News Release
For Immediate Release: March 19, 2014
Contact: Diane Gramley 1.814.271.9078 or 1.814.437.5355
Will the Legislature Follow Facebook’s Lead?
(Harrisburg) — Almost 100 legislators have signed onto bills in the State House and State Senate that would add “sexual orientation and gender identity or expression” to the PA Human Relations Act. These bi-partisan bills (HB 300 and SB 300) are very misleading and most legislators, nor the general population, understand the full impact passage of such a law would have on Pennsylvania citizens. The American Family Association of Pennsylvania (AFA of PA), in an effort to educate the sponsors of these bills, has contacted them with a simple question: “Last month Facebook added over fifty additional gender identities to their gender options. If a bill you support, HB 300/SB300, becomes law will these also be included as protected classes under the “Gender Identity or expression” component of the bill?”
“The majority of sponsors of these two bills do not understand the Pandora’s Box they will open if either of these is passed. Facebook’s decision to add over 50 gender identities to their profile choices highlights this. Our goal in contacting the sponsors was to get them thinking about what a bill they support will means and how it will impact Pennsylvanians. The bottom line is these bills are not about preventing those who identity as homosexual from being fired or evicted from their apartments, it’s about redefining normal. There’s no documented evidence we need such laws,” commented Diane Gramley, president of the AFA of PA.
Facebook’s list includes:
Agender
Androgyne
Androgynous
Bigender
Cis
Cis Female
Cis Male
Cis Man
Cis Woman
Cisgender
Cisgender Female
Cisgender Male
Cisgender Man
Cisgender Woman
Female to Male
FTM
Gender Fluid
Gender Nonconforming
Gender Questioning
Gender Variant
Genderqueer
Intersex
Male to Female
MTF
Neither
Neutrois
Non-binary
Other
Pangender
Trans
Trans Female
Trans Male
Trans Man
Trans Person
Trans*Female
Trans*Male
Trans*Man
Trans*Person
Trans*Woman
Transexual
Transexual Female
Transexual Male
Transexual Man
Transexual Person
Transexual Woman
Transgender Female
Transgender Person
Transmasculine
Two-spirit
“Legislators think passage of such laws in some PA municipalities have had no negative impact, but that’s not the case. In Philadelphia, a man who thinks he is a woman demanded to use the women’s fitting room in a local KMart and the store employees were forced to allow this outrageous action. Philadelphia has also been sued by four females who were former inmates of the Riverside Correctional Facility. They were forced to share their cell with a fully equipped male who thinks he’s a woman. They claimed he leered at them and make inappropriate comments about their anatomy. The city paid each of them $8,000 to settle the suit. Passage of HB 300 or SB 300 will force women and little girls to share the public restroom , locker and shower rooms at the local Y with males who are sexually confused about who they are, but whose bodies fully declare they are male. Pennsylvania legislators should be in the business of protecting citizens, not putting them in harm’s way,” Gramley concluded.
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