New York State

After a milestone, lack of progress

Since same-sex marriage passed, bills to help the LGBT community have languished in the Legislature.

State Sen. Brad Hoylman kissing his husband, David Ivan Sigal, during New York City's Pride parade.

State Sen. Brad Hoylman kissing his husband, David Ivan Sigal, during New York City's Pride parade. a katz/Shutterstock

In 2015, state Sen. Brad Hoylman released a report detailing inaction by the state Senate to advance LGBT legislation following the passage of same-sex marriage in New York in 2011. He identified 14 bills that address LGBT issues that repeatedly failed to pass in the state Senate.

Three years later, not much has changed with those pieces of legislation.

Only one of the bills, which requires diaper changing stations in all publicly accessible bathrooms, has become law, thanks to its inclusion in the 2018-2019 state budget.

The other 13 bills have still not passed or even come up for a vote in the state Senate. Some have never even passed the Assembly. However, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has used executive power to implement certain changes in lieu of legislation.

The bill that has received the most attention of the dozen bills remaining is the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act, or GENDA, which would make it illegal to discriminate against someone based on their gender identity. First introduced in 2003, GENDA has long been a priority for LGBT rights activists in the state. It has passed in the Assembly every year since 2008, but it has never made it to the floor for a vote in the state Senate. Most recently, the bill passed the Assembly in May, but failed to pass a committee vote in the state Senate.

“We haven’t even finished marriage equality. There’s some corrections to the marriage equality law that we can’t get brought to the floor of the Senate because of their bias against these bills.” – state Sen. Brad Hoylman

In October 2015, Cuomo did issue new regulations that imposed the same protections that GENDA would have, namely banning harassment and discrimination against transgender people. However, Hoylman told City & State that the regulations don’t cover everything, such as hate crime law protections, and that it is still important to codify protections in state law. “It’s a well-intentioned – and (I’m) appreciative of the effort on the part of the governor – but you need the state Legislature to bake protections for transgender people into place,” Hoylman said.

Another bill would make it illegal for therapists to perform so-called conversion therapy on minors, which is still allowed in the state with parental consent. The current version of that legislation passed the Assembly in March. In the state Senate, it made it out of the Higher Education Committee in May, but has not been put on the floor calendar for a vote. It instead was referred to another committee.

As in the case of GENDA, Cuomo stepped in with an executive order to address the matter, although only partially. While he did not ban the practice outright, he did make it illegal for the treatment to be covered by health insurance, a move applauded at the time by Hoylman.

Cuomo recently attempted to take action on legislation that would ban “gay panic” and “trans panic” as a defense in court, although the bill has never passed in the Assembly. The legal defense is generally used in murder or assault cases where an attorney argues the defendant acted violently in a state of temporary insanity as a result of unwanted advances from a gay or transgender person. Cuomo tried to include a ban of the defense as part of the 2018-2019 state budget, but it was removed.

Hoylman blamed Republicans for the failure to advance any of the legislation. “We haven’t even finished marriage equality,” Hoylman said. “There’s some, whether technical or corrections to the marriage equality law that we can’t get brought to the floor of the Senate because of their bias against these bills.”

Since his report was released in 2015, seven additional LGBT bills have been introduced in the state Legislature, all of which have similarly stalled. However, Hoylman said he hopes if Democrats manage to take the state Senate, the bills can finally pass.

“It’s a shame that these types of fundamental human rights issues are partisan,” Hoylman said, “but apparently, that’s the way my Republican colleagues see it.”

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.