So for those who have just arrived,
welcome to Keshet's webinar on trans
rights, where we'll be talking about this
November's ballot initiative. And the way
that we are going to do question and
answer is that you -- everybody will have
the opportunity to submit a question
throughout the presentation by
clicking on the Q&A function, which
you'll find at the bottom of your
Zoom's screen, and we'll answer them
at the end. And if you have any technical
issues or technology related questions,
you can individually message Catherine
through the chat function.
Sure. So thank you, Amy, for this message.
So if you have a technical issue, please
send a message in the chat to all
panelists. Thanks. Okay, so we're gonna go
ahead and get started, and the way that
we'll start is just to lay out a little
bit about the goals of this particular
webinar. So one of the goals is to give
detailed information about the ballot
initiative that is coming up in November, how
we got here, the issue at hand, and why
we're doing -- why this is happening in
Massachusetts, etc. We're going to be
talking for a minute about why this is
an issue of concern in the Jewish
community, and then we're going to talk a
little bit about action opportunities
that each of you have individually, and
as members of congregations or Jewish
institutions, to be part of the effort to
engage voters to vote YES on the ballot
in November to uphold trans rights.
And what we really hope for is that this
webinar will give you as much
information as you need in order to take
action and to feel that -- feel confident
in being able to take action. So please
do submit your questions with the Q&A
function, we do want to give as much
information as possible so you feel as
knowledgeable as you need to be. So at
that, I will go ahead and turn it over to
my colleague Caden Mohammed.
Hi everyone, thanks so much for joining
us. So I want to start us off by talking
about how we got here.
So before 2016 there were no statewide
anti-discrimination laws protecting
transgender people in public spaces. So
there were 12 cities around
the state that had their own local
ordinances which gave trans people
protections. Some of those cities were
Boston, Cambridge, Northampton, and Amherst,
but that was only 12 cities which, as you
can imagine, represents a very small
minority of places in our state. There
were still millions of people at risk
every day, and if someone left Boston, for
example, and went to another part of the
state, even just the 20 or 30 minute
drive down the road to a town like
Wellesley, they would not be safer
protected from discrimination in public
spaces. So what that means really is that
transgender people could be kicked out
of or refused service in places like
restaurants and parks and public
transportation and grocery stores and
even in medical care facilities like
doctors offices and hospitals. So back in
July of 2016, we were able to get a
bipartisan super majority of legislators
to pass the anti-discrimination bill
that -- now it's transgender people
protections in public spaces from
discrimination. It was also signed into
law by governor Charlie Baker.
So after long term efforts of organizing,
building a coalition of individuals and
organizations who supported the bill,
countless conversations with legislators,
the Freedom for All Massachusetts
campaign and its partners, including
Keshet, were able to get the statewide
legislation passed. The
anti-discrimination law that I'm talking
about now is what's at risk in November
when people go and vote on the ballot
initiative. So by the end of October of
2016, a small group of people had gotten
enough signatures to put this
legislation up for appeal by popular
vote. So there are a few things to note
about this that are important to you.
It's the first time that there's ever
going to be a statewide popular vote
for transgender people from
discrimination anywhere in the country.
This has never happened before. It means
that people's basic human rights and
this anti-discrimination law are going
to be put up for a vote in our state
questioning whether or not trans people
should have basic rights. People will get
to check a box, basically, and decide if an
entire group of people should be treated
fairly and equally under the law, or if
our state is going to allow them to be
second-class citizens subjected to
discrimination every time they leave their
homes and try to do anything from
getting on the T to getting groceries.
So, what this means for November -- so, in
November the most important thing to
know is that we need to vote YES to
uphold transgender rights and uphold
this -- this legislation that provides
people protections in public spaces. This
is not an easy win for us. Recent polling shows that currently only
about 50% of Massachusetts voters
support upholding these protections.
There's up to 10% of voters that are
undecided, so there's a large -- there's a
large area there for us to lose this
vote, and so it's really important to
remember that this is not easy, we cannot,
you know, take this for granted even
though we're living in Massachusetts,
which is a liberal state -- we really need
to be vigilant about making sure that
everybody knows about this and that
everybody knows that we need to actually
go to the polls and vote YES in November.
