Why These Women Want to Repeal an LGBT Law in Alaska’s Biggest City
Leah Jessen /
A gender identity law in Anchorage, Alaska, has met with opposition from a dozen women who say they are concerned about safety and privacy in bathrooms and locker rooms.
The group—made up of mothers, sisters, aunts, grandmothers, and wives—submitted an application to Anchorage officials for a ballot question to repeal the law, which grants protected status to those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.
“We think that it comes down to a safety issue, that it comes down to a privacy issue,” Bernadette Wilson, a local talk radio host and member of the group, told The Daily Signal.
So far, though, the city attorney has rejected the women’s bid to repeal the LGBT law because of how they worded their proposed ballot question.
Critics of the law, though, say it is coercive.
“The ordinance forces schools, businesses, and employers to provide unrestricted access to shared dorms, lockers, bathrooms, and showers to men who self-identify as women, and vice versa, regardless of biology or genetics,” Roger Severino, director of the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation, said.
The measure adds sexual orientation and gender identity to already established categories (such as race, religion, and marital status) and prohibits discrimination in areas such as the sale of housing, financing, employment, public accommodations, and educational institutions.
The 11-member, nominally nonpartisan Anchorage Assembly voted 9-2 to pass the legislation as amendments to the city code at the end of September. The measure was signed into law in early October by the assembly’s chairman, Dick Traini, and vice chairwoman, Elvi Gray-Jackson.
Now, the group of 13 women seeks to have voters decide whether the sexual orientation and gender identity amendments should remain law in Alaska’s most populous city.
Wilson told The Daily Signal:
The reason that it is important to repeal the ordinance is to protect the safety and well-being of our children, especially when it comes to bathrooms and locker rooms. We believe that if you are a man, you should be using the men’s bathroom. We believe that if you’re a woman, you should be using the woman’s locker room. We do not want an adult male walking into the same locker room that our daughters are undressing in.
‘Legitimate Concerns‘
The women filed Nov. 25 to put the question on the ballot, the Alaska Dispatch News reported.
“No one should be surprised by substantial pushback from people with legitimate privacy, safety, and religious liberty concerns,” Heritage’s Severino said:
The ordinance also revoked existing religious liberty protections that made it illegal to force religious institutions to violate their beliefs. But no one who in good faith believes we are created male or female should be punished by government for living out their beliefs.
Voters in Houston rejected a similar LGBT measure Nov. 3 after a heated public debate on the issue.
The proposed Anchorage ballot question said simply: “Shall AO No. 2015-96 (S1) (as amended), an ordinance adding sexual orientation and gender identity to Title 5 of the Anchorage Municipal Code, remain law?”
On Dec. 11 , City Attorney Bill Falsey rejected the application, at least in part because the proposed ballot question was not worded specifically enough, KTVA Alaska reported. An incorrectly dated signature by one of the women also needed to be fixed.
“In his opinion, he told us that the language was deficient in its description,” Wilson, a host on KFQD-AM, said of Falsey.
But, Wilson said, the proposed ballot language is identical in form to another ballot proposition, known as AO 37, in November 2014.
Bernadette Wilson, a radio host in Anchorage, is a leader of the repeal effort. (Photo: Bernadette Live on KFQD Facebook)
‘Very Confusing’
After Falsey’s office concluded their language was “legally insufficient,” Wilson said, the women were willing to change the description but not to allow the meaning to be twisted.
“The way that they had proposed this question being asked was very confusing,” Wilson said of the city attorney’s office. “Essentially the language that they proposed, you would have to vote ‘no’ if you agreed with [the ordinance] and you would have to vote ‘yes’ if you disagree.”
The city attorney proposed this language for the ballot question:
Shall AO No. 2015-96(S-1) (as amended), which amended the Equal Rights Title of the Anchorage Municipal Code (Title 5) to prohibit discrimination within the municipality on the bases of sexual orientation or gender identity in the sale, rental or use of real property, financing, employment, places of public accommodations, educational institutions, and practices of the municipality; to codify certain religious and other exemptions; and to expand the lawyer’s role in fact-finding conferences before the Anchorage Equal Rights Commission, be repealed?
A ‘yes’ vote is a vote to repeal the ordinance. A ‘no’ vote is a vote to keep the ordinance in place.
Wilson said this wording was “counterintuitive to what voters are thinking.”
In a letter to the city, Wilson requested that the words “be repealed” be replaced with “remain law” and the language to read: “A ‘yes’ vote is a vote to keep the ordinance in place. A ‘no’ vote is a vote to repeal the ordinance.”
On Dec. 15, the city clerk’s office said Falsey also rejected Wilson’s newly proposed language, but approved a version with alternative language.
“We asked to have that [the language] changed. They declined that offer,” Wilson said in an interview with The Daily Signal. “Right now, there is no ballot referendum.”
A statewide LGBT rights group based in Anchorage is among those opposed to repeal efforts.
“Generally we’re really sad that this small group of people would want to repeal an ordinance that really benefits all of Alaska,” Drew Phoenix, executive director of the nonprofit Identity Inc., told The Daily Signal.
Phoenix, saying the law has been a “healthy thing for Anchorage,” predicted it would survive a challenge because “Alaskans are ready for change.”
“For one thing, it’s economically profitable and good for Alaska to be inclusive,” Phoenix told The Daily Signal. “The larger the pool of people you draw from—which includes lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender people—the more apt you are to find qualified people who will want to move here to Alaska and stay here and raise their families.”
Anchorage voters last took a position on a law covering sexual orientation and gender identity in 2012, with 58 percent voting to reject the ordinance.
That 2012 law, Wilson said, was “nearly identical” to the current one, “and both accomplish the same end goal.” She said:
If you go back to just a few short years ago where voters did reject it, that kind of takes us to the second point as to why we feel this important that voters vote on this. We do not think that the assembly, [an] 11-member body, should be able to overturn the will of the voters which was so clearly expressed just three short years ago.
The women are determining their next course of action.
“The biggest takeaway from the last few days [has] been how disappointing it is to see the municipal attorney and the clerk’s office play politics with the electorate that is simply attempting to engage in the process and is following due process,” Wilson said.
“We are definitely looking forward to having voter input on this. Voters will have a chance to weigh in on this.”
This story has been updated to include comment from Identity Inc.