Pittsfield — In the face of President Donald J. Trump’s series of executive orders impacting LGBTQIA+ rights, the City Council approved a resolution declaring Pittsfield as a sanctuary city for transgender and gender-diverse people at its meeting on Tuesday, March 11.
City Councilor Alisa Costa submitted the resolution on February 27. In the resolution itself, Costa lists several federal actions that have taken place since President Trump took office, including:
- President Trump signed an executive order on January 22 that the federal government would only recognize two sexes, male and female. The executive order is titled “Defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government.”
- President Trump signed an executive order on January 29 that the federal government would seek to end gender-affirming medical treatments for children and teenagers under the age of 19. The executive order is titled “Protecting children from chemical and surgical mutilation.”
- Subsequently, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management ordered federal agencies to end legal recognition of trans people by replacing all forms that request information about gender to instead request information about sex.
Another reason Costa cites for the resolution is a Human Rights Campaign report completed in 2023 that “fatal violence against transgender and gender diverse people disproportionately impacts the BIPOC community, making up 85 percent of all victims identified since 2013. Almost two-thirds, 61.8 percent, of all victims have been black trans women.”
The resolution calls for the city to protect healthcare professionals “providing gender-affirming healthcare and persons seeking or receiving care or assisting another individual who is seeking or receiving care,” and protects them from criminal punishment, civil liability, professional sanctions, and administrative penalties.
The resolution also institutes a policy that “no city resources, including, but not limited to, time spent by employees, officers, contractors, or subcontractors while on duty, or the use of city property, shall be utilized for detaining persons for solely seeking or providing gender-affirming care, including gender affirmation surgery or gender hormone therapy.”
The resolution designates Pittsfield as “a sanctuary city that will not cooperate with Federal and State policies aimed to harm transgender and gender diverse people and ensure transgender and gender diverse people have access to healthcare, housing, education, and employment without fear or discrimination.”
During the public comment portion held at the beginning of the meeting, residents spoke out in support of Costa’s resolution, including School Committee member William Garrity. “The fight against the tyranny we are seeing at the federal level needs to start here at the local level,” Garrity said. “I am proud to live in Massachusetts, where we have protections for transgender and diverse people. I call on the City Council to also back the transgender and gender-diverse community in Pittsfield. I firmly believe these attacks and hate we are seeing against the transgender community are not going to stop here. These attacks are much more than sports teams and bathrooms. Several bills and state legislators around the country, most recently in Texas, would make identifying as transgender a felony.”
“I firmly believe it is our duty as a city to say clearly that we will not engage in this hate-fueled oppression being conducted by the federal government against transgender community,” Garrity continued. “It is our duty to make sure this community is protected from discrimination, ensure they will continue to have access to gender-affirming care, and ensure that their existence will not be wiped away and outlawed in this city. Will we end up on Fox News for passing this? Maybe. Will we lose federal dollars because of this resolution? Quite possibly, but I would argue we’re going to lose that funding no matter what we do. We should not let threats and bullying stop us from doing what is right for the transgender and gender-diverse community in Pittsfield.”
Corey Walker, a member of the transgender community, said the resolution “will send a message to the rest of the country and the rest of the state that we stand by our words.” “We are a community currently under attack and pressure,” Walker said. “We are a very small community, making up 0.3 percent of the population. If others have their way, we’ll make up zero percent of the population. We can only survive with help from legislators, and help from people that will keep us safe. We look to the police, our lawmakers, and our politicians to keep the residents of our state safe, to keep our children safe, to keep me safe. It starts in places like this. It starts with us coming to you and asking for help. We are a community under attack that has nowhere else to turn.”
“I am a transgender woman, and I am terrified,” said resident Gwen Morgan. “The current federal administration and their Project 2025 agenda have made it their goal to erase and eradicate my kind. They are erasing us from history, for example, by removing references to transgender people from the online description of the Stonewall movement, which was dedicated to the LGBTQ people who fought back against opposition in 1969 and also removing transgender information from the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and other government websites.”
Resident and Berkshire Pride President Michael Taylor said passing the resolution would ensure that Pittsfield would foster an inclusive and respectful workplace. “I don’t believe [the resolution] to simply be a symbolic gesture,” Taylor said. “It’s a statement of our values and it’s about being good human beings. Across the country, we are witnessing an alarming and frightening rise in attacks on our transgender community, and on their rights, from healthcare bans to restrictions on their identity itself, making it illegal to just be yourself. Declaring our city as a sanctuary sends a clear message that transgender and gender-diverse people are welcome and valued, that no matter what happens elsewhere, our city will stand on the side of dignity, respect, and human rights.”
Before the council voted on the resolution, Councilor Costa thanked the residents who spoke during public comment. “I was moved to submit this resolution because I’ve heard from so many trans and gender-non-conforming individuals in our community who don’t feel safe right now,” Costa said. “They’re literally asking for friends to walk with them and go places with them. I don’t intend to comply in advance with federal injustices that encourage harassment of our community members. Tonight, I want to affirm a simple but powerful truth that Pittsfield is a place where all people deserve to live with dignity, safety, and respect, no matter their gender identity or expression. Across the country, we are witnessing an alarming wave of attacks on transgender and gender-diverse individuals, policies that seek to erase their identities, deny them life-saving healthcare, and push them to the margins of our society. But not here, not in Pittsfield. We will not sit idly by while our neighbors have their rights stripped away. I brought this resolution so that we can be clear that here you belong.”
“It saddens me that we have to do this in 2025,” said Councilor Kathleen Amuso. “We shouldn’t have to do this for anybody. We all want to be loved. We all want to have a family. We all want to work. We all want to be members of our society.”
“When I was younger, seeing these types of attacks would have made me kind of go back into my shell and be terrified,” said Councilor Patrick Kavey. “I’ve grown to a point where I see this type of injustice, and I see people trying to take away rights, and I’m at a place where I’m in a position of power and I’m going to fight back against those people. To any young people in the LGBTQ+ community or anyone else who is still figuring it out, wherever you fall in the spectrum, there’s nothing wrong with you. I’m sorry that our society tries to make you feel like there is, but it’s completely ridiculous. Let’s keep moving forward, and let’s keep standing up for each other in our community.”
Councilors present at the March 11 meeting voted unanimously to approve the resolution. Councilors Dina Lampiasi and Matthew Wrinn were not present at the meeting.
Click here for the full resolution.
