Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey ripped for naming trans person to Commission on the Status of Women

Joe Dwinell, Boston Herald on Nov 17, 2025

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BOSTON — The hiring of a transgender person to Massachusetts' Commission on the Status of Women is a first, the new board member testified, and comes as a shock to one state representative.

Commission member Giselle Byrd, appointed by Gov. Maura Healey in August, said last month during a hearing over a proposed transgender act (S-2155), that as the “first trans woman of color” on the commission, the board has a new voice.

Byrd’s appointment was made by Healey on Aug. 20, but not without some blowback.

State Rep. Alyson Sullivan-Almeida, a Plymouth Republican, told the Boston Herald on Sunday night the governor had plenty of other candidates to choose from.

“Out of the nearly three and a half million biological girls and women in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Gov. Healey couldn’t identify a qualified biological woman to appoint to the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women?” asked Sullivan-Almeida.

The Plymouth lawmaker pointed out the commission’s goal — as the website states — is to be “an independent state agency charged with reviewing the status of women and girls in Massachusetts and offering policy recommendations that would improve access to opportunities and equality for all.”

The state Senate bill would do the same for trans people. Yet, Byrd’s appointment stands.

“Why on earth would the governor think anyone but a biological woman would make any sense!” Sullivan-Almeida added. “This appointment makes no sense.”

The governor’s spokesperson, Karissa Hand, pushed back Sunday, saying Healey’s predecessor made a similar decision.

“Giselle Byrd is a highly respected leader in the Boston arts community who is committed to the advancement of women. The Commission has a bipartisan history of having LGBT representation, as Governor Baker appointed the first transgender woman to the Commission in 2016,” said Hand.

Sara Schnorr was appointed by Gov. Charlie Baker to the Women’s Commission that year, according to Bloomberg Law. That story also quoted Schnorr as crediting Baker for the appointment, “particularly in this period when transgender issues are front and center and causing a lot of flap in the press.”

Byrd is the executive director of The Theater Offensive in Boston, “making her the first Black trans woman to lead a regional theatre company in the United States,” a Women’s Commission bio reads.

Her sex assigned at birth was male.

Byrd is also one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed in March in U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island against the National Endowment for the Arts.

The case is jointly filed by the national and Rhode Island chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union, and is seeking a court order blocking changes by the Trump administration impacting how the NEA might dispense funds, according to the Rhode Island Current.

The 19-member, all-volunteer Commission on the Status of Women was created in 1998. They are appointed by the governor, Senate president, speaker of the House, and the Caucus of Women Legislators.

Healey is the nation’s first openly gay woman elected as a governor.

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