Boise Weekly – Shea Andersen
In the end, all it took was a quick vote by the Boise City Council.
But the routine matter of revising the city’s employee policy manual was enough to make Nikki Leonard cry, because for the first time in its history, the City of Boise now includes specific references to gender identification in its anti-discrimination policy.
For someone like Leonard, who was born a male but has been living as a woman for the last two and a half years, the news was nothing short of revelatory.
“This is huge,” Leonard said. “It’s a really progressive move for Boise to make. It’s one of the things that makes Boise such a great place to live.”
Boise already has policies against discrimination of other kinds, including against gay employees, said City Council President Maryanne Jordan.
“I wanted our policy to be inclusive,” Jordan said. “When you really think about it, a discrimination policy that doesn’t include one group is by its nature discriminatory.”
The policy was adopted in a unanimous vote by the Boise City Council late last month, but done as part of a routine consent agenda, Jordan said.