18 – AB 2119 – Gender Health in Foster Care

Year: 2018

Category: Medical, Social/Political, Housing, Family

Bill Description:

Child welfare agencies are required to assess the health needs of all young people in foster care, and to ensure they receive appropriate and timely care to address the needs identified by qualified professionals. This bill makes clear that, to meet this obligation for transgender and gender nonconforming youth, child welfare agencies must ensure access to clinicians who provide gender-affirming treatment consistent with established standards of care.

17 – AJR 22 – Transgender Service Members

Year: 2017

Category: Social/Political

Bill Description:

This measure would state that the Legislature disagrees with statements posted on Twitter by the President of the United States proposing to ban transgender Americans from military service, and would call upon the Governor of California to direct the Armed Forces of the state to take no action that discriminates against transgender service members on the basis of their gender identity or expression, unless superseded by federal law. The measure would also urge the United States Secretary of Defense James Mattis to allow transgender service members who are otherwise able to serve to remain in the United States Armed Forces and recommend to President Trump that transgender individuals who are otherwise able to serve be permitted to join the United States Armed Forces.

17 – AJR 16 – Violence in Chechnya

Year: 2017

Category: Social/Political

Bill Description:

AJR 16 urges the President and the Congress of the United States to condemn the government-sanctioned persecution, torture, and murder of gay men in the Chechen Republic, join in solidarity

17 – AB 1556 – Fair Employment and Housing Act Clarification

Year: 2017

Category: Social/Political, Workplace, Medical

Bill Description:

This bill will clarify the Fair Employment and Housing Act, removing gendered terms such as “female,” “she,” and “her” from statutory provisions for pregnancy-related employment protections and replaces them with gender- neutral terms such as “person” or “employee.” These changes ensure that transgender, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming people are reflected in these protections and know that they can rely on them to meet their health needs if they become pregnant or have related medical conditions during the course of their employment.

17 – AB 677 – Reducing LGBT Disparities in Education and Employment

Year: 2017

Category: Educational, Workplace, Social/Political

Bill Description:

AB 677 directs ten agencies focusing on education and employment to collect data on sexual orientation and gender identity whenever additional demographic data is collected. Collecting this data helps to reduce disparities, ensure that educational programs are responsive to the needs of LGBT youth, and improve access to employment for LGBT workers.

17 – SB 310 – Name and Dignity Act

Year: 2017

Category: Social/Political

Bill Description:

SB 310 helps to ensure that transgender people will be legally recognized for who they are while incarcerated and increases the likelihood of their successful reentry into society upon release from custody. The current belabored process that an incarcerated transgender person must complete before petitioning the court to change their legal name or gender marker often results in improper denials or no resolution to requests. SB 310 establishes the right of transgender people incarcerated in state prisons or county jails to petition the court directly to change their legal name or gender marker. The bill requires corrections officials to use the new name of a person who obtains a name change, and to list the prior name only as an alias.

17 – SB 384 – Tiered System for California Sex Offender Registry

Year: 2017

Category: Social/Political

Bill Description:

SB 384 would replace California’s existing universal lifetime registration requirement for sex offenses with a tiered system based on the seriousness of the crime, the risk of reoffending and criminal history. There are over 100,000 registrants in California, far more than any other state, and California is one of only four states with a universal lifetime registry. Equality California is cosponsoring this bill to address the unfair circumstance of LGBT people who were targeted and often entrapped on charges that required registration when their actual actions hurt no one, including for simply engaging in same-sex contact when that action was criminalized in the past. These members of the LGBT community were required to register as sex offenders for life even though their convictions are now decades old and the law and its enforcement have changed, and the basis for many of these arrests was due to anti-LGBT discrimination and police entrapment. This bill would remove these people from the registry along with others in similar circumstances and put a new, efficient, risk-based system in place.

17 – SB 219 – Seniors Long Term Care Bill of Rights

Year: 2017

Category: Housing, Social/Political, Medical

Bill Description:

SB 219 strengthens protections for LGBT seniors living in long-term care facilities against discrimination, such as refusing to use a resident’s preferred name or pronoun, denying admission to a long-term care facility, transferring a resident within a facility or to another facility based on anti-LGBT attitudes of other residents, or evicting or involuntarily discharging a resident from a facility on the basis of their actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression or HIV status.

17 – SB 179 – Gender Recognition Act of 2017

Year: 2017

Category: Medical, Social/Political

Bill Description:

SB 179, the Gender Recognition Act of 2017, will enable transgender, intersex and nonbinary people to obtain state-issued identity documents that accurately reflect their gender identity, making California the first state to not require people to officially identify as “male” or “female.” The bill creates a third, nonbinary gender marker on California birth certificates, drivers’ licenses, identity cards and gender-change court orders, in addition to streamlining the processes for a person to change their gender marker and name on these identifying documents.

17 – SB 239 – Modernizing Discriminatory HIV Criminalization Laws

Year: 2017

Category: Social/Political, Medical

Bill Description:

SB 239 modernizes California laws criminalizing and stigmatizing people living with HIV to reflect current understanding of HIV prevention and treatment. It eliminates HIV-specific criminal laws that impose harsh and draconian penalties, including for activities that pose no risk of transmitting HIV. This bill is supported by public health officials because laws that criminalize HIV discourage people from getting tested and from seeking treatment, which impedes public health objectives of eliminating transmission of HIV. SB 239 would make HIV subject to the laws that apply to other serious communicable diseases, removing discrimination and stigma for people living with HIV and furthering public health.