Just days after the Senate passed a controversial transgender public accommodations bill, Senate President Stan Rosenberg expressed high hopes for the bill to become law. According to Rosenberg, even the four Senate Republicans who voted against the bill are hoping to pass it. “A number of people who voted no said to me, I’m hoping that when the bill comes back, I can vote yes,” Rosenberg said in an interview with Boston Public Radio on Tuesday. “In other words, they’re looking to get to yes, and they knew what the right answer is here, but this particular bill, the way it was constructed, didn’t quite do it for them.”
The bill would ban discrimination against transgender individuals in public spaces, including restaurants, malls, courts, movie theaters and other areas. Opponents of the bill argue that transgender people could falsely claim gender identity to prey on others in bathrooms or locker rooms. A redrafted House version of the bill includes language about taking legal action against “any person who asserts gender identity for an improper purpose.”
Everything is in law that is necessary in law right now to keep that from happening, because that would be against the law, for someone to go in and harass people in a restroom, of any gender.
The Senate did not adopt the House bill language. This addendum, Rosenberg said, is redundant with regard to preexisting laws. “As I understand it, it basically says they want the Attorney General and the Mass. Commission Against Discrimination to play a role in ensuring that people don’t use this law as an excuse to put on a dress and a wig and go into a ladies’ room and claim that they are there because they’re transgender,” he said. “Everything is in law that is necessary in law right now to keep that from happening, because that would be against the law, for someone to go in and harass people in a restroom, of any gender.”
According to Rosenberg, though the law would be virtually unchanged, that language would serve no other purpose than to further perpetuate discrimination. “We don’t think that language is necessary,” he said. “We understand it doesn’t undermine the principles of the bill, but… it’s really not necessary.”
Rosenberg expressed frustration at the legislative wrangling the bill has gone through over the course of a year, and responded to criticism that his involvement in the joint committee delayed the bill further. “I announced on June 25th of last year that the Senate wanted this on the agenda, and we wanted to take it up, but it was in the joint committee,” he said. “We tried again in November to move it, [Speaker Robert DeLeo] ... has to do what he has to do in order to get the votes, and so it’s a piece of the process. Would I have liked it to be done on June 25? Yes. Would I have liked it to be done by Thanksgiving? Yes. Would I have liked it to be done before May 10 or whenever it came out of the joint committee? Yes. But the bottom line is— it’s part of the process, it was in a committee, the committee was doing its job.”
Rosenberg and DeLeo both back the bill. Republican Governor Charlie Baker has yet to take a stand, although he has indicated a likely vote of approval once the legislation arrives on his desk. During BPR on Tuesday, host Jim Braude asked Rosenberg what he should ask of Baker during his scheduled appearance on May 19. Rosenberg simply reiterated, “Are you going to sign the bill?”
Stan Rosenberg is the President of the Massachusetts Senate. To hear his full interview with Boston Public Radio, click on the audio link above.