Another part of the challenge between
now and November is that the language
can be somewhat confusing, so as I've
said a few times, I'm going to keep
saying it throughout the presentation, we
really need to make sure that we're
voting YES. If there's one thing that you
take away from tonight, make sure that
it's that you need to vote YES for trans
rights, vote YES to uphold dignity and
respect for trans people, vote YES to keep
this law in place. So there's oftentimes
a myth about this this type of
legislation, that it increases a threat
to public safety for everybody else. That
is, in fact, a myth -- there has been no
increase in public safety incidents
since this law was put into place
anywhere in the state since 2016. In
Boston there have been, as I said, a local --
there's been a local ordinance in place
since 2002, so that's 16 years, and there
were no instances in the past 16 years
of public safety concerns because of
these protections for trans people. Even
though this law is being put into
question -- you know, it's been enforced
since October 1st of 2016, so this is
really a chance for us to stand up again
and show that Massachusetts is a place
where discrimination will not be allowed.
There's no evidence in Massachusetts or
the other 18 states, more than 100 cities
across the country, that this type of
legislation increases -- increases public
safety concerns for anybody.
There's been no increase of harassment
in any type of public spaces, including
bathrooms, which is often what people
like to focus on with this type of
legislation. It does not allow anybody
the right to assault or harass people --
there are already laws in place that
protect us from that. All of this law is
doing is providing transgender people
the opportunity to go and live their
lives in public without fear of being
kicked out or refused service when
they're trying to eat at a restaurant or
see a movie in a movie theater or go to
the hospital because they broke their arm.
So, why Massachusetts? There are a few
reasons why the opposition picked
Massachusetts. It was a very intentional
one. It's much easier in Massachusetts to
get something put on the ballot than it
is in other states. It only requires for
this type of ballot question, for a veto
referendum, it only requires about 32
thousand signatures in this state. That's,
you know, out of our population of about
6 million people, so that's a very small
percentage of the state population that
needs to sign the petition to put this
on the ballot. So this is -- it was a
targeted attack, knowing that it would be
easy to get that put on a ballot and up
for the vote in Massachusetts. Equally
important to know is that Massachusetts has always been a leader for LGBTQ rights
and equality.
If we lose ground on trans rights here,
it really does not send a good message
to other states and other cities,
especially less LGBTQ friendly states.
You know, it's telling them that it's
okay to discriminate, and that it's okay
to take away basic human rights from an
entire group of individuals. You know,
beyond that it sends a message to people
across the country that it's acceptable
to discriminate against trans people and
it puts trans people at an even greater risk than
we already are to things like verbal
harassment and, you know, it could even
lead to more physical violence towards
trans people if we are sending a message
to people that it's okay to treat trans
folks differently and to treat us as
second-class citizens. So it's again
really important that we do this not
only for Massachusetts, to make sure that
we're upholding trans rights here, but
also to set an example for the rest of
the country by voting YES to make sure
that we're standing up for trans rights
and trans dignity in our state. So just
to reiterate a little bit, you know, I
believe personally, and I think that
hopefully most of you on this -- this
webinar believe as well, that
transgender people deserve to live our
lives without constant fear and with the
same rights as everybody else, and at end
of the day that's really what this
legislation is about. One of the things
that I like to emphasize for people is
that this law affects trans people on an
everyday basis, on a consistent basis.
Here's an example of just an average day
where a trans person would be at risk of
discrimination without this law. They
wake up, they commute to work on the T,
maybe they stop by a cafe to get a
coffee before work, they go out to a
lunch meeting with a co-worker at a
restaurant, perhaps they go stop at the
gym after work and then they go to the
grocery store to grab some some food for
dinner, and then they commute back home
on the T.
Along almost every single step of that
person's day, they would be open to
discrimination. Maybe they would be made
late to work because they got
kicked off of the first bus they caught. They would be at risk of
being removed and humiliated when they
try to buy that cup of coffee. They could
be denied access to the gym or thrown
out when trying to buy groceries. So
having this law gave me personally, as a
trans person, and a lot of other trans
people, peace of mind -- you know, it gave us a sense of feeling like it's okay for us
to be in public spaces. It affirms that
we're allowed to exist and it helps to,
again, alleviate some of the fears that
the trans community experiences when it
comes to living our lives out in the
world. You know, nobody should be afraid
to do the things that I listed before,
nobody should have anxiety about being
able to walk outside of their house and live with the worry of
what would happen if they were taken to
a hospital in an emergency -- worried that
they might not receive the treatment
that they need.
So voting YES to protect trans rights, voting YES to keep this law, shows the
trans community that Massachusetts is a
place that values human lives and sees
us, trans people, as human.
