NYAGRA’s Response to ESPA’s Open Letter to New York’s LGBT Community on SONDA

This letter from the board of directors of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy is intended as a response to the open letter to the LGBT community from the Empire State Pride Agenda regarding the issue of transgender inclusion in the the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act (SONDA). In our view, the open letter from Joe Grabarz (executive director) and Matt Foreman (executive director, 1997-2001) is an entirely inadequate response to the call for a fully transgender-inclusive SONDA bill that we and other transgender advocacy organizations have made. In the letter, the Pride Agenda leadership asserts that "we have done more to make government responsive to transgender issues than any other single organization in the state." We in NYAGRA would like to think that we have contributed as much, if not more so, to that effort than has ESPA. After all, when we first met with the Pride Agenda staff in November 1998 (shortly after our formation in June 1998), ESPA was really doing nothing on transgender issues, and it was that meeting that prompted ESPA to begin taking [...]