There is this image of New York State of some progressive redoubt, which has been elevated in recent days by the news that a certain privileged subset has gotten their rights. However, in terms of human rights, a transgender person living in Manhattan has just as many rights as a similar transgender person in Oklahoma.

TransGRiot had this to say Friday Night:
 

Once again the 'all marriage all the time' GL movement has the noise machine cranked up for same sex marriage passage, but not a amplified peep out of the noise machine for GENDA, which will benefit far more people than the ability for a few to get married.

As I've said repeatedly, it does you no good to be able to marry someone if you can't hold a job to pay for the wedding ring, the wedding and the wedding reception and the haters can keep you from renting the reception hall.

The clock is ticking on GENDA for this legislative session and it's looking like once again, the NY senate Lucy will succeed in taking away the civil rights football just as we're about to kick it.

But we have until midnight to see if that happens..
 

And...it didn't happen:
 

Trans rights in New York were pushed aside a second time (third if NYC in 1986 is factored in, but I won’t pile on here) in favor of something that wasn’t even officially on the table when trans rights were pushed aside in 2002.
 

It also is interesting to note that in 2002, the same year that some of these HRC types amended New York State's anti-discrimination law to include sexual orientation, but not gender identity, my dear city Philadelphia corrected a 20 year old wrong by INCLUDING trans people in their Fair Practices Ordinance. And it received support of 67% of the Republican caucus. By comparison, no jurisdiction in the United States had gender neutral marriage until 2004. New York State is long overdue for trans rights.

And ENDAblog (from the previous link) also avers:
 

And pushing the gay want of marriage ahead of the trans need of basic anti-discrimination protections does harm trans people in New York – not simply via the substantive legal reality of the continuation of the gay-trans aparthied signed off on by Matt Foreman and ESPA in 2002 but by sucking out all of the civil rights oxygen from the New York legislature for the remainder of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s current term (if not beyond.)
 

And the worse thing is, GENDA HAD 32 COSPONSORS, just enough to pass a bill in New York State. And 8 PEOPLE WERE UNDECIDED. This meant that if all undecideds voted NO, then GENDA WOULD STILL PASS THE SENATE. And because gender identity non-discrimination and marriage would be under the same committee, there is no excuse for it NOT getting out of committee. I'm not the best at math, but then again, simple arithmetic does not matter to the Marriage Derangement Syndrome wing of the movement.

It is sad that in Pennsylvania, a far more conservative state, Equality PA is committed to having an anti-discrimination law that includes BOTH SEXUAL ORIENTATION AND GENDER IDENTITY. Would it be more likely to pass if it only included sexual orientation; we don't know, nor should we have to know. And the trans-inclusive HB300 actually had a fighting chance in 299; compared to marriage equality. State Senator Daylin Leach (D-Wealthy Philly Suburbs) has introduced a marriage equality as a purely symbolic gesture.

It may be presumptuous to say this, but EQPA may have made themselves great allies to us by sacrificing the expediency of trans-exclusiveness for what's right. New York's equivalent, however, has not.

-Jordan Gwendolyn Davis