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SALT
LAKE CITY
-- Ariana Losco says she's just another suburban wife.
The Tooele woman drives a minivan, loves spending time
with her family and shops at the local Wal-Mart. Her lifestyle, she says, is
the epitome of ordinary.
But not everyone sees it that way. That's because Losco
was a man until 1994.
When she took a job at a nursing home six months ago, she
said she never imagined how hostile her work environment would become when
co-workers learned she used to be male.
"It's been pure hell," Losco said, noting that
her shifts have been cut as a result. "I've gone home many times crying,
but I have to do it. I have to have a paycheck."
Under Utah
law, discriminating against gay and transgender people is legal. Rep.
Christine Johnson, D-Salt
Lake City,
wants that to change in one of the nation's most conservative states.
"If I'm not shaking things up, I'm not doing my
job," said Johnson, one of three openly gay lawmakers.
Johnson said it's time Utah's lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender community fights back against years of hostility, highlighted by
a ban on gay marriages and attempts to eliminate gay-straight alliances in
public schools.
"It's very clear that if the LGBT community does not
begin to act in an offensive manner that we will continually end up playing
defense," she said. "I think the statewide community is frustrated
with this unapologetic discrimination."
Johnson is sponsoring House Bill 89, which would add
sexual orientation and gender identity to a list of protected classes in the
Utah Antidiscrimination Act.
There are 20 states that include sexual orientation in
their antidiscrimination laws, and 11 of those include gender identity.
Johnson acknowledged that her bill will be a tough sell in
Utah. Most
lawmakers are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
which considers acting on homosexual feelings a sin.
Lawmakers last year refused to remove a ban on sodomy from
state law, although the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a similar Texas law in 2003.
"That bill's dead on arrival," predicted Paul
Mero, director of the Sutherland Institute, a conservative think tank that's
influential with many Republican lawmakers. "This Legislature, I don't
think it wants to make sexual orientation a protected civil right equal to
somebody's religion or race."
Mero opposes similar legislation at the federal level.
Mero said anyone can say they're gay, and there's not a good way to legally
define homosexuality without catching someone in the act.
He insists that discrimination based on sexual orientation
isn't a problem in Utah.
"Are there people in Utah right now who are being fired from
their jobs because they are homosexuals? I don't think so," Mero said.
"One of the reasons I don't think so is because
frequently it's kind of a personal thing," he said. "Maybe we all
work with someone who we suspect is a gay fellow because he likes watching
'what to wear' or something like that ... but we don't know it."
The Utah Labor Commission said it has received 14
complaints of discrimination against gay or transgender people since June
when Equality Utah, an advocacy group, asked that the agency keep track.
Johnson was surprised to learn the number.
"We have so many people in suburban and rural areas
who are uncomfortable to be out or to even admit to family members that they
have a different sexual orientation," she said. "I'm pleased to
hear there are 14 people who have been brave enough to actually file
complaints.
"It's difficult to go against the grain here,"
Johnson said.
Among Utah's 2.7 million
residents, there are about 50,000 self-identified gay, lesbian and bisexual
adults living in Utah,
according to the Census Bureau.
More than 85 percent of Fortune 500 companies include
sexual orientation in their antidiscrimination policies, as do more than 280
city and county governments nationwide.
"It's kind of up to Utah to decide whether they're
going to be catching up to the rest of the country and the rest of the
Western world," said Lee Badgett, research director at the Williams
Institute, a think tank at the UCLA School of Law.
Badgett has testified before Congress on the issue, which
gained momentum in Utah
last year when a federal appeals court upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit
brought by a bus driver who was fired while preparing to undergo a sex-change
operation.
Krystal Etsitty was fired by the Utah Transit Authority
after she began using women's restrooms on her route. She sued, alleging she
was fired because she was a transsexual and because she didn't conform to
expectations of male behavior.
In 2005, a federal judge dismissed Etsitty's lawsuit after
finding that transsexuals fall outside of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that
banned discrimination against people who fail to meet the stereotype of their
gender.
Will Carlson, policy director for Equality Utah, said
Etsitty's case demonstrated why Utah
needs to amend its laws.
"In Krystal's place, there were not complaints from
customers, the bus riders," he said. "There were no complaints from
anyone. Her employee evaluations were all satisfactory -- she did a good
job."
Losco said she's praying that a law is approved in Utah, although the
odds are long.
"We have to be heard. Until I see transsexuals
standing up and using bullhorns and shouting, nothing is going to
change," she said.
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On the Net: House Bill 89 http://le.utah.gov/
7/82008/bills/hbillint/hb0089.htm
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