Individual members of our Board worked for years fighting for transgender civil rights in New York State. This work was focused on passing the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act, better known as GENDA.

Prior to 2002, the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Communities had no civil rights protection in New York State. After decades of fighting, the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act, better known as SONDA, was created to prohibit discrimination “on the basis of actual or perceived sexual orientation” in employment, housing, public accommodations, education, credit, and the exercise of civil rights. The SONDA bill did not create a protected category for “gender identity” or “gender expression”, and trans activists asked for the bill’s wording to be modified to include those terms that would also protect transgender and non-binary New Yorkers.

The request was denied and SONDA was passed in December of 2002 without transgender protections, leaving our community without any statewide civil rights protection.

A new transgender civil rights bill called the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) was introduced in 2003. Each year, from 2003 until 2015, advocates worked to pass this important legislation but was consistently stopped by the Republican-led State Senate. In late 2015, the Empire State Pride Agenda, New York State’s LGBT advocacy organization, folded. This left our community alone with no statewide organization to lead, no civil rights,  no funds, and no link to allies and supporters.

With the disbanding of Empire State Pride Agenda, immediate action needed to take place.  Long Island advocate Juli Grey-Owens contacted transgender activists from across New York State and the group began meeting in February of 2016 in a series of conference calls.  This newly-formed statewide network of advocates began plotting the next steps in the fight for our community’s civil rights.

The first effort was to formulate a plan to create TGNB Town Hall meetings across the state. These events used an “open mic” format to allow community members to speak openly about their needs and the issues that restrict their safety, equality, and ability to succeed.  The twenty-two (22) statewide Town Hall events helped us find out firsthand what the needs of our communities were, and we collected the responses and sorted them by issue.  This list was the first step in creating a clear and comprehensive legislative agenda our community sorely needed.

As the Town Halls continued, it became clear that the Intersex New Yorkers were not properly represented and needed public awareness and support. GENY’s leadership team determined that our organization would take steps to advocate for this community as well as the transgender and non-binary community.

Our leadership team next set out to create a public education campaign that would increase understanding and respect for transgender, non-binary, and intersex New Yorkers and decrease discrimination and violence. Forums entitled “Everything You Wanted To Know About Transgender, Non-Binary, and Intersex People…But Were Afraid To Ask!” were created with the goal of providing clear information and powerful personal human stories to increase and improve the acceptance of our community. Each Forum begins with a “Gender 101” PowerPoint presentation which introduces proper language and various concepts, and is followed by an interactive panel made up of 3-8 local TGNBI community members, who tell their personal stories and put a face on the small and very misunderstood community of people. Through this work we seek to influence the general public’s social attitudes, gain allies, and establish our community’s presence across New York State. By January of 2020, GENY held 21 public Forums in every region in our state.

As the group successfully advanced our advocacy work, seven members of the initial group of statewide advocates became the leadership board that began the work to create a New York State transgender advocacy organization which would become Gender Equality New York Inc. (GENY).

In late 2017, Executive Director Grey-Owens began applying for legal assistance to begin the work of creating a statewide non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation. Throughout most of 2018, steps were taken to become a corporation. Finally, in late March 2019, we received notification by the IRS that Gender Equality New York, Inc. was officially a New York State non-profit, and we are now registered with the New York State Department of Law Charities Bureau.    

The 2018 election results created a Democratic State Senate. After years of marches, rallies, and demonstrations; TV, radio, and newspaper interviews; public sign-on letters; and hundreds of meetings with state Assembly Members, Senators and their staffs; the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act, better known as GENDA, was passed! Our community was finally given an explicit statewide law which prohibits discrimination against transgender, non-binary and intersex New Yorkers on the third day of the 2019 Legislative Session!