It shows the trans community that
Massachusetts stands for equality. It
shows us that we do not have to hide
away and limit ourselves, that we can go
about our daily lives and be protected
from discrimination just like everybody
else is in our state. So voting YES shows
that Massachusetts will remain a
welcoming place that values everyone,
regardless of their gender, and again it
sets an example for the rest of the
country, so it's really important that we
all talk about this with our friends,
talk about this with our neighbors, make
sure that we're explaining to people
that this is really just about human
dignity and human rights. This is about
giving people equal protections, this is
about making sure that trans people are
able to go about their daily lives
without living in constant fear, without
potentially being discriminated against
multiple times a day, every day, when
they're in places that are public spaces.
So with that I'm going to turn it back
over to Mimi. She's gonna talk a little
bit more about why this is a Jewish issue.
Great, thanks Caden. You know, I think in
addition to what Caden says, I think we
have a responsibility as a Jewish
community, um, to engage on this issue
and to work hard to make sure that the
law is upheld at the ballot in November.
And, you know, I feel like you could talk
about why our tradition might mandate us
to do this, I feel like we could talk
about why Jewish values mandate us to do
this, and I also think we could talk
about how, you know, the kind of Jewish
history of exclusion from public places
and institutions all over the United
States should -- should ensure that we
stand with transgender folks as well, but
I want to sort of make two additional
insights on this. One is that I think
very, very simply we have
a responsibility to trans Jews. We have a responsibility to those trans Jews who are
in our community who are going to be
specifically targeted by this ballot
initiative in November and will
specifically be at a loss of rights if
we lose. I also want to sort of talk a
little bit about strategy and numbers
for a moment. So we in Massachusetts are
somewhere around 250,000 Jews, and we
know that there is about a 10 percent
undecided rate in Massachusetts about
whether to repeal the law or uphold the
law, so we actually have a significant
amount of members to ensure that the
vote goes one way or another. It could be
the Jewish community that sways the vote
into the YES camp and allows the laws to
be upheld. We have that power. So what if
we were able to get the majority of the
Jewish community in Massachusetts to
vote YES? That could mean a win, that
could mean that the law remains in place.
So we have a strategic duty as well, I
believe.
So now we want to talk a little bit
about how each of us can help, both as
individuals on this campaign and as
communities, congregations, and Jewish
organizations. Now to -- overall, the
strategy, both of our work at Keshet, but
of the kind of larger campaign that is
really in charge of the vote YES effort,
which is called the Freedom For All
Massachusetts campaign, is to engage and
educate as many Massachusetts voters as
possible about the law and about why the
law should remain in place and why
people should vote YES on the ballot in
November. It's also -- the strategy is also
about humanizing the issue and helping
folks understand what it means to be
trans. So we at Keshet
have a number of action opportunities
that we want to invite you to
participate in, and really we want to
urge you to participate in. The first is
that we want to ask you to sign
Keshet's Jewish community Vote YES Pledge.
And what this means -- when you sign in, is
that you are committing to voting YES on
the ballot in November to uphold trans
rights.
Besides that we would want to ask you to
send this pledge to other people in your
community, whether it's people in your
synagogue, through a list search, through a
newsletter, or people in your own
personal networks in the Jewish
community, we urge you to -- to send the
pledge to others and have them sign on.
We also want to urge you to incorporate
Keshet and the Religious Action Center's
high holiday resource materials into
your communities' high holiday
programming. This resource contains
everything from pieces of liturgy, to
sermon starters, to ready-made texts
studies, so that your community has the
opportunity to bring in the campaign
into High Holidays services easily and
meaningfully. There are also a number
of specific events that we want you to
know about. One is that every Thursday
evening from 6 to 9 p.m., there is phone
banking run by Freedom for All
Massachusetts in the Keshet office in
Jamaica Plain. In addition, we really want
to urge you to attend the Jewish
community canvass day on Sunday, July
29th, with -- which is sponsored by Keshet,
the Jewish Community Relations Council,
and the Religious Action Center. It is going
to be in Newton from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
And canvassing, we believe, is deeply
important, because that is the moment
where you get to have the face-to-face
conversation with people, you get to talk
about what it really means to be trans,
what the law is really about. It's a
moment to sort of deal with people's
misconceptions or concerns. It's a very,
very powerful experience and a powerful
way to engage voters, so we really urge
you to attend that. An RSVP is on this
link that you see on the PowerPoint. As
well, Keshet will be involved in some
get-out-the-vote efforts in October and
early November, so stay tuned for ways to
get involved in them. And finally, if you
are
interested in organizing your
congregation or Jewish organization to
engage voters and be involved in this
campaign, please be in touch with me at
mimi@keshetonline.org.
