MetroWeekly.com – by Yusef Najafi
While presenting her testimony to the Montgomery County Council Tuesday, Oct. 2, against the passage of a bill that would protect transgender people by adding the words ”gender identity” to the county’s anti-discrimination policy, Dr. Ruth Jacobs, an infectious disease and allergy specialist, wore a white lab coat – completing the look with a stethoscope around her neck. Looking like she had just walked off the set of Grey’s Anatomy, Jacobs, the only person to offer testimony against the bill at the public hearing, warned that passage of Bill No. 23-07, sponsored by Councilmember Duchy Trachtenberg (D-At Large), would discriminate against ”ex-transgenders.” These are, she claims, people who have ”stepped out of” being transgender.
Bandying the technical term ”gender identity disorder,” a controversial diagnosis generally required in the United States before gender reassignment surgery may be performed, Jacobs asked the Council to ”be true to biology.”