Why Passing the ERA Is as Critical to LGBTQ+ Folks as the Equality Act
“shadow hearing” in protest of being ignored by House leadership. The first woman ever elected to chair the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, Maloney was finally able to hold an official hearing.
When asked by a reporter, “What’s different about the hearing you’re having now? What’s different about the landscape?” the chairwoman highlighted the crucial importance of women in leadership at the highest levels of government: “One thing that’s different is I’m chair of the committee and I can have the hearing.”Though it commemorated the 50th anniversary of the ERA, the hearing was not your grandma’s ERA hearing.
One of the most compelling witnesses was Bamby Salcedo, founder of TransLatin@ Coalition and the first Mexican-American transgender woman to testify before Congress.
Salcedo donned suffrage white along with the other witnesses and began her testimony in Spanish, causing several of the Republican committee members to do a double take.
