The Metro Atlanta Chamber is taking a proactive stance against legislative attempts to enact anti-LGBT discrimination in 2017.

During the group’s annual meeting this week, the outgoing chairman, SunTrust Banks Executive Vice President Jenner Wood, said the Chamber would take a hard line next year against religious exemptions legislation or so-called “bathroom bans” the likes of North Carolina’s HB 2, which have a track record of crippling state economies and paralyzing growth.

This stance is not revolutionary—businesses have been vocal opponents of this type of discriminatory, anti-LGBT legislation in Georgia. As Wood said during his statement at the Chamber’s meeting, “We are not supportive of any bill that in any way would discriminate in any way against any person. We’ve said that for three years now.”

Back in September, Chamber CEO Hala Moddelmog said it’s clear that anti-LGBT legislation is an imminent threat to Georgia’s economic future, especially as the state looks to recruit more millennials into the workforce. And this spring, the Chamber was a leading business voice against HB 757, the “license to discriminate” that would have explicitly legalized discrimination against LGBT Georgians, single women, religious minorities and other groups of people had it not been vetoed by Governor Nathan Deal in March.

“If we are going to be a leading city, we must be a city for everybody.” @KasimReed #MACAnnualMeeting pic.twitter.com/QKbR3DaRs1

— Metro ATL Chamber (@atlchamber) November 30, 2016

As the economic fallout over HB 2 in North Carolina shows, the Chamber has good reason to oppose anti-LGBT legislation. Economic development organizations estimate that North Carolina has lost more than $600 million in revenue over HB 2 since Governor Pat McCrory signed it into law in March. The NBA, NCAA and ACC all pulled championship games out of the state—taking a hard hit at the tourism industry—while businesses including PayPal, Deutsche Bank and CoStar scrapped planned expansions and instead brought their business to places that don’t practice state-sanctioned discrimination.

One of those places? Georgia. In October the ACC awarded the Peach State three of the nine games that were previously scheduled to be held in North Carolina. Georgia was a competitive location thanks to Gov. Deal’s veto of HB 757, which sent a signal to the ACC that our state is serious about promoting a welcoming atmosphere for tourists as well as business investors. According to the Georgia Convention and Visitors Bureau, in addition to spurring growth in the tourism industry the veto saved it nearly $1 billion in lost revenue.

The economic gains Georgia has seen since Governor Deal vetoed HB 757—as well as the losses that keep piling up in North Carolina—show clearly that supporting anti-LGBT discrimination is bad for business.

Proactive measures to ensure LGBT-inclusive non-discrimination protections could make Georgia an even more competitive place to do business. In 2017, lawmakers should invest in Georgia’s economic growth and take steps to advance legislation to protect ALL Georgians—including gay and transgender people—from discrimination. Click here to send a message to your lawmakers if you agree.

Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) is this Sunday, November 20.

For many people in our community, TDOR is a day of heartache.

It’s a day for grieving and honoring our transgender family, friends, and peers whose lives were ended too soon by confounding violence and discrimination.

For many, it’s really important to join with community on Transgender Day of Remembrance—to feel solidarity in mourning, and to help lift each other up.

If you are one of the many seeking community on this tough day, click here to find an event near you and to RSVP.

More transgender people have been senselessly killed this year than any year on record. And with an uptick in transphobic rhetoric from our state houses to the streets—there is a justifiable fear permeating the community.

That’s why now, more than ever before, it’s critical that we recognize TDOR and that we come together in support of our transgender brothers and sisters—to stand with them in solidarity, in love, and in the fight to win critically needed non-discrimination protections to help put an end to the violence.

We will be honoring TDOR and the transgender people who are no longer with us in Atlanta this Sunday. There is a space for you at the table. Click here to find a list of events and RSVP.

In mourning, together.

Jeff Graham
Georgia Unites

With Election Day behind us, and the legislative session just around the corner, there’s no way to tell what the cards hold for LGBT equality in 2017. But one thing is clear: This week, Georgia voted in overwhelming support of candidates who support LGBT equality.

Several candidates running this year made a point to campaign on their support or opposition to the anti-LGBT HB 757, legislation introduced earlier this year, which would have explicitly legalized discrimination against LGBT Georgians, single women, religious minorities and others if it had not been vetoed by Governor Nathan Deal in March.

