CRC Doctor Addresses the County Council

Some of us went to the County Council meeting today to hear the discussion about the proposed transgender nondiscrimination bill. They didn't vote today, there were some questions yet to answer, but the public addressed the Council and the Council members discussed the topic.

Two people spoke against the bill. One was Reverend Grace. I can't be mad at her. She just wants to bring everybody to Jesus, and that's all there is to it. She saw us talking in the hall after the meeting, and called out, "Oh hi, Teach the facts." When she was younger, she says, she went through "a time," doing a lot of drugs, crazy sexual things, she says she was living as a man and then she found Jesus. I think that was great for her. Now she has a TV show and a web site, and she tries to help gay and transgender people go straight. She shows up occasionally for these things, and she has the right to her opinion. To my mind, she's not hateful like some of the others. I wouldn't want to live in a whole world full of Reverent Graces, but she's OK with me.

The other person who spoke against the bill was Dr. Ruth Jacobs, the Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum's representative on the citizens advisory committee.

I'm only going to interrupt once, right at the start. Other than that, here's Ruth Jacob's presentation. You can listen to it HERE.

President Praisner and County Council, I appreciate being asked to speak before you, I'm an infectious disease physician. I became involved when Montgomery County Public Schools began to introduce homosexuality and alternative lifestyles without the risks.

Never mind that this statement is creepy and misleading, I should tell you that later in the meeting, Council President Marilyn Praisner made Dr. Jacobs state that she had not "been asked" to speak, by any Council member or anyone else.

OK, I won't interrupt any more.

I believe there should be tolerance for everyone. I also think you should not tie the hands of physicians, counselors, pastors and bishops who may not, who may think this may not be the best choice for an individual.

I left out my best paragraph, I'll try to email it to you, but there's, you're standing behind this bill in one side on the psychiatric issue. You're saying I will support gender identity for someone who wants to change their gender identity. You are forgetting that there are other people who have stepped out of that, they're ex-transgenders, they're people who decided that's not the best for them. There are risks, sixty percent of the black transgenders in one study were HIV positive. Twenty-four percent had used crack cocaine, 13 percent methamphetamines, four percent heroin.

As a member of the committee at the schools, I received threatening emails when I slipped and failed to use the proper pronoun. It was not my intention to offend anyone, I think however as a physician there is a certain amount of honesty. Gender identity disorder is a disorder, it is in the American Psychiatric Association as a mental illness. Would you support that as a position [perhaps "physician"] or will you be true to biology? Everyone has to make their own decision on that but I don't believe they should be forced. In the bill it says that you should not damage someone's personal property. I believe that could be easily translated by the courts into their personal identity.

I'm also concerned that the bill would create a need for the county to support transgenderism. But they might forget about people who've taken the choice not to do that or who have taken the choice to step out of that.

I am concerned about the ambiguity, it says that the ambiguity must be eliminated, I think the ambiguity ought to be eliminated in the definition. I came in my coat, and my stethoscope, I could give this to someone else and they might look like a doctor. That's not going to make them a doctor. [Timer rings] And I hope that you will read the rest of my ... [trails off]

This was the middle of public comments, with several people remaining to speak, but some Council members had questions for the five people sitting at the table. Some of it is pretty interesting, trying to figure out how to work out a policy that prevents discrimination without having some unintended consequences.

Council member Duchy Trachtenburg had some questions and comments for Ruth Jacobs. In this exchange, "DT" is Duchy, "RJ" is Ruth. I'm not transcribing the whole discussion, only the section relevant to Ruth Jacobs' testimony.

DT: My questions actually are specific to Doctor Jacobs. It is my understanding that your medical training and background is specific to infectious disease, correct?

RJ: I also have intensive care and allergy [noise, can't hear].

DT: OK, well, I guess to me that is an important fact to raise, simply because it would seem to me based on clinical practice, you haven't had an enormous amount of experience with the transgender community. I certainly would note that you don't have specific training or experience in working on psychiatric issues, and you made note in your testimony, you referred to transgendered status as being a mental illness, and as someone who is trained clinically to work with people in the area of mental health, what I would suggest to you is that there really are rare instances of where transgendered status is really identified as mental illness, and that even if it was the case that that would be the way it would be presented, it would still be wrong to discriminate against an individual based on a medical condition.

So I think that's one thing that I would want to point out.

RJ: Can I make a comment, please?

DT: Sure.

RJ: I believe that the American [unclear] Disabilities still states though that if you're going to employ, you can employ reasonably, I mean you wouldn't put somebody with a major mental illness like schizophrenia in charge of X. They allow you to make accommodations for what is reasonable if there is a mental illness. And I think you should be keeping that in mind I have a thing in my testimony stating what would we want in our schools? I think nobody has proven that this is healthy for the kids, to be told that you can change your gender identity at age five. No one has done those studies to say somebody comes in as Bill, and in a year, changes to Susan, what does that do to the kindergartners and their gender identity? Have we shown that that's safe for those children? I think the bill should be titled as the American Disability Act, it's for [unclear].

DT: I thank you for your comments, however I actually don't have the same opinion and again as someone who has worked around an assortment of issues including LGBT issues, it would seem to me that acceptance around self-expression and working with children so that they have every opportunity despite what their presentation might be, what their interests may be, what their orientation may be, that the issue of discrimination and fear of discrimination is very much a factor for LGBT youth and that has been my clinical experience.

RJ: And-and-and kindergartners are afraid of losing their penis...

DT: I don't want to argue with you...

[crosstalk, interrupting]

Pres. Praisner: You haven't been asked a question at this point, the Council member has the floor.

DT: I don't think we're going to agree on it and I don't want to belabor the point with you but I just wanted to raise the fact that I really did not see what you provided in the way of testimony as having either merit, but really having significant bias.

The Council then drifted off into a discussion of the "bathroom issue," which is interesting in itself, especially since there are two issues. The easy one: which bathroom should a transgender person use? Well, it's not easy, really, but at least there should be some way to come to a solution. As was noted, this is mostly a hypothetical problem, women don't really have to live in fear of having a person of ambiguous gender in the next stall. The other issue that someone raised has to do with men using this kind of antidiscrimination law as protection so they can go into the ladies' room and, I don't know, peek at women using the toilet? The Council asked their lawyer to look into that, but ... that's not a serious question, is it?

The discussion went on for more than an hour, I'd say. We look forward to learning about the vote.