City council declares Boston a 'sanctuary city' for transgender community
City councilors voted 12-1 Wednesday to make Boston a sanctuary city for members of the transgender community.
Councilor-at-Large Julia Mejia and District 9 Councilor Liz Breadon called on Boston to adopt the measure supporting transgender people, pointing to what they see as harmful rhetoric coming from President Donald Trump and the White House.
'Boston is not going to back down,' Mejia said Wednesday. 'We're seeing attacks on our trans loved ones, and here on the local level, a lot of folks are feeling helpless.'
Breadon, the first openly gay woman elected to the city's council, said the country is facing "unprecedented times" where "many of our neighbors are feeling unsafe and insecure for various reasons."
"This resolution addresses a particular concern that we need to elevate and raise up," she said at Wednesday's council meeting. "During the election and since, there's been an incredible escalation in anti-trans rhetoric and violence that has caused incredible stress and anxiety to our LGBTQI+ community, and especially to our trans brothers and sisters."
The resolution states, in part, that Boston has "a specific commitment to protecting transgender and gender-diverse individuals. Taxpayer-funded agencies shall not comply with federal efforts to strip resources that safeguard their rights. Boston will not cooperate with federal or state policies that harm transgender and gender-diverse people and remains committed to ensuring their access to healthcare, housing, education, and employment without fear or discrimination."
Mejia and Breadon acknowledged that the resolution is symbolic and nonbinding, but Mejia said the measure is a critical first step and an "opportunity to set the groundwork for the legislation."
City 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,' Flynn said, according to The Boston Herald. 'I don't want to be disrespectful to anybody, but it's just something I would like to have before I vote.'
Sam Whiting of the Massachusetts Family Institute, a group that describes itself as recognizing 'the male and female sexes as a real and enduring part of a person's created nature, not an imaginary social construct,' pushed back on the councilors' framing of the Trump administration's actions regarding transgender people.
'We think it misrepresents the executive orders, and we do support these orders and the efforts to protect children from the harms of gender ideology,' Whiting told NBC 10 Boston.
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