PA 15-132 An Act Concerning Birth Certificates (Part 5 of 6 – The Senate)

Reprinted from Diana’s Little Corner In The Nutmeg State by permission

I have been monitoring my emails and then on June 1, I received an email from our lobbyist saying we were on today’s Senate calendar, so I started monitoring CT-N Senate telecast. All day long I listen to classical music (that is what CT-N plays when the Senate is out of session). Then around 3:30 I heard the Senate called to order…RATS! I was just heading out the door to go to the local NBC station to comment on the Craitlyn Jenner Vanity Fair article.

When I got home the message light was blinking with a message from my state senator’s aide, I had called and emailed her asking her to bring the bill up for a vote in the Senate. The message said that the bill was just being heard in the Senate. I looked at the timestamp of the voice message and it was twenty minutes ago. So I turned on CT-N and another bill was now being heard.

I checked my email and there were emails from out lobbyist and the other members of the coalition all congratulating and thanking Betty Gallo. The bill had passed not ten minutes ago!

CT-N has a rewind feature so I rewound it about a half hour and watched the short debate.

Senator Gerratana (D) from the 6th District from my district read the bill and Senator Markley (R) from the 16th asked a question about “other treatment clinically appropriate” and what did it mean. Sen. Gerratana replied by reading from the WPATH Standard of Care . Sen. Markley then asked if there were any other New England state that have a similar law, Sen. Gerratana replied saying yes, Vermont and Rhode Island.

Sen. Witkos (R) from the 8th District asked if we would have to go through Probate Court to change our birth certificate, Sen. Gerratana said no, only if it was for an out of state birth certificate. Sen. Witkos then asked some medical procedure questions and it was fun watching Sen. Witkos and Sen. Gerratana discussing genital on the floor of the Senate.

The bill was then voted on… Yea 32, Nay 3, and absent and not voting 1

The Hartford Courant said this about the floor debate,

Sen. Terry Gerratana, the co-chairwoman of the legislature's public health committee, said the bill is indicative of an evolving understanding of gender transformation. "Standards of care change and the bill reflects ... the best standard of care is regarding gender change,'' the New Britain Democrat said.

Sen. Joe Markley, R-Southington, was among the bipartisan majority backing the measure. "I often feel like I lack the expertise to make decisions on subjects like this," he said. "However in light of the information I've received, and the testimony that we heard at the community level, I'm prepared to support the bill as it stands."

In a Wall Street Journal article Sen. Markley is quoted,

“We are talking about making changes to things which have been established by law and custom for a long, long time,” said state Sen. Joe Markley. In an interview last week, the Republican lawmaker said he was reluctant to support the legislation but voted in favor of it Monday. “It becomes a matter of where you draw the line. I don’t know where medically, psychologically, where that line should be.”

Governor Malloy said that he will sign the bill and it will take effect on October 1st

No one person can pass legislation, it takes a coalition and our coalition members (In alphabetical order) were…

American Civil Liberties Union of CT (ACLU)
CT TransAdvocacy Coalition (CTAC)
CT Women’s Education and Legal Fund (CWEALF)
Equality Federation
Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD)
National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE)
Planned Parenthood of Southern New England
True Colors

And many thanks to Rachel and also the ACLU for providing our lobbyist Betty Gallo of Gallo & Robinson LLC.

Part 6 will be on my thought on working on this legislation...

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GLAD has a birth certificate tool kit to help you with the paperwork.