First draft of transgender referendum nixed

The city attorney’s initial wording of a proposed charter amendment that could overturn Gainesville ordinances providing civil rights protection to transgendered, gay and lesbian residents was discussed but not approved Thursday night by the Gainesville City Commission.

Instead, commissioners asked City Attorney Marion Radson to develop alternative wording that would meet the law and provide a fair representation of the impact of the amendment.

Opponents of a commission decision earlier this year to extend rights to the transgendered got enough signatures to force a referendum on the spring ballot with City Commission races.

Radson presented amendment wording that would prohibit the city from enacting or enforcing an ordinance or rule that “provides protected status, preferences or claims of discrimination” for classes of people who are not covered in Florida’s Civil Rights Act.

The Civil Rights Act includes protection from discrimination based on race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, handicap, and marital status.

But it doesn’t include discrimination protection based on gender identity or sexual orientation, which the city now protects.

Radson said some of the language that he developed was drawn from the petition in order to try to meet legal standards. He added that the referendum language cannot be politicized.

Several commissioners and residents took issue with words such as “preferences” or “claims of discrimination.” They said those words and phrases can have negative connotations.

They also said the wording does not fully reflect the impact that the amendment’s passage would have.

“In the last decade or so the word ‘preference’ has become loaded terminology,” Mayor Pegeen Hanrahan said. “The essence of this is that it would remove civil rights and existing protections.”

Citizens for Good Public Policy, a political action committee headed by Cain Davis, petitioned to get the amendment on the ballot in response to the commission’s decision in January to include gender identity in its anti-discrimination policy.

That move guaranteed the right of transgendered people to have equal access to housing, employment, credit and public accommodations.

Davis’ group has said the transgender protection clause will allow sexual predators into public restrooms.

Opponents of the amendment have said it was drafted as a means to permit discrimination against specific groups of people and is thus unconstitutional.

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