Council Member Bottcher Explains Vote on General Orders

Permission to explain my vote.

Permission granted.

Look, it wasn't that long ago that gays and lesbians were widely to considered to be predators who were trying to recruit kids.

And we've made a tremendous amount of progress on gay and lesbian rights.

When I was I was born a year before homosexuality was decriminalized in New York State.

We've come a long way.

But one of the reasons we've been able to come a long way is because people know people got to know us as we came out.

People knew us in their lives as their relative, as their coworker.

And they knew that those that wasn't true, that we weren't those terrible things that were being depicted.

The challenge with trans rights is that they're so much fewer in number that so few people know trans people in their lives.

If they did, they would know that they were just they're just people trying to live their lives, trying to take care of themselves and their families.

They're not trying to go out trying to recruit other people.

It's it's a vicious, vicious stereotype.

And look, folks don't choose to be trans no more than folks choose to be gay.

My life would have been a lot easier.

I'd probably be working in my father's fly fishing shop.

I'd probably be like drinking a Miller Light on a porch somewhere right now.

But no, I didn't have a choice.

I am who I am.

They are who they are.

Let's continue to pass legislation that safeguards their rights.

It's not complicated.

I'm proud that's that's what we're doing in the body today.

Your vote, council member.

Your vote?

Aye, and all.

Thank you.