Protecting transgender people

Las Vegas is renowned for its hospitality to visitors. However, that reputation -- and the reputation of Nevada as a whole -- took a hit when Stephanie, a transgendered New Yorker visiting Las Vegas in April, says she was escorted out of, and forever banned from, the Cosmopolitan hotel after using a women's restroom.

Though the Cosmopolitan later apologized to the LGBT community for the incident, inviting Stephanie back to the casino anytime and assuring that it would appropriately train its employees in the future, the incident highlights the kind of discrimination transgender people face on a regular basis.

Nevadans and its millions of annual visitors deserve better and, thankfully, our state Legislature seems to recognize that. The state Senate recently passed Senate Bill 331. It would add sex and gender identity and expression to Nevada's anti-discrimination law in public accommodations -- including hotels and restaurants. The bill is now before the state Assembly.

Few businesses have a policy that explicitly prohibits this kind of discrimination. While the Cosmopolitan did the right thing in the end by clarifying its nondiscrimination policy, poorly trained employees, who may have little understanding of what gender identity means, can subject people such as Stephanie to unfair treatment.

The bill would make Nevada one of about a dozen states with protection for transgendered persons in public accommodations. Importantly and frequently forgotten in media and public discussions of Nevada's current bills covering transgender rights, the bill also would take Nevada off the list of about a dozen other states that currently do not have protection by sex and gender in their public accommodations laws.

Strangely, which bathroom a transgender person uses seems to be the only controversy in adding protection for transgendered persons to Nevada's public accommodations law. Opponents state or imply that a person who publicly expresses and presents herself as female but is biologically male, should not use a women's restroom because it is inappropriate or even dangerous. But, actually, it is even more inappropriate for her to use a men's restroom, and certainly more dangerous for her.

Ultimately and without ever saying so, this bill's opponents apparently don't want transgendered persons to use public restrooms at all.

Most people accept that our laws are, above all, a statement about what we believe as a people. A civil rights law banning public accommodations discrimination based on gender identity does not say that we endorse any one kind of gender identity, any more than our civil rights laws against race discrimination endorse any particular race or national origin, or that our laws against religious discrimination endorse being a member of one religion or none at all.

What passing SB331 does say, is that we, as Nevadans, believe in fundamental fairness for all people.

Dane S. Claussen is executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada.