Dallas Voice (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 27, No. 31, Ed. 1 Friday, December 17, 2010 Page: 1 of 56
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A final bow: Tim Seelig says farewell
Conductor to head San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus
What'll he miss most? Would you believe Tex-Mex?
■ PROFILE, Page 26
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The Premier Media Source for LGBT Texas
Established 1984 I Volume 27 Issue 3
FREE | Friday, December 17, 2010
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HOLIDAY CHEER | Donald Solomon, Gregg Kilhoffer, Ben Polachek, Marcus Wuntch and Chris Bengston divide
presents for each class at Sam Houston Elementary School in Oak Lawn coordinated by Caven Enterprises as part
of an annual holiday gift drive for students at the Oak Lawn area school. Staff members and patrons from Dallas Tav-
ern Guild member bars participate now in the effort. (David Taffet/Dallas Voice)
Questions arise over
FW trans ordinance
Double negative included in
addition to protections adopted
last year could bar trans from
using gender-specific restrooms
DAVID TAFFET I Staff Writer
taffet@dallasvoice.com
FORT WORTH — A double negative in
one sentence of an addition to the nondis-
crimination protections in the Fort Worth
ordinance would enshrine one form of bias
against transgenders.
Proposed Section 17-48 (b) says "It shall
not be unlawful for any person or any em-
ployee or agent thereof to deny any person
entry into any restroom, shower room,
bathhouse or similar facility which has been
designated for use by persons of the oppo-
site sex."
Fort Worth assistant attorney Gerald
Pruitt confirmed that, as written, the clause
allows anyone to deny a transgender per-
son presenting as one sex entry into a rest-
room if that person has not completed
transition.
The concern among members of the
transgender community stems from an in-
cident in which a transgender woman was
arrested in Houston for using a women's
restroom in a public library.
Earlier this year, Mayor Annise Parker is-
sued an executive order that prohibited that
form of discrimination, allowing transgen-
ders to use whichever restroom they feel is
Lisa Thomas
appropriate in
any city facil-
ity. The library
would have
been included
in Parker's
order.
The No-
vember arrest
contradicted
the order but
the action was
against earlier
laws already
on the books.
"We have a number of transgender em-
ployees in Fort Worth," Pruitt said. "I have
no knowledge of any action like this ever
being taken."
He said that a situation arose about five:
years ago when someone began transition-
ing on the job. Someone who had been male
was suddenly presenting as female and
began using the woman's room, he said.
"I think that's where most of the angst
is," he said, explaining that someone every-
one knew as a man began using the
women's restroom.
Pruitt said that the solution that satisfied
everyone was that a bathroom convenient
to the trans woman's office was designated
as her private restroom.
But he denied that this particular clause
was in reaction to the Houston case, which
he said he had not heard about before. And
he said that as far as he knew, the wording
■ ORDINANCE, Page 15
WHO WILL BE THE 2010
LGBT PERSON OF THE YEAR?
Watch for the Honoree to be Announced Dec. 24 Issue
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Nash, Tammye. Dallas Voice (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 27, No. 31, Ed. 1 Friday, December 17, 2010, newspaper, December 17, 2010; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth239147/m1/1/: accessed April 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.