Fort Worth leaders can’t avoid LGBT issues

The true measure of the Fort Worth City Council’s response to recommendations from the Diversity Task Force won’t be taken from what it does today. Tough as those decisions will be, they are only the relatively easy ones.

City Manager Dale Fisseler created the task force in July, responding to issues raised by gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender, or LGBT, Fort Worth residents after the June 28 police raid at the Rainbow Lounge, a south-side gay bar.

But the action to be considered by the council at its 7 p.m. meeting has been studied by the Fort Worth Human Relations Commission since February.

Simply stated, the commission will ask the council to approve ordinance amendments to prohibit discrimination in places of accommodation, employment and housing based on transgender characteristics, gender expression or gender identity.

In reality, that’s not so simple. It affords protected status to people whose gender has been surgically changed or who live in accordance with the gender other than the one to which they were born. To some people, this behavior is bizarre, even reprehensible; to some it is an affront to deeply held religious convictions.

The new ordinance would afford the same protection against discrimination as that based on race, religion or sex. Fort Worth has banned discrimination based on sexual orientation (gay, lesbian or bisexual) since 2000.

Controversial as the new protections may be, they are another step in the fight against acts that make people suffer because they are out of the current mainstream. There are still people in Fort Worth who would treat those of a different race or religion as inferior, who even would treat women as such. But in general, U.S. society has moved beyond those particular types of bigotry.

So it should be for transgender and gender expression and identity. No one should be denied a job, access to public accommodations or housing based on these behaviors. The council should approve the amendments.

Fisseler is already implementing several Diversity Task Force recommendations, including employee training and hiring from the LGBT community. He wants to offer family leave for LGBT employees with domestic partners and use various media to communicate more effectively with LGBT residents.

Several council members and Mayor Mike Moncrief praised those moves last week during a workshop. It will take political courage to follow through and approve the ordinance amendments.

But Fisseler is still considering two much tougher recommendations. The task force says all city employees should have equal access to all benefits. That means healthcare and pension benefits for domestic partners.

And the task force would add gender reassignment surgery and other treatments for gender identification disorder to coverage under the employee health insurance policy. That means that city insurance would pay for sex change operations.

The easy answer would be to say these items are too expensive in today’s tough financial times. But addressing LGBT issues "head-on," as Moncrief says he wants to do, will take significantly more thought and discussion.

That discussion must include this crucial point: The medical profession recognizes gender identification disorder as a serious medical condition for which, under certain well-tested conditions, surgery can be an accepted or even preferred treatment.

Council members won’t decide insurance questions today, but they can’t avoid them.

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