GARDEN STATE EQUALITY, LAWMAKERS TO CALL ON CHRISTIE ADMINISTRATION TO PROTECT TRANSGENDER YOUTH
Asbury Park – Garden State Equality, New Jersey’s largest advocacy and education organization for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community, will hold a rally on Monday calling on the Christie Administration to step up and protect the state’s transgender youth. They will be joined by various legislators, as well as transgender youth and their families.
This event will take place Monday, March 13 at 1pm on the steps of the New Jersey Statehouse in Trenton.
Transgender youth continue to face obstacles that impinge upon their equality. In fact, across the country, the rights and liberties that are meant to protect them in our schools are being stripped away. In New Jersey, the Law Against Discrimination protects transgender youth, but guidance making the laws clearer must be issued. Schools districts across the state are wrongly under the impression that they can actively discriminate against transgender youth. Garden State Equality wrote guidance for the New Jersey Department of Education to adopt over a year ago (attached). The department has failed to act, and there has been no indication that the Christie Administration intends to provide clarity. It is something Garden State Equality and its supporters will simply no longer tolerate. This lack of inaction puts transgender youth at risk. On Monday, they will call on Governor Christie and the DOE to immediately issue the guidance that Garden State Equality submitted.
About Garden State Equality
Garden State Equality is New Jersey’s statewide advocacy and education organization for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community.
GSE, in collaboration with community partners, led efforts to ensure nondiscrimination for transgender and gender nonconforming people in NJ, pass the most comprehensive anti-bullying law in the country, end sexual orientation and gender identity/expression change efforts in NJ (sometimes called conversion therapy), and bring marriage equality to the Garden State.
In this post-marriage environment, our main focuses are youth, transgender people, and seniors, and our work on those issues is informed by racial, economic, and disability justice concerns. GSE is working on campaigns to address safe environments for youth, improvement of health services that meet LGBT community needs, and respectful treatment of seniors. Beyond that, GSE supports NJ’s activist community by bringing an LGBT lens to the shared struggle for justice.
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Christian Fuscarino
Executive Director
Garden State Equality
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