So that concludes this portion of the
presentation, and now we will be moving
into the question and answer part of
this webinar. And we look forward to
answering some of the questions that you
have asked.
All right, my name is Rachel, I'm going to be moderating, so if you haven't sent in any questions you can do so now.
Um, first, somebody asked -- somebody
asked if there's a way to send this out
to your congregation, so I'll just say
there is -- we are recording this and it
will be on YouTube so you can send that.
Okay, first question:
Shira wants to know if transgender
also includes non-binary and genderqueer
folks as well.
Yes it does, the way the law is written
is to protect people who are transgender,
but it is written in a way that also
protects people based on gender identity,
so it's gender identity and gender
expression, so you're right -- it's not
necessarily true that you would know if
somebody is really trans, but if you're
discriminating against that person based
on how they're presenting their gender,
whether they're trans or not, that is
also part of it, so it does include
people who are non-binary, it includes,
you know, I have heard stories of some
queer women who have experienced
harassment for being in a space because
they're getting read as being trans in
some way as well, so it protects people
based on gender identity and gender
expression in public spaces.
Great, next. Um, Nina
asks if the RAC (Religion Action Center)'s programming is coordinated with Freedom for All's
outreach action.
The Religious Action Center is, in general, coordinating both
with us at Keshet and with the Freedom for All Massachusetts campaign, so you
know, any kind of faith-related work that
Freedom for All Massachusetts is doing, the
Religious Action Center is sort of in
conversation with Freedom for All
Massachusetts about their contributions
to that.
And Nina also asks if we
will have a written summary of action
items at the end.
What we're going --  this -- we are
going to -- we're recording this webinar
and so we're going to send it out. There
were some written action items on the
last few slides, so you will have access
to those, and there's more information on
the Freedom for All Massachusetts
website as well as -- you know, you can
always be in contact with Mimi, who can
give you more action steps that are more
detailed if the ones that are on this
PowerPoint are not helpful for you.
And we can also send out that list from the
PowerPoint to all webinar attendees as well.
Rabbi Ileana asks if there are particular towns that we feel there is a larger chance to
encounter people who are undecided than
others.
Great, and what -- in my conversation
with the Freedom for All Massachusetts
campaign, um, their focus is really in
the Boston area and the Boston suburbs --
Worcester, Springfield, and sort of the
Northampton area. And also, interestingly
enough, the reason that we're doing our
canvas day in Newton is that the
campaign has identified Newton as a
place with with a good amount of
undecided voters, so in that 10% of
people who could swing the vote one way
or the other. Um, I hope that answers the
question.
Great, last question is from Crystal. They
asked what possible next steps there are
to protect trans people and trans rights
in MA if the repeal happens.
Yeah, so if the repeal does happen, at that point
it would mean going back to what we did
in 2016 already, and working with
legislators to get this passed through
the House and the Senate in Massachusetts,
so basically it would mean doing the
work that we have already done and
working with legislators, many of whom we
have already worked with, to get this
back onto the -- get this legislation put
back up through the legislature and then,
you know, hopefully it would not be put
up for a repeal again. The language could
not be exactly the same, just because of
how that works, but it would -- basically,
that would be the process we would have
to go through, is we'd have to write
another bill and go through the process
of turning the bill into a law.
Uh, Leslie asks if we have
call lists for when you do phone banks.
Yes, so the way that phone banks work is
that you go to the Freedom for All
Massachusetts website and if you're -- if
you're phone banking individually, you
click a button that says "sign up to
make calls", and then you sign up for a
shift, and you will sort of tune in at
that time, and you will receive a
training on how to do the phone banking,
and then you will be -- then you will be
given the list of folks to call. If you
want to organize a phone bank in your
congregation or even in your home, just
gathering a group of people, you can
click "organize a phone bank" and an
administrator from the service that puts
together the phone bank will be in touch
with you and will sort of help you
through all of the logistics, the
technical logistics of making it happen,
and that again would include the list of
people to call. So it's quite -- they
make it very, very simple.
Max wants to know who our coalition members are.
Well, Keshet's coalition members are
different than Freedom for All
Massachusetts. Freedom for All
Massachusetts has tons of people that
are part of their coalition, I think that
they have, like, over a thousand
organizations signed on in support of
this -- this legislation, but specific to
Keshet, there are a few organizations that
we're working with.
Yes, so the Freedom
for All Massachusetts website has a
section on it with all of the different
coalitions, and you can look at all of
the organizations that -- I believe is over a
thousand partner organizations at this
point. And Keshet specifically is working
closely with the Religious Action Center,
with JALSA, with the Jewish Community
Relations Council, as well as the ADF.
