Pittsburgh councilmember introduces legislation aimed at protecting LGBTQ+ community
Pittsburgh Councilmember Barb Warwick introduced multiple bills at Tuesday morning's council meeting, fighting what she and others call discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community in Pittsburgh.
One calls for reduced penalties regarding prostitution.
"We want to make sure that all people are safe to work, to live, to exist," Warwick, who represents Pittsburgh's 5th District, said.
She and other advocates huddled inside the City-County Building Portico Tuesday morning.
"This is not a symbolic gesture during Pride Month," said Rachel Shepherd, the executive director of the Pittsburgh Commission on Human Relations.
One bill would reduce penalties for prostitution
One of the bills would keep prostitution as a crime in the city, but it would reduce penalties from a misdemeanor with potential jail time to a fineable offense.
"This is merely lessening the penalties for adult consensual work," said Theresa Nightingale, an organizer with the Pittsburgh Coalition for Safer Sex Work.
Warwick says current laws disproportionately target women in troubled circumstances.
The bill also says police should focus on people like traffickers.
"Sex work is consensual, and it should be distinguished between sex trafficking, which is non-consensual," Warwick said.
Other bills offer protection for LGBTQ+ community
One of the other bills would de-prioritize enforcement of higher-level actions criminalized because of someone's identity.
"If no one is coming to arrest me for doing something as a cisgender woman, then no one should be coming to arrest me for doing it as a trans person," Warwick said.
The last one classifies refusing or denying medical care based solely on gender identity or gender expression as discrimination.
"If I can get that therapy, then anyone should be able to get that therapy," Warwick said. "It shouldn't matter whether or not they're a trans person."
People at Tuesday's press conference say these proposals come as responses to attacks on the LGBTQ+ community, especially trans people.
"Our work with this community doesn't end when the flags come down," Shepherd said.
"These bills are about doing everything we can here at the city level to make sure that Pittsburgh is a welcoming place for everyone," Warwick said.
Warwick and others here hope the track is fast.
"I'm hoping that we can get this one approved quickly, because this feels like a no-brainer to me," she said.
These bills are all endorsed by the city of Pittsburgh's LGBTQIA+ commission.
On the bill regarding reducing penalties on prostitution, other members like Councilmember Anthony Coghill said before Tuesday that they hadn't seen it yet.
Some have expressed concerns that reducing the penalties may encourage prostitution.
