Fear of violence always on mind of transgender people

The video is disturbing on multiple levels. A woman and a teenage girl at a Baltimore area McDonald's beat a transgender woman while others stand by, doing nothing.

The violence was captured April 18 by an employee of the fast-food giant who can be heard laughing as the woman is pulled by her hair across the restaurant and then to the ground, repeatedly kicked in the face, the back of the head, the ribs.

An epileptic, the woman went into a seizure before the violence ended.

Nobody lifted a finger save for one elderly woman, who was punched in the face for her trouble.

A second employee eventually stepped in, with apparent reluctance, to separate the women.

Others decided to help the attackers, warning them that police were en route.

The victim was Chrissy Lee Polis, 22, who said she was more upset that only one person would help her than she was about the attack itself.

McDonald's fired the employee, but not before he posted the video on YouTube under the title "Two Girls Beating a Man/Lady at Mcdonald's."

An anonymous poster seemed to suggest Polis' gender expression justified the violence: "That was not a female that was getting beat up. That was a man. He was dressed like a woman and he was in the females bathroom knowing he was a man."

Transgender people can best be defined as identifying with a sex other than what they were assigned at birth. Transgenders can be male to female or female to male. Some take hormones prescribed by physicians, and some submit to gender reassignment surgery.

Although the incident in Maryland is extreme, people who are transgender live in fear of violence as they seek acceptance.

"Discrimination is widespread against the transgender community," said Mel Goodwin of the Gay & Lesbian Community Center of Southern Nevada. She gave as one example the recent controversy involving a transgender woman allegedly evicted and banned from The Cosmopolitan hotel for using a women's restroom.

"They face discrimination getting and keeping jobs, housing, medical care. They've even been barred from getting help at emergency shelters," Goodwin said.

RESORTS ARE AHEAD OF THE CURVE

And while lawmakers in Carson City contemplate several proposed statutes aimed at protecting members of the transgender community, the Nevada Resort Association and many of its members are far ahead of the curve.

Nevada lawmakers this legislative session introduced several bills to protect transgender people from discrimination in employment. Under the legislation, employers can't refuse to hire someone who is transgender or fire one who is transitioning. Employers, however, have the right to establish dress codes. The legislation applies only to businesses with 15 or more employees.

Lawmakers also are considering a measure to outlaw housing discrimination against transgender people. People renting out a room or those who have fewer than four units would be exempt from the law.

Clearly, the jobs bill is the most important one to the transgender community. Two of Las Vegas' largest casino companies have provided a blueprint for others to follow.

"We've taken the lead in implementing a full anti-harassment policy," said former Las Vegas Mayor Jan Jones, a senior vice president at Caesars Entertainment.

Jones said the Human Rights Council has given both Caesars and the MGM Grand perfect scores for the companies' efforts in educating the larger community regarding treatment of transgender people, and for implementing workplace policies aimed at preventing discrimination against them.

"Any discrimination is unacceptable," Jones said.

She said she thinks state laws don't go far enough to protect the transgender community. As a practical point, she said, including transgender people in a company's anti-discrimination policy is not only the right thing to do, but protects the employer from potential litigation.

Attorney Kathleen England offers succinct advice for employers concerned with the new legislation.

"Don't discriminate," she said. "The whole point of civil rights law is that you judge people by their job performance, not the color of their skin, not whether they're of the Mormon religion or Catholic religion or no religion at all."

England also has this counsel for employers confused by what exactly constitutes discrimination against a transgender person: "Change transgender discrimination to racial harassment. We all know racial harassment is not OK. We all know sexual harassment is not OK. Treat people like human beings."

England, who represents clients in employment discrimination cases, said employers are obligated to put an end to harassment.

"It's the right thing to do," she said. "And harassment costs you money. Employees who harass other employees are not working. They're not productive."

Attorney Greg Kamer of the Kamer Zucker Abbott law firm represents employers in discrimination cases. He said Nevada is on the cutting edge when it comes to protecting the lesbian and gay community.

"This is good legislation for Nevada," he said. "The LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community is entitled to equal rights, and that includes transgenders."

Kamer said the group is a "good leisure customer," and he suggests businesses don't want to alienate those customers. He said he would tell his clients the new legislation changes nothing in regards to civil rights laws with the exception of restroom use.

"It's a matter of sensitizing your work force," he said. "The best policy is to allow transgenders to use the restroom that represents their gender expression. If they dress like a woman, let them use the women's restroom. This is a true equality issue."

WOMAN IS AMONG THE LUCKY ONES

Stephanie Antoniuk considers herself one of the lucky ones. A network administrator with a California firm that has a satellite office in Las Vegas, Antoniuk said California laws that specifically include the transgender community in anti-discrimination laws protect her.

"Nevada has to do the same," said Antoniuk, 37. "Right now I'm one of the rare few fully employed transitioning people, but if I lose my job, it is going to be extremely difficult to get another one."

Studies suggest the jobless rate for transgenders is roughly twice the national average.

Antoniuk said her colleagues have been very accepting of her lifestyle and so have the hundreds of customers with whom she has interacted.

Outside of work, however, life becomes more complicated.

"We do face harassment," she said. "I think half of it is because of curiosity, and the other half is people find transgender persons distasteful."

She said she has had "brief encounters" in restrooms where women have been insulting, particularly early on in her transition.

Still, the fear of violence is never far away. "It's kind of always in the back of my mind," Antoniuk said.

"I realize people become un­comfortable, and occasionally they can be outright rude," she said, "But mostly, I think people are curious."

She also thinks the transgender community can avoid violence by following the same common-sense guidelines any vigilant person would adapt. "I avoid places where I might be harmed," she said. "The same as anyone else would. Don't go to dangerous places."

Antoniuk, whose doctor has her on a hormone replacement regimen, said she has yet to decide whether to undergo sexual reassignment surgery.

But she has legally changed her name, and the sex marker on her driver's license indicates she is a female, which is allowed in Nevada even if the person hasn't had surgery.

That designation, more than anything else, is what gives Antoniuk the confidence to use public restrooms assigned to women.

"Being able to list our sex as female on our driver's license is a big benefit to the transgender community," she said. "It's a comforting thing to know, especially when it's far more dangerous for us to use the men's room."

And to those who fear someone might pretend to be a transgender person to get into the women's restroom to commit a sexual assault, Antoniuk said there is no evidence any such attack has ever occurred in Nevada or anywhere else in the United States.

She said she thinks the business community in Southern Nevada as a whole is at best neutral on the issue of gender expression.

"The best thing a business could do is establish guidelines and then follow them," she said. "They can outline the protocol. They can tell transgender employees, 'these are the steps to take to be transgender in our workplace.'  "

The bill that will soon land on Gov. Brian Sandoval's desk explicitly gives employers the right to enforce dress and behavior codes.

Antoniuk also encourages employers to look past the transgender status and instead focus on qualifications.

"As a community, we are highly skilled, highly educated. We bring a lot to the table, and we are not a liability," she said.

HATE CRIME BILL FAILS

The beating of Chrissy Polis will be treated as a hate crime in Maryland. But in Nevada, the Senate last month shot down Senate Bill 180, which would have included transgender people as protected parties in existing hate crime laws. The bill died 10-11 when every Republican state senator and Democrat John Lee, D-North Las Vegas, voted against the measure.

Under existing law, anyone accused of violence against any person regardless of their status is subject to criminal prosecution.

Contact Doug McMurdo at dmcmurdo@reviewjournal.com or 702-224-5512.