In 2009, Cleveland City Council updated its non-discrimination law to include transgender people. Then council added an amendment.

But there was a problem with the wording, activists in the transgender community say. Council added an amendment to the law stating that employers and places of public accommodations could tell a transgender individual which restroom – men’s or women’s -- they could or could not use,  instead of leaving that decision open to whichever sex he or she identifies with.

“You don’t often see discriminatory language in a non-discrimination law,” says Jacob Nash, co-chair of Cleveland is Ready, the group working on ordinance 1446-13, which would change the wording in the current ordinance.

“What removal of this piece would do is make it safer for transgender people,” explains Nash. “It’s not safe right now – telling a transgender woman to go into the men’s restroom. I know women who have been attacked or cornered or raped because that’s where they were told they needed to go.”

While some members of the transgender community are open, or “out,” others are not, Nash explains. Either way the situation can be humiliating. He tells of a transgender woman who was made to use the men’s room while a police officer stood guard outside the door.

“That’s ridiculous,” Nash says. “To have someone literally policing the restroom?”

Diane Dierker is also campaigning for 1446-13. “I’m a transgender woman, so this is of great concern to me, especially because now I’m a Cleveland resident,” she says. “Who is better able to determine who should use which bathroom than the person who has to go?”

Dierker’s employer allows her to use whichever bathroom she identifies with and she has never personally been harassed. “But I think about it every time I’m in a public place and have to go to the bathroom,” she admits, adding she does know people who have been harassed or even arrested.

Dierker points out that transgender people are not looking to do anything malicious. “Transgender people are in the bathroom for one purpose – to go to the bathroom,” she says. 

Nash says Cleveland is Ready has gotten support from some city council members, but so far ordinance 1446-13 has not gone to a vote. Nash says they are hopeful it will be heard by the end of the year.