LGBT activists to lobby Cleveland City Council members for transgender rights ordinance

By Henry J. Gomez, The Plain Dealer

November 09, 2009, 1:13PM

Plain Dealer file

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Ask Cleveland, a gay, bisexual and transgender rights group, will deliver more than 2,500 postcards to City Council members at this evening's meeting.

The message from residents: Support legislation that would make it illegal to discriminate against transgender citizens.

"Right now, it's legal to fire someone from a job, throw them out of housing, or even deny them service in a restaurant just because they're transgender," Ask Cleveland spokesman David Caldwell said in an e-mailed statement.

Council members last year began considering adding transgender identity and expression to the city's anit-discrimination law in tandem with a domestic partner registry. The registry, which allows same- and opposite-sex couples to declare a relationship without marriage, passed last fall......

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