For many incumbents, their support for HB 757 was a severe liability, opening them up to strong criticism on the trail as well as challengers from the other side of the aisle. Six incumbents who voted for HB 757 faced challengers, a fact that—in of itself—demonstrates that a vote for anti-LGBT legislation is a risk to reelection.

Reps. Stacey Abrams and Stacey Evans—who were a strong opposition front to HB 757, and voted against the discriminatory legislation—held their seats and will continue to serve as strong proponents of passing inclusive protections for LGBT people statewide.

In addition to these champions of equality, Georgia elected a record number of LGBT candidates to state legislature!

“Georgia voters are rejecting the politics of discrimination.”

Rep. Keisha Waites, a lesbian who has represented Atlanta’s 60th House District since 2012, held her seat last night, as did the Georgia General Assembly’s other two openly LGBT members, Rep. Karla Drenner (D-Avondale Estates) and Rep. Park Cannon (D-Atlanta), who both ran unopposed.

And we’ll be adding one more member to this group of three: Sam Park will become the first openly gay man elected to the Georgia General Assembly. Park made history when he upseated three-term incumbent, Rep. Valerie Clark, a staunch supporter of anti-LGBT HB 757.

Our own Jeff Graham lauded the victory as a sign of rising support for LGBT equality among Georgians: “The election of an openly gay man to the Georgia General Assembly represents just one more step on the road to full equality for LGBT people in Georgia. Not only is the election of Sam important for the LGBT and Asian-American communities, it is also an acknowledgement that Georgia voters are rejecting the politics of discrimination.”

On Election Day, Georgia voters sent a strong message to lawmakers: Equality is a winning platform. Now, as legislators prepare for the 2017 session, we urge them to listen to the Georgia voters who cast their ballots in the name of fairness, dignity, and equality under the law—and take steps to advance LGBT non-discrimination protections.

The movement for LGBT equality is taking a big step forward in Athens.

On Tuesday the Athens-Clarke County Commission voted 6-2 to give preliminary approval to the creation of the Athens Civil Rights Committee, which would provide guidance to the county on issues impacting human and civil rights, including those of LGBT people.

According to the committee’s creation charter, it’s full scope would be to collect and analyze data on acts of harassment and discrimination, provide programming and educational content on these issues, and make periodic recommendations to the Mayor and other city and county officials. The committee is also tasked with monitoring government actions and policies.

Two local organizations, Athens for Everyone and the Athens Anti-Discrimination Movement, have been advocating for the committee’s creation for the last 10 months, after community members raised concerns about a lack of leadership in the greater Athens community on these kinds of issues, particularly on issues of LGBT equality.

After Tuesday’s victory Athens for Everyone President Tim Denson praised supporters’ unwavering commitment to this Athens Civil Rights Committee’s creation, as well as the passion with which they spoke out on Tuesday:

“Residents spoke out at the podium, in letters, emails, phone calls, research, and even in song. Those voices were too loud to be ignored and the Mayor and Commission, some reluctantly, had to answer their call. I think this victory speaks more to the legacy of the Athens people than it does to our County Commission.”

While Athens lacks an LGBT-inclusive non-discrimination ordinance, the creation of this committee is an important step forward. It will give LGBT residents of Athens and Clarke County a formal process through which to register complaints of discrimination and push for the creation of more inclusive laws and policies.

The resolution passed on Tuesday directs Athens-Clarke County officials to begin the process of creating the committee, which includes further consultation with community members. Officials will present their final plan for the committee in June 2017.

According to the committee’s creation charter, it’s full scope would be to collect and analyze data on acts of harassment and discrimination, provide programming and educational content on these issues, and make periodic recommendations to the Mayor and other city and county officials. The committee is also tasked with monitoring government actions and policies.

Two local organizations, Athens for Everyone and the Athens Anti-Discrimination Movement, have been advocating for the committee’s creation for the last 10 months, after community members raised concerns about a lack of leadership in the greater Athens community on these kinds of issues, particularly on issues of LGBT equality.

After Tuesday’s victory Athens for Everyone President Tim Denson praised supporters’ unwavering commitment to this Athens Civil Rights Committee’s creation, as well as the passion with which they spoke out on Tuesday:

“Residents spoke out at the podium, in letters, emails, phone calls, research, and even in song. Those voices were too loud to be ignored and the Mayor and Commission, some reluctantly, had to answer their call. I think this victory speaks more to the legacy of the Athens people than it does to our County Commission.”

