The city councilors voted 12-1 on Wednesday to make Boston a sanctuary city for members of the transgender community.
The Councilor in General Julia Mejia and the councilor of District 9, Liz Bradon, asked Boston to adopt the measure that supports transgender people, pointing out what they see as a harmful rhetoric from President Donald Trump and the White House.
“Boston is not going to go back,” Mejia said on Wednesday. “We are seeing attacks on our trans lovers, and here at the local level, many people feel helpless.”
Banon, the first openly gay woman chosen for the City Council, said that the country faces “unprecedented times” where “many of our neighbors feel insecure and insecure for several reasons.”
“This resolution addresses a particular concern that we need to raise and lift,” he said at the Wednesday Council meeting. “During the elections and since then, there has been an incredible escalation in rhetoric and violence in Anti-Trans that has caused incredible stress and anxiety to our LGBTQI+community, and especially our trans brothers and sisters.”
The resolution establishes, in part, that Boston has “a specific commitment to protect transgender and gender people. Agencies financed by taxpayers will not comply with federal efforts to strip the resources that safeguard their rights. BOSTON will not cooperate with federal or state policies that damage transgender people and gender government and remain committed to their access to health, housing, education, education, education, education, education and employment and employees that will harm. “
Mejia and Banon recognized that the resolution is symbolic and not binding, but Mejia said the measure is a first critical step and an “opportunity to establish the basis for legislation.”
Councilor Ed Flynn was the only member of the body to vote against the measure.
“I would like to learn more about what this resolution does,” said Flynn, according to Boston Herald. “I don’t want to be disrespectful with anyone, but it’s something I would like to have before voting.”
Sam Whiting, from the Massachusetts Family Institute, a group that describes itself as recognizing “the male and female sexes as a real and lasting part of the created nature of a person, not an imaginary social construction,” receded the framework of the councilors on the actions of the Trump administration with respect to transgender people.
“We believe that executive orders misrepresent, and we support these orders and efforts to protect children from the damage of gender ideology,” Whiting told NBC 10 Boston.
Boston’s statement that is a “sanctuary city for transgender people” and other members of the LGBTQ community follows similar actions in the Cities of Massachusetts of Worcester and Cambridge.
