This Pride Month, Pittsburgh is putting its promises of inclusion to the test. On Tuesday morning, District 5 Pittsburgh City Councilmember Barb Warwick introduced a powerful trio of bills designed to safeguard queer and marginalized Pittsburghers, especially trans folks and sex workers, from discrimination and criminalization.
Flanked by local advocates from TransYOUniting, the Pittsburgh Coalition for Safer Sex Work, and the Pittsburgh Commission on Human Relations, Warwick announced the legislation during a press conference outside the City-County Building Downtown.
“This is Pittsburgh standing arm in arm with the queer community,” Warwick told WESA earlier this morning. “We really need lawmakers at every level of government — county, state, etc. — to be figuring out ways that we can proactively protect LGBTQIA folks, especially trans folks and other vulnerable communities. These are some of the first steps we can take here in the City of Pittsburgh.”
The first ordinance expands the city’s anti-discrimination protections to explicitly ban denial of medical care based on a patient’s real or perceived gender identity or expression. It amends Pittsburgh’s existing public accommodations law to make it an “unlawful public accommodation practice” for any business, including medical providers, to deny or withhold elective care because a patient is trans or nonbinary.
Rachel Shepherd, Executive Director of the Pittsburgh Commission on Human Relations, clarified in WESA’s coverage that this bill won’t force UPMC to reinstate gender-affirming care for trans youth because the health giant shut down entire programs rather than targeting individuals. But for all other cases, the city’s Commission will now have authority to intervene when trans Pittsburghers face medical discrimination, much like it already handles housing or employment bias.
The second ordinance goes even bigger: it directs Pittsburgh’s police and city agencies to de-prioritize enforcing any state or federal laws that criminalize people based on who they are, rather than what they do.
In other words, if Pennsylvania or Congress ever passes a drag ban, a bathroom bill, or tries to outlaw Pride flags or trans athletes, Pittsburgh cops won’t be knocking on doors. The ordinance lists protected acts ranging from using bathrooms that match a person’s gender identity to performing drag, parenting, displaying Pride flags, and seeking gender-affirming medical care.
As the ordinance itself states:
“If certain conduct that is otherwise legal but for the actor’s identification or association with a protected class ever becomes illegal nationwide or in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Council of the City of Pittsburgh instructs all city officials and law enforcement agencies to deprioritize enforcement … to the furthest extent possible.”
In short: Pittsburgh intends to remain a sanctuary for queer life even if the rest of the country backslides.
The third bill tackles an issue many marginalized people know too well: the criminalization of sex work. Warwick’s proposal would reduce the penalty for sex work from a misdemeanor to a summary offense, echoing the city’s 2016 approach to cannabis possession. This move is strongly backed by the Pittsburgh Coalition for Safer Sex Work, whose organizers have long argued that criminalization makes sex work more dangerous and keeps workers from seeking help when needed.
Dena Stanley, Executive Director of TransYOUniting, emphasized the urgency of the legislative package. “Our community is under attack, from bans on health care to drag bans to daily street harassment. These laws are about survival. Pittsburgh has to step up because no one else will,” Stanley told QBurgh.
Pittsburgh City Council will formally begin considering the bills starting today. If passed, they’ll deepen Pittsburgh’s legal shield for LGBTQIA+ residents at a time when anti-queer laws and rhetoric are escalating nationwide.
