Yesterday Cleveland, Ohio finally passed an ordinance including gender identity and expression in its city discrimination laws. This is excellent news and I would like to reach out a special thanks to everyone who helped us get this on the books (especially my friends at AskCleveland)!
Surprisingly, Cleveland is the last major Ohio city to include GIE in its city non-discrimination ordinance. Toledo passed one in 1998, Cincinnati in 2006 (originally 2004 but was repealed), Dayton (2007), Columbus (2008), and more recently the college towns of Oxford, Bowling Green, and Yellow Springs. The state of Ohio itself has a statewide ban on discrimination on sexual orientation and gender identity and expression brought by an executive order from Governor Strickland in 2007 but it doesn’t cover many elements needed.
What’s interesting is that the arguably more “liberal” cities in the state, such as Columbus and Cleveland, have been the last to get on board. Its almost inconceivable how Cincinnati (my home town) and Dayton passed legislation before the northern cities. Perhaps more liberal areas take their rights for granted more easily, and simply forget to fight for more.
UPDATE 12/3/09
News story on Fox 8 acknowledges all protections were not covered in the new legislation. I am curious as to how long it will take to ammend.