Aldermen guarantee transgender washroom access

The city is on track to close a loophole that could allow discrimination against transgender people. | Getty Images

After emotional testimony from ostracized transgender Chicagoans, aldermen moved Wednesday to close a legal loophole that, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has warned, could “inadvertently” allow restaurants, hotels and other “public accommodations” to discriminate against transgender people.

The City Council’s Committee on Human Relations advanced the ordinance to the City Council floor, despite concerns about, what Ald. Nick Sposato (38th) called the “knucklehead effect.” That is, a man who claims to be transgender just to gain access to a women’s washroom.

“Some ladies are saying some guy is coming in the bathroom. I’m not saying he’s doing anything. He’s just in there. They’re just uncomfortable that guys are coming in the bathroom. You send a squad there. What’s the deal? If they identify as a woman, you guys turn around and tell the lady there’s nothing we can do? What’s the CPD policy?” Sposato asked.

Captain Sean Joyce of the Chicago Police Department’s Office of Legal Affairs said that kind of complaint would trigger a police response and an investigation. But, he candidly replied, “There wouldn’t be an automatic violation of law just because a male stepped into a female washroom or vice-versa” unless a crime had been committed.

When Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson (11th) asked “what protections do we have” to prevent someone from falsely claiming they are transgender to gain access to public facilities, Human Relations Commissioner Mona Noriega did not pull any punches.

“You’re already showering next to people who are transgender and you don’t know it,” Noriega said.

Among who testified in favor of the ordinance was Lilly Wachowski, who wrote and directed the movie, “The Matrix.” She’s a 6-foot, 4-inch, 214.5-pound woman with a deep voice that makes her, as she put it, “unmistakably transgender.”

Wachowski told the harrowing story of what happened in the dressing room of a Chicago store recently when she was exchanging a sweater her boyfriend had given her for Christmas.

“Another patron, upon hearing my voice, asked sternly to see a manager regarding the store’s policy of allowing men in the women’s changing room. My internal alarm began to ring. Run, it said. I quickly finished my business and went to pay the balance of my exchange. At the checkout, the woman had emerged from the dressing room and was lecturing the manager. I fought my flight instinct and decided to engage her to tell her that I was sorry if I made her uncomfortable. It’s just that there isn’t a place for people like me,” Wachowski said.

“She cut me off to tell me she wasn’t going to talk to me. Though I was right in front of her.

“She would not recognize me. In her man-or-woman, binary world view, I simply did not and could not exist. This kind of thinking is rampant. It is institutionalized — be it in the form of TSA security scan, gender bathroom, locker room or changing room. But, we are here. We exist. And I implore you at this moment to please recognize us.”

The amendment approved Wednesday essentially prohibits places such as hotels, restaurants and grocery stores from requiring patrons to show a “government-issued identification” upon request to access facilities “private in nature” such as restrooms “based on a person’s biological category, gender identity or both.”

Instead, the ordinance would state, “For purposes of this subsection, ‘sex’ includes both biological category and gender identity. Each person determines his or her own gender identity. No proof shall be required except his or her expression of his or her gender.”

Noriega kicked off the testimony by claiming that a Human Rights Ordinance that was “cutting edge” in 2002 now “reminds us of North Carolina” and the controversial legislation approved there.

“That’s not going so well for North Carolina,” Noriega said, noting that the federal government is suing the state and that major companies are either talking about moving out of the state or avoiding travel there.

“We should not require that anybody prove who they are” before using a public washroom, the commissioner said.

Ald. James Cappleman (46th) is one of the City Council’s five openly gay aldermen.

Cappleman said it’s “about time” the City Council “recognize those who have suffered so much blatant discrimination” because of archaic language that literally forces transgender Chicagoans to “go the bathroom outside because they can’t go to a public bathroom.”

Ald. Deb Mell (33rd), the Council’s only openly lesbian alderman, added, “If we don’t change this, we’ll have more men in the women’s bathrooms and more women in the men’s bathrooms. We are doing the exact thing we don’t want.”

In written testimony submitted to the Human Relations Committee, a transgender Chicagoan who identified herself as “Lucy D” discussed the anguish caused by what she called the discriminatory clause.

“My ID does not reflect who I am. … The gender marker betrays my presentation. Even at bars in Boystown, I often experience a great deal of very intense anxiety at the prospect of handing over my ID to whoever is working the door,” Lucy D was quoted as saying.

“While I understand the necessity of proving my age in settings like this, obedience of the law does little to quell the internal turmoil I experience every time someone looks at my ID and at my face and sees the difference between the two. Giving people proof that I am trans often feels like handing them a loaded gun given the state of discrimination against my community.”

Lucy D urged the City Council to ban, what she called the “anxiety-inducing protocol” required by the existing ordinance.

“Already, I’m very cautious about what public facilities I use. Often I have to go out of my way in order to find a bathroom where I feel safe enough to answer the call of nature. It is a pattern I repeat out of fear,” she said.