Understandably, so much of the political focus is on the race for President of the United States. And yet, there are other important things that New Yorkers will be voting on come Tuesday, November 5, 2024.
One of those important things is a ballot proposal to amend the New York State Constitution. This ballot proposal “would protect against unequal treatment based on ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, and sex, including sexual orientation, gender identity, and pregnancy. It also protects against unequal treatment based on reproductive healthcare and autonomy.” This is more colloquially known as the Equal Rights Amendment (not to be confused with the national Equal Rights Amendment proposal that nearly became part of the United States Constitution).
There are a few pieces of this proposed amendment that we want to focus on:
Let’s start with the issue of age, which is both important to Gray Panthers NYC and is also on the ballot here. There are some realms where, believe it or not, age discrimination is still legal. Notably, New York State’s Human Rights Law does NOT prohibit age discrimination in public accommodations. Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does prohibit age discrimination in public accommodations, but given that the United States Supreme Court has been known to gut civil rights laws in recent years, it’s important for New York State to step up to the plate and offer anti-discrimination measures related to age, to offer a safeguard in case such measures at the federal level ever get gutted.
Most other topics addressed in the Equal Rights Amendment ballot proposal are ones that we think (or at least hope) would be uncontroversial. But it is worth addressing a couple of topics in the ballot proposal that might be controversial: ones on reproductive healthcare and autonomy, as well as the topic of gender identity.
Regarding reproductive healthcare and autonomy, it would be not just discriminatory but downright weird and creepy to interfere with, let alone discriminate based on, someone’s decisions around reproductive healthcare and autonomy. Regardless of what one’s thoughts are on abortion (and most Americans do not favor making abortion illegal), we think (or hope) that most of us can agree that butting into the business of someone else’s healthcare decisions—let alone discriminating based on those decisions—is downright wrong, weird, creepy, and hurtful.
Regarding the topic of gender identity, statistic after statistic shows that transgender people who have access to gender-affirming care are better off mentally (and less likely to consider suicide) than transgender people who don’t have access to that. We support the rights of older persons, and at the same time, we also support rights that help people become older persons in the first place. Access to gender-affirming care helps transgender people become older persons. Access to equal rights, regardless of gender identity, helps transgender people become older persons.
Gray Panthers NYC strongly supports the New York State Equal Rights Amendment ballot proposal.
For people who want to learn more about the New York State Equal Rights Amendment, State Senator Liz Krueger’s town hall on the amendment may be of interest. It is taking place on Tuesday, October 15th at 6:30 PM. You can learn more here: https://www.lizkrueger.com/event/what-is-proposition-1/
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