Rachel Kurzius
Photo by Ted Eytan.
New legislation introduced by At-large Councilmember David Grosso at the D.C. Council today would ban all city-funded travel to states with laws that discriminate against lesbian, gay, transgender or bisexual people.
Mayor Muriel Bowser banned government employee travel to North Carolina last week after the state passed a law that prevents transgender people from using public bathrooms that do not match the gender on their birth certificates and rolls back local anti-discrimination measures for people in the LGBTQ community. That order has already resulted in the cancelation of one trip. Bowser similarly banned travel to Indiana last year, following that state’s passage of a Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and rescinded it after saying the law had been sufficiently changed.
Grosso wants to enshrine that practice in law rather than have the mayor issue orders on a case-by-case basis. He noted that, as he sat on the dais, he received a news alert that Mississippi signed its own law codifying anti-gay discrimination.
The legislation would ban city-funded travel to a state with “a law in effect that affirmatively sanctions or requires discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity or expression,” unless the travel “is necessary for the enforcement of District law, to meet contractual obligations … or for the protection of public health, welfare and safety.”
Grosso noted that transgender people have been using bathrooms in D.C. for ten years without issue, and that the laws are “not about safety but about hatred and disrespect.”
Councilmembers Anita Bonds, Brianne Nadeau, Brandon Todd, Jack Evans, Charles Allen, and LaRuby May co-sponsored the legislation, which was sent to the Committee of the Whole.
