BLOOMINGTON - Bloomington has become the second Indiana city to provide civil rights protections based on gender identity. This change means that Bloomington city code will treat gender identity as a category protected against discrimination, just like race, religion, disability, sex and sexual orientation.

The Bloomington City Council vote was preceded by two years of broad community advocacy. Among the organizations involved in this grassroots effort were Indiana Equality, Indiana Transgender Rights Advocacy Alliance (INTRAA), Interfaith Coalition on Nondiscrimination (ICON), the Indiana University GLBT Student Support Services, Bloomington Beacon, bloomingOUT radio, Bloomington PFLAG, Indiana Stonewall Democrats, Bloomington United, and the Hoosier Rights Campaign.

The April 19, 2006 vote by the Bloomington City Council provides for voluntary mediation to address complaints of gender-identity discrimination. The ordinance also allows the Bloomington Human Rights Commission (BHRC) to pursue gender-identity complaints selectively as sex-discrimination complaints, with the power to enforce compliance.

The ordinance includes a definition of "gender identity" proposed by the BHRC when it voted unanimously in September to recommend amending the city's human rights ordinance. The definition reads: "Gender identity means a person's actual or perceived gender-related attributes, self-image, appearance, expression, or behavior, whether or not such characteristics differ from those traditionally associated with the person's assigned sex at birth."