While Athens lacks an LGBT-inclusive non-discrimination ordinance, the creation of this committee is an important step forward. It will give LGBT residents of Athens and Clarke County a formal process through which to register complaints of discrimination and push for the creation of more inclusive laws and policies.

The resolution passed on Tuesday directs Athens-Clarke County officials to begin the process of creating the committee, which includes further consultation with community members. Officials will present their final plan for the committee in June 2017.

A year ago, Ames Simmons sat down with his boss and a few other leaders in his company and announced that he wanted to take the next big step in a process he had invested years of thought, energy and consideration into. He was ready to transition publicly at work from female to male – as a transgender man, Ames’ male gender is an innate part of him, a key part of his innermost sense of self.

But it wasn’t by any means an easy experience to come out as transgender – Ames prepared for years, building up the money, confidence, and reputation he needed to feel totally secure. Ames lives in Atlanta, Georgia, a state with no state laws prohibiting discrimination, including discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Without LGBT-inclusive statewide or federal protections, Ames knew that he was vulnerable to the discrimination that is all too common across the country.

“It took a long time of tip-toeing around to get a feel for whether or when it would be safe for me to come out as transgender,” Ames said. “I guess I have been aware of my transgender identity since late in 2008 – but for many, many of those years, I didn’t even start thinking about making a formal medical, legal, and social decision until the spring of 2015. So for six or seven years I was just sort of trapped in this space of needing to transition but not being able to see a way to safely do that.”

“For a long time, just thinking about transition was about accumulating enough savings to be in an OK position if something did go wrong. By the time I felt that the conditions were right to transition, I had been thinking about it for years and years, and it was all a very carefully orchestrated thing.”

Part of that orchestration included updating his passport and his driver’s license to show his new name and gender, and originally, that was as far as Ames was planning to go. However, when he began seeing state legislatures considering bills targeting transgender people in public facilities, he started thinking twice about that decision. Legislation like North Carolina’s House Bill 2 restricting transgender people’s ability to access public facilities in accordance with their gender identity worried him. “That legislation really scares me. Those bills are targeting me.”

Ames decided to pursue a court hearing to amend his birth certificate to show his gender as male. This was a completely separate filing from the court order changing his name, filed in a separate jurisdiction. It was complicated enough that Ames had to retain counsel—and he is an attorney. “That’s how scared I am that I will be pushed out of the bathroom I belong in – that my very identity as a man will be questioned and policed as a ‘threat,’” Ames said.

As a result of the hearing, he obtained a court order directing Georgia’s Department of Vital Records to amend his birth certificate to show his correct name and gender marker. Ames said that the agency clerk mentioned when he presented the court order that this process is “hard” for the agency, never mind the personal difficulty Ames went through to get to the point of presenting the order.

Once the updated birth certificate arrived in the mail, Ames was relieved to see that it showed the correct information with the original December 1970 issue date and no indication that it had been amended. Some of the anxiety of being pushed out of public facilities was eased by having the updated document in hand. But Ames notes that for transgender people, any kind of identification check has the potential for peril. “Who actually carries around their passport and birth certificate with them when they go out?” he asked.

No one should have to spend years of their life calculating and measuring and worrying about whether it is safe to be who they are. But because of the lack of LGBT-inclusive non-discrimination protections – and because of a general lack of knowledge and understanding about transgender lives – Ames and other transgender people like him must constantly weigh these very real components of their lives.

That can be exhausting – and with greater acceptance and clearer laws underlining that no one can or should face discrimination because they are transgender, change is possible.

“There are so many fewer trans people than there are LGB people, so the more that every trans person can come out and tell their story when they feel that it is safe to do that, that will go to the greater good,” Ames said. “A movement for non-discrimination in Georgia would set a whole tone for people to think about being LGBTQ in Georgia. It makes a difference if these protections are passed on the municipal level, or on the state level, or on the federal level. They would give people protection when there is a violation of their rights – and that is an important, indispensable first step.”

Learn more about the fight for LGBT-inclusive non-discrimination protections in Georgia with Georgia Unites Against Discrimination, the coalition Freedom for All Americans is proud to lead alongside Georgia Equality and other partners.