Gail Alexan­der

A draft gen­der pol­i­cy has been be­fore Gov­ern­ment's Fi­nance and Gen­er­al Pur­pos­es Com­mit­tee since late last year, ac­cord­ing to Gen­der, Youth and Child Af­fairs Min­is­ter Mar­lene Coudray.She gave the up­date re­ply­ing in the Sen­ate to an ini­tial Op­po­si­tion ques­tion say­ing there is no gen­der pol­i­cy. She faced a se­ries of rapid-fire fol­low-up queries on the is­sue from PNM sen­a­tors.

Coudray said there was a draft gen­der pol­i­cy that was sent to Cab­i­net and then re­ferred to the com­mit­tee around Sep­tem­ber or Oc­to­ber of last year. While she is a com­mit­tee mem­ber, Coudray said she did not re­call ex­act­ly when it was sent there.The min­is­ter said she was not in a po­si­tion to say when it would be pre­sent­ed. Coudray said the draft was re­ceiv­ing ac­tive con­sid­er­a­tion.

On whether the draft had sec­tions con­cern­ing les­bian, gay, bi­sex­u­al and trans-gen­der rights in it, she said she was not at lib­er­ty to dis­close its con­tents.On pos­si­ble fur­ther con­sul­ta­tions on the doc­u­ment, Coudray al­so said she could not pre­dict what would hap­pen.