State Green Party Press Release

Green Party Challenges Bush, Major Parties; Becomes First to Include Full Civil Rights for All Sexual Minorities.

THE GREEN PARTY OF CALIFORNIA
www.cagreens.org

Tuesday, March 30, 2004 (Posted April 01)

Contact: Ross Mirkarimi, (415) 412-7526, rmirk@msn.com
Beth Moore Haines, (530) 277-0610 beth@ncws.com

SAN FRANCISCO - In a bold statement to Pres. Bush, and the Democratic and Republican parties, the Green Party of California has adopted a platform that makes it the first U.S. political party to include full civil rights for all sexual minorities.

Adopted at the GPCA's Spring Conference this past weekend in San Francisco, the revised platform reaffirms and strengthens the Greens' longstanding commitment to marriage equality, by explicitly opposing "measures that seek to restrict civil rights or to create unequal treatment on the basis of sex, gender, or sexual orientation."

Party representatives said this was intended specifically to oppose constitutional amendments currently proposed by Republican and Democratic leaders. George W. Bush favors a federal amendment to ban gay marriage. John Kerry opposes the federal amendment, but supports a Massachusetts amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

The revision of the Green platform expands its commitment to legislation against hate crimes, harassment, and discrimination, to cover transgender, intersex and queer people.

The new platform also affirms "the right of all people to self-determination with regard to gender identity and sex." It opposes involuntary assignment of gender or sex, including in children, but advocates for access to medical and surgical care for assignment of gender based on informed consent, for both intersex and transgender persons.

"We were moved by testimony of intersex individuals--that is, people who have ambiguous genitalia or sex chromosomes at birth," San Francisco County Council member Paul Quick said.

"We heard stories of painful and disfiguring operations performed on children, who as adults felt that they would rather have been able to choose whether or not to have sex-assignment surgery later in life when they could participate in the decision. We also feel that gender is a fundamental characteristic of people which gives transgender people a right to available treatments of their choosing for reassignment of sex," he added.