Intersex bill costs Glazer backing of LGBT group
The state’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy group has revoked its endorsement of an East Bay lawmaker for his opposition to a bill that would have banned operations to change the genitalia of young intersex children.
Equality California, which sponsored the bill, pulled its endorsement of state Sen. Steve Glazer, DOrinda, on Tuesday, after the measure died in his committee this month.
Rick Zbur, executive director of Equality California, said he hoped the decision would send a message to all legislators and candidates that the LGBT community is not to be taken for granted.
“Our support is not unconditional,” Zbur said. “It’s not enough to vote for the things that are easy.”
Glazer said he supported stopping doctors from assigning a sex to children with ambiguous genitalia, but felt the bill went beyond that goal. He said he “had a 100% record of supporting LGBTQ issues for the past four years” and that Equality California had chosen to focus on their difference.
“I will continue to fight for equal rights for persons of all sexual orientations,” Glazer said.
Intersex people are born with a sex anatomy that doesn’t fit the typical definition of male or female. The Equality California bill, which was carried by Sen. Scott Wiener, DSan Francisco, would have banned doctors from performing surgeries or other medical interventions to change the sex characteristics of an intersex child younger than 6, unless an operation was medically necessary.
Equality California and other supporters argued that intersex people should be able to give consent before undergoing surgeries that carry the risk of medical complications, sterilization and psychological damage. But the measure stalled in Glazer’s Business and Professions Committee in the face of objections from physicians groups, including the California Medical Association, which said the decision to operate was best left to young patients’ parents and doctors.
Glazer expressed concerns that the types of surgeries that would have been prohibited under the bill’s definition of intersex were too broad, encompassing cosmetic procedures and nonsurgical treatments for minors who are clearly boys or girls.
He sought amendments narrowing the scope of the measure, which Wiener rejected. The San Francisco lawmaker said the changes would have removed conditions, such as an enlarged clitoris or a urethra opening in the wrong place, that account for most of the people considered intersex.
Glazer abstained from the committee vote this month that killed the measure. The panel’s vote was two in favor and four against, with two other members also not voting.
Zbur said putting limits on surgeries for intersex youth is “a human rights issue that is of national and international importance” and was the organization’s biggest legislative priority this session. He said Equality California “worked so hard to educate” Glazer about the issue and was frustrated that he did not try to bring doctors groups to the table to negotiate a compromise.
Equality California will now consider backing Glazer’s Democratic opponent in the March 3 primary, Marisol Rubio.
Rubio, a disability rights advocate, could present Glazer with a more significant challenge than he faced in his past election in 2016, when he won both the toptwo primary and the general election by 21 ratios. Rubio is supported by labor unions and local liberal activists looking for an alternative to Glazer, who was first elected to the Senate in 2015 on a platform that included opposing transit strikes after a pair of BART labor stoppages crippled the commute in his East Bay district.
This is not the first time that Equality California has revoked an endorsement. In 2016, the organization pulled backing from six lawmakers who voted against or abstained on a bill that would have required religious colleges to disclose if they had exemptions from federal antidiscrimination law. Two years later, the group withdrew its endorsement from a legislator who did not vote for a bill giving transgender foster youths the right to obtain hormone therapy and surgery.
Equality California also pressured lawmakers last summer to rescind their endorsements for a state Senate candidate in Modesto, Mani Grewal, who made a campaign ad that the group considered homophobic. Several legislators pulled their support after Grewal refused to apologize.