align with their gender identity; and
(II) use school facilities that best align with their gender identity;
(B) ensuring transgender and nonbinary people can care for themselves and their families by fully codifying the Bostock decision by
(i) eliminating hiring and employment discrimination and workforce exclusion by amending title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to explicitly clarify that employers may not discriminate on the basis of actual or perceived gender identity or sex characteristics;
(ii) amending the Fair Housing Act to explicitly clarify that it prohibits all forms of sex discrimination, including on the basis of gender identity or sex characteristics;
(iii) codifying the Housing and Urban Development Department s Equal Access Rule requiring equal access to HUD housing programs without regard to a person s actual or perceived gender identity; and
(iv) amending the Equal Credit Opportunity Act to explicitly clarify that it prohibits all forms of sex discrimination, including on the basis of gender identity or sex characteristics;
(C) recognizing the right to bodily autonomy and ethical health care for transgender and nonbinary people by
(i) strengthening, implementing, and enforcing prohibitions on discrimination in the provision of health care on the basis of sex, including on the basis of actual or perceived gender identity or sex characteristics;
(ii) eliminating unnecessary governmental restrictions on the provision of, and access to, gender-affirming medical care and counseling for transgender and nonbinary adults, adolescents, and children;
(iii) ensuring that health care providers following standards of care for transgender and nonbinary people are not targeted for criminal or civil penalties or professional discipline;
(iv) expanding access to providers with competency serving transgender and nonbinary patients, including by recruiting and training more health care providers to provide appropriate care;
(v) codifying Roe v. Wade, guaranteeing the right to abortion, and codifying the right to reproductive health care such as birth control and fertility treatments for everyone, including transgender and nonbinary people; and
(vi) banning the use of forced surgery that violates medical ethics and human rights on intersex children and infants;
(D) providing accessible avenues for legal recognition of transgender and nonbinary identities by
(i) eliminating gender identification requirements on government documents that are unnecessary to determine the identity of the holder or otherwise irrelevant to the purpose of the document;
(ii) eliminating burdensome barriers to updating sex and names on passports, Social Security cards, and other forms of government identification and records, permitting, where possible, changes on self-attestation alone;
(iii) requiring that an X marker be available on government identification and records that still require gender; and
(iv) eliminating the Federal requirement to list a gender on State identification;
(E) strengthening the safety of transgender and nonbinary people by
(i) investing in community services to prevent intimate partner, family, and community violence against transgender and nonbinary people and expand services for transgender and nonbinary survivors;
(ii) investing in mental health services and suicide prevention programs designed for transgender and nonbinary people;
(iii) banning fraudulent and harmful so-called conversion therapy practices;
(iv) ensuring robust regulations and procedures that affirm that claims for immigration relief or asylum based on persecution related to gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics are protected grounds in the context of asylum adjudications; and
(v) exploring policies and practices that would improve the safety of transgender and nonbinary individuals incarcerated in jails, prisons, and immigration detention facilities and ensure that those populations have access to appropriate services and commissary items; and
(F) actively enforcing the civil rights of transgender and nonbinary people by all government agencies including by
(i) requiring the Attorney General to designate a liaison within the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice dedicated to advising on and overseeing enforcement of the civil rights of transgender and nonbinary people; and
(ii) appropriating the funds necessary to fully staff and support the enforcement of these rights across agencies;
(2) the actions listed above are only the first steps toward transgender equality;
(3) to carry out the goals above, Federal agencies must collect gender identity and sex characteristics information on a voluntary, confidential basis solely for equity and public health purposes in key Federal surveys;
(4) the Federal Government must make an ongoing commitment to the rights of transgender and nonbinary people; and
(5) policies concerning transgender rights must be led and informed by transgender communities, in particular Black and indigenous women who face heightened risk of violence, poverty, discrimination, and other harm due to their intersecting identities.