Associate Justice Marcy Kahn. Photo by Rick Kopstein

A multipronged amendment aimed at broadening protection for certain LGBTQ community members has been proposed for the state court system's policies on nondiscrimination.

The change, sanctioned by the Administrative Board and released for public comment on Tuesday, would alter the nondiscrimination policies for judges, lawyers and others in the state court system by adding the terms “gender identity” and “gender expression” to the explicitly protected categories of nondiscrimination.

Currently, the policies addressing nondiscrimination use the term “sexual orientation.” But that term does not reach far enough, according to the co-chairs of the Richard C. Failla LGBTQ Commission of the New York Courts, the group that drafted the amendment. The Failla Commission promotes LGBTQ access to the courts and to the legal profession.

In an August letter to Chief Administrative Judge Lawrence Marks, commission co-chairs and appeals Justices Elizabeth Garry and Marcy Kahn wrote that, “as presently written, the Unified Court System's non-discrimination policies are addressed solely to … sexual orientation [but] this is not inclusive of all the members of the LGBTQ communities.”

“Every person has a sexual orientation, meaning a physical and emotional attraction to persons of one gender or another,” Garry and Kahn continued, adding, “A gender identity means an internal psychological sense of being a man or a woman.

“Finally, we each have a form of gender expression, meaning how people reflect their gender identity in their dress, mannerisms, behavior, appearance and roles.”

The change, if approved, would sweep across a series of policies governing the conduct of judges, lawyers, non-judicial employees and others connected to the court system. The addition of the terms “gender identity” and “gender expression” would affect policies including particular Rules of Judicial Conduct, Attorney Rules of Professional Conduct, UCS Code of Ethics for Nonjudicial Employees Conduct and Rules of the Chief Judge, Career Service.

According to Appellate Division, First Department, Justice Kahn, the amendment would also become “one of the very first if not the first” of its kind in the nation's court systems.

“We know from reports that we've seen, anecdotal reports that we've received, that many people feel that they're not recognized for who they are, or they're being misinterpreted for who they are,” Kahn said in a phone interview Tuesday.

She added, “The court system should be a place where everyone in the community can come and expect equal treatment. We should be a beacon for justice and fair treatment.”

“A person's gender expression or gender identity is very different than their sexual orientation,” she also said. “In order to make sure we don't act based on stereotypes or prejudices, or inferior ideas about who a person is, we need to expand the reach of our policies.”

The comment period will end Jan. 22, 2018. Here is a link to the court system's Request for Public Comment on the amendment.