ADVOCACY OPPORTUNITY!
The Massachusetts state legislature is considering a bill (S.1108/H.1705) that would make discrimination based on body size illegal in the state. We’re working hard to enlist support for the bill from senators across the state.
Please send an email to your senator urging them to support the bill. We have made an email template, where all you have to do is copy/paste the text into an email and fill in your name and city/town. The template can be found at the bottom of this email. Please also share this email widely to your Massachusetts network! Thank you, STRIPED Advocates — Let’s get this done in Massachusetts!!
TEMPLATE FOR EMAILING YOUR STATE SENATOR
Find your Senator’s name and email at this link: https://malegislature.gov/search/findmylegislator
Please feel free to edit the below template, especially if you’d like to include your personal reasons for supporting this bill, or how it relates to your life/work/family/etc. The bolded and italicized text parts is where you have to insert a name, town, or other personal detail. Copy and paste the text into the body of your email.
Subject Line: Please support MA Bill S.1108/H.1705
Dear Senator [insert senator’s name],
My name is [insert name] and I am a constituent of yours in [insert town/city]. I am writing today to ask you to support Massachusetts bill S.1108/H.1705, An Act Prohibiting Body Size Discrimination, filed by Senator Rebecca Rausch and Representative Tram Nguyen this session. This bill currently sits in the Joint Committee on the Judiciary. I urge you to support this bill and let Joint Committee on the Judiciary Chairperson James B. Eldridge know you want him to pass S.1108/H.1705 as soon as possible.
S.1108/H.1705 addresses a vital civil rights issue: Discrimination against individuals based on their body size, particularly weight-based discrimination. If passed, the bill will ban body size discrimination and protect all Massachusetts residents by adding height and weight to the list of protected identities alongside gender, race, and other important identity groups. In Massachusetts in 2019, weight discrimination cost nearly $2.3 billion and affected over 725,000 people. [if you’d like, insert why this bill is important to you].
Weight discrimination shows up everywhere: wrongful terminations, missed promotions, wage inequities; from healthcare professionals, landlords, lenders, service providers, and more. It is linked to serious health and mental health conditions and is strikingly common; as much as 42% of people in larger bodies have experienced weight discrimination. Unfortunately, there are no legal protections for folks in MA who experience discrimination based on body size. We must change this and make Massachusetts the second state in the nation to ban body size discrimination, setting the precedent that body size discrimination is unjust, unlawful, and unacceptable.
Thank you for your leadership. Can I count on you to convey your support of this bill to Joint Committee on the Judiciary Chairperson James B. Eldridge? I look forward to hearing back from you.
Sincerely,
[your name]
[your address]
