Held to answer

Either Portland Mayor Sam Adams has never read David Halberstam’s “The Best and  the Brightest,” or he has forgotten its message.

The best aren’t always the brightest, and the brightest aren’t always the best.

Nevertheless, according to Adams’ thinking, the city of Portland can now attract the “best and brightest” employees because the city’s insurance coverage will include sex-change operations.

The Portland City Council unanimously approved transgender benefits at a public hearing June 8 before a standing-room only audience who, according to council protocol, showed their support or disdain for speakers through a silent pantomime: Hands raised and fingers waving if they agreed; hands raised and thumbs down if they didn’t.

Only a couple of people spoke out against transgender coverage. A woman described how her husband – the owner of a small business – couldn’t afford to pay himself in lean years and did not have vision or dental insurance.

“We accept this reality. We feel lucky to have what we have …,” she said. The woman was concerned about the widening gap between public and private employment benefits.

As she spoke, many of the 100 or so spectators in the balcony overlooking council chambers jabbed their thumbs down furiously as if rejecting a bad movie.

The woman said she had empathy for anyone who didn’t feel comfortable with their body. She offered a couple of suggestions if city leadership felt so strongly about transgender issues. First, start a nonprofit entity to pay for hormone replacement, surgery and other related care. Second, put the question to city employees themselves and let them opt to pay for the coverage out of their pay checks. That suggestion also brought many thumbs down from the audience.

“Government cannot afford to solve everyone’s problems,” she said.

More than a dozen speakers favored the coverage, and spectators responded like first-graders imitating rain — their fingers fluttering high in the air.

There was a virtual downpour for a man who said refusing insurance for the transgendered would be like refusing to give insurance to short people.

A speaker who appeared to be a man transitioning to a woman said providing health care would reduce stressors that lead to suicide. “In the transgender community one thing nobody talks about … is the high suicide rate.”

The enthusiasm from the speakers and audience left the impression that some of them thought the transgender coverage was going to apply to every Portland resident who wanted it. The coverage is only for city employees, and there’s no indication that there is a big demand for it.

The council’s vote was quick and followed a brief discussion that reduced the issue to a no-brainer.

It only costs $32,000, said Commissioner Nick Fish. He called the amount “trivial … a drop in the bucket. … Today is a leadership moment.”

Commissioner Amanda Fritz acknowledged all the waving hands in the audience. The council’s vote may not be politically popular, she said, but it could prevent a suicide.

Mayor Adams wrapped things up, and the audience was allowed to make noise. They stood and cheered, whistled and applauded.

Perhaps the majority of folks who weren’t in favor were at work, doing their part to pay for this “drop in the bucket.”

Well, not those who used to work in the empty businesses near City Hall. There are at least six vacancies in the vicinity, including some small retail sites still bearing signs of the former occupants.

For them, a trivial $32,000 might have made the difference between giving up and hanging on.

– Pamela Fitzsimmons