POLITICS
New York Nears Repeal of Walking While Trans Ban
Advocates, state lawmakers prepare to scrap discriminatory loitering law
BY MATT TRACY
After years of dedicated
advocacy, education,
outreach, the State Legislature
is fi nally poised
to repeal the state’s discriminatory
ban on “Walking While Trans” in
the coming weeks.
“Next week the Walking While
Trans ban will be voted through
the committee and the following
week the Walking While Trans ban
will be called to the Senate fl oor,”
TS Candii, who has spearheaded
the movement to gut the decadesold
loitering law, told Gay City News
on January 21. “Hopefully it will be
followed by the Assembly, and that
is when it will be passed through.
So we have a two-week timeframe
that we are looking at.”
Section 240.37 of the New York
State Penal Law has long been
used by law enforcement to target
and harass transgender women
— especially transgender women
of color — and advocates with the
Walking While Trans Ban coalition
have led a grueling and lengthy
campaign to convince stubborn
lawmakers to strike the law from
the books. The bill managed to
reach the Assembly fl oor in 2019,
but did not get a vote, and then
stalled in the Senate Codes committee.
Last year advocates convinced a
growing number of state lawmakers
to co-sponsor the bill, which
was proposed by out gay State Senator
Brad Hoylman of Manhattan
and Assemblymember Amy Paulin
of Westchester. But even with
overwhelming support, Assembly
Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate
Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-
Cousins were slow to advance the
legislation.
However, Hoylman said the motivating
factor that carried the bill
to the brink of passage actually
came over the summer when tens
of thousands fl ocked to Brooklyn
Museum for a “Brooklyn Liberation”
march in support of Black
trans lives.
“I think that led to a major impression
on my colleagues,” Hoylman
TS Candii is the lead organizer of the movement to repeal a discriminatory loitering law in New York State.
told Gay City News on January
21. “It was, I think, a moment
of reckoning for legislators who
saw the public cry for reform such
as this.”
Other lawmakers said the new
wave of progressive state lawmakers
who just took offi ce are also injecting
momentum into the legislative
effort.
“It’s the energy that a lot of us
are bringing to the table, meaning
new leaders and a supermajority
in the State Senate,” Queens Assemblymember
Jessica González-
Rojas, whose district includes
Jackson Heights, Corona, Woodside,
and East Elmhurst, told Gay
City News. “Many of us who ran on
this issue and are really unapologetic
about supporting our queer
and trans community.”
Governor Andrew Cuomo has
also voiced his support for the bill.
Holyman confi rmed that leaders in
the State Legislature are likely to
bring the bill to a committee vote
“as soon as next week.”
“It’s great news for a segment of
New Yorkers who have been disproportionately
harmed by an archaic
statute that stigmatizes them and
allows law enforcement to profi le
them just because of the way they
happened to be dressed or looked,”
Hoylman added.
While the legislative push has
been drawn out, advocates have
managed to make progress in
other areas. Most recently, they
convinced the New York City
Council to pass a pair of resolutions
late last year that supported
the repeal effort and called on
the State Legislature to also pass
a law sealing records of victims
who were swept up under that
loitering law.
TS Candii, meanwhile, was
overwhelmed with emotion upon
learning that lawmakers would
likely fi nally deliver for transgender
New Yorkers who have faced
discrimination, mistreatment,
and marginalization for years.
She has been the most visible
and devoted advocate behind the
local movement, which brought
her and others to the State Capitol
for lobbying efforts and to numerous
REUTERS/BRYAN R SMITH
demonstrations aimed
at rallying support for a cause
that lawmakers were slow to embrace.
“These are a couple of steps forward
for us after weeks and weeks
of going to Albany and screaming
down the hallways,” she said. “This
is just a Stop and Frisk 2.0 that
has been going on for decades.”
As she looked back on the long
journey leading up to this moment,
TS Candii invoked the late Marsha
P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, and
Layleen Polanco — a 27-year-old
Afro-Latinx transgender woman
who died in custody at Rikers in
2019 after she was neglected by
jail offi cials.
“I’m just so full of tears and joy
that New York State is taking a
step to acknowledge the existence
of Black and Brown transgender
women,” TS Candii explained.
Advocates with the DecrimNY
coalition, which quickly organized
a robust base of support
for comprehensive sex work de-
➤ WALKING WHILE TRANS, continued on p.13
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