Aug 08, 2008  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO JR  | COMMENTS     

Local activists said it was officials in D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty’s administration — not the mayor — who last month riled gays by opposing a domestic partners bill and calling for weaker non-discrimination protections for transgender prisoners.

A mayoral spokesperson said Fenty plans to review objections raised by the D.C. Attorney General’s Office to a bill that’s before the City Council to grant full legal parental rights to domestic partners.

The spokesperson, Dena Iverson, said the mayor also would review public comments over a proposed regulatory change by the Office of Human Rights and Commission on Human Rights that would exempt the Department of Corrections from complying with the D.C. Human Rights Act as it applies to transgender prisoners.

“I am concerned about this, but I have a lot of faith in Mayor Fenty,” said lesbian activist Sheila Alexander-Reid, who worked on Fenty’s 2006 mayoral election campaign.

“I think that once his people are advised of the facts that they will see that they made a mistake, both on the human rights law issue and on the domestic partner issue.”

The Attorney General’s office has said the Domestic Partnership Judicial Determination of Parentage Act of 2008, which the City Council is expected to approve, would put the city in violation of federal rules pertaining to child custody issues and could result in a loss of federal funds for child custody programs.

Nancy Polikoff, a gay rights attorney and American University law professor, said the Attorney General’s Office was wrong and federal officials have not objected to identical laws in other states.

Several local gay activist leaders who have been Fenty supporters declined to speak on the record about the attorney general’s opposition to the partners law and the trans issue, saying they prefer to work privately toward resolution on the two issues.

But some activists, who spoke to the Blade on condition that they not be identified, questioned whether the Attorney General’s Office and the Corrections Department consulted the Mayor’s Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Affairs on the two issues.

Christopher Dyer, Fenty’s director of the LGBT Affairs Office, has declined to comment on the controversy, saying all statements on the matter would come from the mayor’s press office.
Sources familiar with the mayor’s office said the Attorney General’s Office did not consult Dyer regarding its objection to the domestic partners law.

But Gustavo Velasquez, director of the Office of Human Rights, which joined the Commission on Human Rights to propose the trans regulatory changes at the request of the Corrections Department, said his office consulted Dyer about the proposed changes.

Velasquez declined to specify Dyer’s position on the proposal to curtail non-discrimination protections for transgender people incarcerated in the city’s corrections system.

Members of the Mayor’s LGBT Advisory Committee, who are appointed by the mayor, have said Dyer raised concerns about the proposal for trans prisoners.

Dyer, who also serves as a member of the Commission on Human Rights, told activists that he recused himself from the commission’s deliberations on the proposed regulatory changes, noting his participation in the discussions would conflict with his role as head of the LGBT Affairs Office, where he is obligated to represent the mayor’s interests.

“What good does it do for our community if a GLBT member of the Human Rights Commission recuses himself on an issue like this,” said a local activist who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Nearly a dozen local and national gay and transgender rights groups have joined the D.C. Trans Coalition in opposing the proposed regulatory changes for trans prisoners.

The proposal is undergoing a 30-day period for public comment, which ends this week. The Office of Human Rights and the Commission on Human Rights must consider all public comments before making a final decision on the proposed regulations.

The Corrections Department requested the regulatory changes after the city’s Inspector General determined that the department’s current policy of placing female transgender prisoners in the same living quarters as male prisoners violates existing regulations linked to the Human Rights Act.

Current policy requires transgender women inmates to use male bathroom and shower facilities, subjecting them to potential embarrassment and sexual assault, according to transgender activists. The policy calls for placing trans inmates in the D.C. Jail’s isolation unit — the equivalent of solitary confinement — if correction officials determine the trans inmates are subjected to threats or abuse by other prisoners.

Activists have criticized corrections officials for seeking to exempt the department from the existing regulations rather than taking steps to comply with them.

Corrections officials, however, have argued that the proposed changes are needed to ensure “safety and security” for all persons in custody in the city’s correctional system.