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>> 89 3 INTRAAventions in the Heartland On January 22, 2004, Bree Hartlage, president of the Indiana Transgender Rights Advocacy Alliance (INTRAA), and John Clower, chair of Indiana Equality (IE), met with the mayor of Bloomington, Indiana, Mark Kruzan, to discuss the amendment of the city’s Human Rights Ordinance (HRO) to include gender identity as a protected class. Despite Hartlage’s and Clower’s efforts to convince Kruzan that gender identity should be explicitly added as a discrete identity category to Bloomington’s HRO, the mayor remained unwilling to endorse an effort to revise the municipal codes.1 Kruzan’s refusal surprised many, given his previous support for local gay and lesbian causes and events. Motivated not by any detectable animus toward trans people, Kruzan’s opposition to the proposed amendment relied instead on his reading of the codes, as well as the counsel of city attorneys who had advised him of ways to handle gender identity discrimination claims within existing legal frameworks. Prior to meeting with Hartlage and Clower, Kruzan conferred with the city attorney and executive director of Bloomington ’s Human Rights Commission (BHRC), Barbara McKinney, who explained to the mayor the possibility of treating gender identity discrimination as sex discrimination, an already protected category under federal law. For McKinney and Kruzan, the best strategy for dealing with gender identity discrimination claims would be an administrative interpretation of sex to include gender identity because it would trigger all of the investigatory mechanisms provided by state and federal anti-discrimination laws. The proposed amendment, according to McKinney, could not extend a comparable set of resources.2 Without the stable footing of a protected category, the BHRC’s hands would be tied, and they would only be able to recommend voluntary mediation 90 > 91 that I was an ally, I whispered, “Good luck!” and they smiled in return. When the BHRC commissioners arrived and unlocked the door, we all filed into a small room with a conference table in the center and chairs lining the perimeter. I grabbed a seat on the outer ring as the trans advocates exchanged pleasantries with the commissioners, and then the meeting began. As it did, I sensed a level of familiarity between the trans advocates and the commissioners, and processed it as a sign that the stakes of this meeting were low as much of the groundwork had already been laid for this particular discussion. Jeff Harlig, the chair of the commission, along with fellow commissioner Emily Bowman, sponsored the amendment before the BHRC. Bowman, a graduate student in sociology, explained her support of the amendment as an important step toward LGBT parity before the law: “I know there are several examples of cases where gay, lesbian, and bisexual people have derived benefits from legal or social triumphs and that transgendered and intersexed people have been left on the outside looking in.” Referring to the city’s prohibition of sexual orientation discrimination since 1993, Bowman concluded, “I personally don’t want our Bloomington city ordinance to be another one of those cases.”4 According to the minutes of the BHRC meeting, recorded and reported by McKinney herself, McKinney responded to this line of argument by appropriating arguments about the symbolic importance of the law when she stated that “if the BHRC decided on the voluntary option when legally enforceable options are available, it was sending the message that gender identity discrimination was not a serious issue.”5 Chair Harlig, unmoved by McKinney’s attempts to usurp the moral high ground, reiterated the importance of a public declaration against gender identity discrimination, branding McKinney’s approach a “stealth option.” Another commissioner also voiced a preference for an explicit ordinance that would allow “employers [to] be able to look at the ordinance and know who was protected.”6 Throughout the meeting , McKinney strenuously and repeatedly objected to the amendment, arguing that “symbolic inclusion made no legal sense.” At one point, Hartlage, who was in the audience, interjected: “not having the words ‘gender identity’ in the ordinance was ‘not acceptable.’ She [McKinney] said it would be better not to be voluntary,” referring here to the voluntary mediation of gender identity discrimination claims, “but if it has 92 > 93 impasse and mutual distrust between the trans advocates and McKinney and Kruzan stalled the amendment. In the absence of McKinney’s blessing, the trans advocates and BHRC members had to expend a great deal of time and energy convincing city council members of the merits of the amendment. McKinney...

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