After ten members of the Dallas TBLG community addressed the DART board during its 30 minute comment period before the vote, the Dallas Area Rapid Transit board approved a nondiscrimination policy that protects trans people by a unanimous vote in front of a packed board room.“A word is standing between us, and the word is ‘except,’” Stonewall Democrats of Dallas President Erin Moore told the DART board, adding that everyone has a sexual orientation and a gender identity. “All of these things also include you. Why not include us?”
The contentious 'except' word was removed prior to the vote, but Dallas area GLBT peeps understandably want confirmation that the language in the new policy does exactly what it is supposed to do and protects present and future DART BTLG employees from discriminatory behavior.The Dallas TBLG community was outraged after various LGBT legal experts concluded after last week's DART committee of the whole meeting that the 'except' word inserted by DART board member Raymond Noah not only would gut the proposed policy, but rescind the sexual orientation policy passed by the DART board in 1995.
After the unanimous vote, the packed board room responded with a standing ovation.
Getting the policy passed was the easy part, as contentious as that process was. Now comes the hard part of implementing and ensuring DART complies with it.