I also want to just respond to Pnina's response --
your response to our question.
So Pnina's -- Pnina's question is about a --
something that the Freedom for All
Massachusetts campaign, their faith
organizer is working on planning, which
is kind of a faith week of action where
all of the faith communities in
Massachusetts sort of take action in the
same week, and they're in the process of
deciding whether that's going to be in
September or whether it's going to be in
October in my last conversation with them earlier this
week, that's -- that's what they said, and so
that's in the process of being planned,
and once that's a little bit more
fleshed out we will hear more
information about how we in the Jewish
community can plug in to that.
Laurie also wants to know
what specific points we
can use to persuade, to use in
different denominations that are maybe
less progressive on LGBT issues.
So I'll say a few things on that. On the -- on the last point, progressive Jews are a group
that may be needed to be persuaded -- I
think what we've been sort of surprised
by in our conversations across the state
is the number of people who articulate a
concern about bathroom safety,  be they
democrats, be there republicans, and -- and
so, you know, perhaps progressive Jews are -- are part of that, but i think we -- we
shouldn't necessarily assume that people
don't have that concern, just given the --
the number of people who have
articulated that concern. Um, but I think
with -- with more Orthodox or perhaps a
more conservative Jews, I mean -- you know, I
think it's worth trying to hear what
their particular concerns are. There's
just a number of concerns that are
possible. If it's a concern about, sort of
the place of transgender folks in the
Jewish community, I think there's a
conversation to be had about the Jewish
value of inclusion. I think if people are
saying there's something sort of Jewishly wrong about any gender
that is not, sort of cis male or cis female, then, you know, you can have a
conversation with them about the six
genders, actually, that we find in the
Talmud, and how the rabbis in the Talmud were very, very comfortable with
multiple gender expressions and were
much more concerned about what people's
sort of practical obligations were
depending on their gender expression. So
those are places potentially to start
with folks, as well as, again, I could
imagine a number of folks who are in
more -- in less progressive Jewish
denominations would also have the
bathroom safety concern, just given that
that's been the concern of so many folks,
and I think Caden did a nice job of
articulating how you might respond to
that.
And I'll just add one thing that --
it's not necessarily about meaning to
persuade people that you consider to be
progressive, as much as it is about
educating them and making sure that they
know the right way to vote. As I said
before, this -- this, the language around
this ballot question can be very
confusing for people. It's hard for some
people to know whether or not they're
supposed to be voting yes or no based on
how the language is written, and there
are a lot of people who don't know that
this is going to be on the ballot, so
even the folks who you know in their
heart of hearts would be voting YES,
might not know that they need to go vote
YES, so that's also something to keep in
mind, is that it's not just about needing
to persuade people, although that is part
of it, but the other part of it is making
sure that everyone knows this is
happening and knows that they need to
say YES.
If we have another minute, Crystal would
like to hear about the six genders in
the Talmud.
Excellent. I mean, I'm a
rabbinical student, so my heart is just
sort of soaring right now. I will follow
up with you -- off the top of my head I
couldn't do as much justice to it as I
would want to, but I'm happy to follow up
individually and share more information
about that. You can also find this
information on the Keshet website under
our Resource Bank -- we have, like, a number
of text studies that have been made that
articulates -- that talks about these
different genders, so yes, I'm happy to
follow up.
And Shira made a great point as well, that when talking to less progressive Jews, or
anybody, regardless of how progressive
they are, you know, it's not necessarily
only progressive people who support this
and it's not necessarily only more
conservative people who don't support it,
so regardless of whether you're talking
to somebody who's progressive or not,
it's important to note that whether they
know it or not -- there could be trans
people, gender non-binary people in their
families and in their communities, so
thank you so much, Shira, for making that
point. It -- that does really help to make it
more personal, is that, you know, there
might be somebody in your congregation,
or somebody at your kid's day school, or
somebody living on your street who's
transgender, and this bill, this law
affects those people, and if those people
are important to you as members of your
community, then it's important for you to
support this legislation.
So I don't see any more questions right now in our Q&A thread, but if anybody else
has any questions, feel free to type them
in now.
And while we wait for that, just a
reminder that you can be in touch with
me here at Keshet and Mimi at Keshetonline.org
if you have any further
questions about the presentation, if you
want to get involved personally, if you
want to get involved and get your
congregation or Jewish organization
involved, please be in touch with me. I
would love to help you think about how
to do that.
Okay, well, thank you so much everybody
for -- oh, I'm sorry, I'm all done.
Um, Leslie has a question about --
