Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity are Different

I just read that the North Dakota Senate voted 27 to 19 yesterday to pass SB 2278, “a bill that adds gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals to the protected classes in the state Human Rights Act” according to Inforum.com.

The article goes on to say “Sen. Tom Fiebiger, D-Fargo, the prime sponsor of the proposal, said Senate Bill 2278 prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.”

Really?  A policy that bans discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation adds transgender people to the protected classes in the state Human Rights Act?  I think not.

Policy banning discrimination based on sexual orientation protects me from being fired for being bisexual.  But to protect me from being fired for wearing a tie to the office — which I do fairly often — policy needs to also ban discrimination based on gender identity and expression.  And I don’t even identify as trans or gender queer.

Sexual orientation is about who you’re attracted to.  Gender identity is about how you see yourself on the continuum of masculine/feminine.  Gender expression is how you show your masculinity and femininity — which everyone does, whether they realize it or not.  These characteristics are related, but they are separate.

I sought out the actual bill text — for which I had to create an account on the North Dakota legislature’s website — to be sure about what looked like mighty sloppy reporting.  Instead, it turns out that SB 2278 includes the following definition:

“Sexual orientation” means actual or perceived heterosexuality, bisexuality, homosexuality, or gender identity or expression.
[SB 2278, http://www.legis.nd.gov/assembly/61-2009/bill-text/JARS0100.pdf, page 4, lines 25-26]

Hmm.  My guess is the bill authors inaccurately defined sexual orientation in the bill in order to cover trans folks without having to talk about gender identity directly in lobbying for the bill’s passage.

At the end of the day, North Dakota’s Senate voted to protect queer people — LGB and trans people! — which is fantastic.  Especially fantastic compared to the state House having passed a bill two days previously to give fertilized eggs the same rights as people, conveniently forgetting that the people in whom fertilized eggs grow would lose their rights as a result.

Sometimes I need more characters

What bothers me the most about patriarchy is inefficiency.  An outside system imposing roles on people instead of people’s talents and interests guiding their choice of roles is epically wasteful.  So I seek in my writing to be efficient.

When I can’t tweet what I’m thinking, I’ll expand the character count here, but not by much more than I have to.  :)