[wik]

From The National Center for Transgender Equality:

VICTORY: Hate Crimes Bill Passes;
First Federal Bill to Protect Transgender People

(October 22, 2009, Washington, DC) In an historic move, the United States Senate joined the House of Representatives in passing The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which will be the first federal law to include gender identity and transgender people. Once signed by the President, this law will add sexual orientation, gender identity, gender and disability to the categories included in existing federal hate crimes law and will allow local governments who are unable or unwilling to address hate crimes to receive assistance from the federal government. President Obama has indicated that he will sign the bill into law.

"Transgender people have been waiting so many years for assistance from the federal government in addressing the rampant and disproportional violence that we face," noted Mara Keisling, Executive Director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. "Today we move one step closer to our goal of ending violence motivated by hatred. Everyone in America deserves to live free of fear and of violence. We know that the dedicated leadership and hard work of Senator Kennedy and Representative Conyers and many other legislators made the passage of this bill possible. Words can't really express our gratitude for their commitment to equality for all people."

To read the remainder of this press release, please visit:

http://transequality.org/news.html

[gennee]

This is great news, Wik. I read the article yesterday. I'm going to print a copy and print out some copies.

Gennee