Safer Schools — My first experience in legislative advocacy

Barbara Buono

Just about a month ago, April 6, 2013, at the NY Hilton in front of an audience of over 900 people, I had the pleasure and honor to give remarks and share in the presentation of the Imperial Court of New York’s Community Service Award to New Jersey’s presumptive Democratic Gubernatorial candidate, State Senator Barbara Buono. It was noted that she has been a consistent “Champion” of Equality, but in addition there is one singular event, achievement, that sets her apart from the other Champions of LGBT Equality that are in the NJ Legislature. Barbara Buono was the prime sponsor of the very first fully inclusive LGBT legislation! The “Safer Schools Act” (Anti-bullying Law) of 2002.

The improbable story of how little more than a handful of activists and citizen lobbyists, representing the Gender Rights Advocacy Association of NJ (GRAANJ) having no real treasury and representing a small misunderstood minority, worked and led perceived reluctant allies to add transgender inclusive language to an existing pre-filed piece of legislation is worth telling. I hope that it can be a helpful example to other activists. What is remarkable is the fact that this small core group of people arguably represented the full spectrum of the transgender umbrella whether they considered themselves to be labeled as “transgender” or not. They understood the cultural and societal necessity to articulate that bullying of transgender and gender variant children is harmful, wrong and intolerable. The legislation passed unanimously and was signed into law before the end of the summer.

Donna Cartwright

It’s always important to network and show up. Bi State activist Donna Cartwright called it “serendipity or fate”, that she learned about the New Jersey bill after speaking to a New York trans activist friend who was working with GLSEN (Gay straight Education Network) on DASA, the NY State anti-bullying school bill, who mentioned that a similar bill was going into the NJ legislature and it appeared that the NJ bill was not TG inclusive. Days later, toward the end of January 2002, she attended a convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark where GLSEN had a table in the exhibitors’ area and she engaged one of the Regional leaders who told her that the legislation had already been dropped in both houses and gave her a copy of it which confirmed that the language was not transgender inclusive. She opened the door with the GLSEN folks, and told us about an upcoming meeting that a new North Jersey chapter had scheduled in the coming week.

One of our members who took a lead was Dr. Emanuel Fineberg. ”Manny” was a retired school psychologist who actually had experience with bullying in schools and was articulate on the matter, and became our “expert” on the need to cover Transgender and gender variant children. Manny and I were able to follow through by attending the meeting of the new NJ GLSEN chapter and engaging with their members and leaders. Manny was the expert, I was there to learn and to be an extra supportive body, as two is better than one.

We engaged GLSEN and asked if we could be part of the coalition of organizations that was advocating for the anti bullying bill. We were welcomed. At the same time we contacted the national experts in transgender law and were told that to cover trans people the legislation needed to include the term “gender identity or expression.” Once we agreed on the “legal” language we needed, we asked our new allies if they would be able to get the sponsors to change the language in the bill. They certainly seemed sympathetic, but they also seemed to be reluctant or unsure of a way to do this since the existing non-inclusive language was promoted by their national office.

It became clear that we would have to take the lead on making the needed change ourselves, but we given assurance that the GLSEN folks would be supportive to our efforts to make those changes. It was fortuitous that The Primary sponsor of the bill in the Senate was my State Senator Barbara Buono who I had met a few times because I was a member of a local civic organization.

Barely a week had passed and we were already in high gear. We were part of the Coalition and had determined the necessary language that we needed to insert in the legislation.

Dr. Emanuel Fineberg wrote a letter articulating the need to explicitly cover transgender and gender variant children in the law which we were to present to the sponsors of the legislation. Here is where I got directly involved — now this was close to home and only 3 and a half months after my wife died and I was definitely not ready to be “out” in my local area. I admit I was chicken, so it was “Barry” who contacted Senator Buono’s office with Dr. Fineberg’s letter which expressed concern over the language of her bill. Her assistant turned out to be an acquaintance and was quite friendly. I told her that “Manny” was an old family friend who had a direct interest in this from his days working in New York schools and I was happy to intercede on his behalf with the Senator. I later received word that the Senator understood and had no problems with our suggestion, but because the bill was now in the hands of the Senate Health committee, there was nothing she could do at present; however she would invite us to give our input in front of the committee when the hearings were held.

We were moving quickly, it was only 2 weeks after we found out about the legislation we were already rolling! This was our first try at any legislation, but we had a path and focus. Our members were stepping up! Wendy Berger, who was the President of the NJ Log Cabin Republicans and my first LGBT political mentor, was able to connect with the Republicans who were on this bi-partisan bill as well as some Democrats. Debby Bazarsky, Director of the Gay Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender (GLBT) Student Services at Princeton University, played a key part in facilitating a Conference on Transgender Law on April 11, 2002 on the Princeton campus with GRAANJ being a cosponsor. We invited all the legislative sponsors and all the members of the Assembly and Senate Education Committees to the conference. About two weeks before the Princeton event, we consulted with the national trans legal experts and had a strong consensus on the added language we needed, four simple words, “gender identity and expression.”

John McKeon of Essex County, the primary sponsor in the Assembly, sent his Chief of Staff, Sal Anderton, to the conference. Sal seemed clearly engaged and “moved” to take a positive interest in the concept and experience of transgender civil rights. He, “got it” and with his input and reinforcement to Senator Buono’s folks, we were comfortable in that both prime sponsors would be adding, “gender identity and expression” to each chamber’s respective bills making them uniform.

For me, besides helping guide the political strategy, there was one more thing I could do directly as “Barry,” the local businessman. A member of the Assembly Education Committee represented the district where my business was located. Meeting with the legislator, I told her that this anti-bullying legislation of gender variant children was something in which my late wife, a former teacher, was interested, and that our friend “Manny” the retired school psychologist was an active advocate and GRAANJ’s Legislative Director and personally gave her a copy of his letter.

We had sympathetic local allies, who wanted to help, but seemed reluctant to proactively make the necessary changes that we needed. Their national organization helped write the legislation, they needed a win, and one might reasonably speculate that trying to add transgender language was akin to “rocking the boat,” and might compromise the chances of passage. We got that message, so we proactively took our own positive action and engaged on several levels, and “we” made it happen!

We, this small, almost ad hoc, diverse group of advocates working together under our wide trans umbrella, got the explicit transgender language in the bill at the committee hearings. I need to acknowledge our super activist Terry as well as our “stealth” financial helper “G.” Our Legislative director was joined by experts from some of the national organizations who spoke in favor of trans inclusion at the Committee hearings. It passed. The amended legislation later went to a full vote which was 77-0 in the Assembly and 35-0 in the Senate. By the end of the summer, Governor McGreevey signed it into law!

“Barry” was there at the signing and joined in the victory. I was proud that I was able to help, in a small way, make this happen. I wanted more, I wanted to be “honest” and be there as “Babs” the real me. I learned how a small diverse group, when creative, focused, and able to work quickly, could be effective. We learned the rules and made them work for us. I was getting a great education.

Still in shock over my wife’s death, I was also beginning to define myself. During that summer I had travelled overseas entirely as Babs. That experience gave me great personal confidence that I could survive and hopefully thrive as the woman I am. I began, albeit slowly, a new relationship. Armed with the advocacy and legislative experience and new confidence, I felt ready for the next “step”.

Copyright Barbra Casbar Siperstein
All rights reserved.

Tags: Activist, featured, opinion, politics

Category: Transgender Community News, Transgender Opinion, Transgender Politics