The Vote to Uphold #TransLawMa is the Right Choice

While I feel very strongly about encouraging people to vote Yes on Massachusetts Question 3, I did not anticipate beginning the push to educate Westwoodians to begin so early. However, Lexington's Board of Selectmen recently voted to support Yes on Three. Lexington selectman Jill Hai was quoted in Wicked Local as saying:

“The Human Rights Committee has worked hard to pull this together,” she said. ”[The committee] felt it was important to make clear where we, as a town, stand.”

Numerous political leaders from across the Commonwealth, including mayors and other public officials, have publicly come out in favor of Yes on 3. Westwood does not have a Human Rights Committee. I contacted the head of Westwood's Board of Selectmen via email to ask how Westwood could pass something akin to Lexington's resolution and I have yet hear back after two weeks' time.

The main human rights-based argument for public accommodations law*, such as the one affirmed by voting Yes on 3 in November, comes directly from Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR):

"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."

As such, ensuring that transgender people have the right to appear in public with the same legal protections that I, a cisgender woman, have is a crucial human rights issue from where I am sitting.

Up next time in my #TransLawMA Series: Let's Go Smashy smashy on some myths, shall we?

Please email me with any story ideas, events, etc. I want to know what my fellow Westwoodians are doing!

The views expressed here are the views of myself, your Patch Mayor, Heather T. Ford and not Westwood Patch.

*Such laws are often referred to colloquially as “bathroom bills” or “bathroom laws.”

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