Top tech companies and others joined forces this week to
write a letter opposing the US President, Donald Trump’s administrative plan to
narrow gender definitions.
The letter was drafted by Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon,
Microsoft, Intel, Cisco and more in response to an earlier New York Times story
about a planned federal rollback of Obama-era civil rights protections for
transgender citizens.
The move by the Trump administration raise an outbreak
protests around the world in support of transgender rights, which later
followed by the tech companies opposing letter.
The note reads, “We oppose any administrative and
legislative efforts to erase transgender protections through reinterpretation of
existing laws and regulations”. “We also fundamentally oppose any policy or
regulation that violates the privacy rights of those that identify as transgender
and intersex.”
The earlier Times report rise from a memo proposing that the
gender of individuals be solely based on their biological traits at birth.
According to the memo, “Sex means a person’s status as male
or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth”.
“The sex listed on a person’s birth certificate, as originally issued, shall
constitute definitive proof of a person’s sex unless rebutted by reliable
genetic evidence.”
This is not the first time tech companies like Google and
Apple among others will spoke against Trump administration. These two companies
also make a move in early last year, against the administration’s plan to roll back
Obama-era guidelines surrounding transgender bathroom use in public schools.
Below is the full text of the written letter against Trump’s
plan:
We, the undersigned businesses, stand with the millions of
people in America who identify as transgender, gender no binary or intersex,
and call for all such people to be treated with the respect and dignity
everyone deserves.
We oppose any administrative and legislative efforts to
erase transgender protections through reinterpretation of existing laws and
regulations. We also fundamentally oppose any policy or regulation that
violates the privacy rights of those that identify as transgender, gender no
binary or intersex.
In the last two decades, dozens of federal courts have
affirmed the rights and identities of transgender people. Cognizant of growing
medical and scientific consensus, courts have recognized that policies that
force people into a binary gender definition determined by birth anatomy fail
to reflect the complex realities of gender identity and human biology.
Recognizing that diversity and inclusion are good for
business, and that discrimination imposes enormous productivity cost (and
exerts undue burdens), hundreds of companies, including the undersigned, have
continued to expand inclusion for transgender people across corporate America.
Currently more than 80 percent of the Fortune 500 have clear
gender identity protections; two-thirds have transgender-inclusive health care
coverage; hundreds have LGBTQ+ and Allies business resource groups and internal
training efforts.
Transgender people are our beloved family member and
friends, and our valued team members. What harms transgender people harms our
companies.
We call for respect and transparency in policymaking, and
for equality under the law for transgender people.
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