Once a man working in aeronautics engineering, Marcus Taraboletti said she lost her job in 2003 after informing her Florida employer that she planed to change her sex from male to female.

“I cannot tell you how meaningless life feels when an event like this happens,” she said. “I was humiliated.”

In the years since, Marcus Taraboletti has been unable to secure another job in her field. She’s exhausted her savings while caring for two children. And she’s accepted that she might have to sell her home.

All this, Marcus Taraboletti said, because there’s no federal law barring employers from discriminating against transgender people.

“People should be judged by the quality of their work, by the quality of their character,” she said. “So many of us face what I have faced. Many more are preparing to face it in the future. It needs to stop.”

Some members of Congress agree. During an unprecedented Captiol Hill hearing June 26 on transgender issues, Rep. Phil Hare (D-Ill.) said federal laws should have been in place to protect Marcus Taraboletti’s career.

“This is a moral obligation,” he said. “The last time I saw the Constitution and read it, every person was supposed to be created equal. It didn’t cherry pick.”

Featuring speakers such as Marcus Taraboletti, the hearing was intended to give federal lawmakers an overview of transgender workplace discrimination issues. It was not held to push any specific bill, but many speakers repeatedly said new rules are needed.

“Substantively, they provide real remedies and a chance to seek justice,” said Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.), a lesbian.

“Symbolically, they say to America, ‘Judge your fellow citizen by their integrity, character and talents, not their sexual orientation, or gender identity, or race or religion, for that matter.’ Symbolically, these laws also say that irrational fear, irrational hate, have no place in our workplace.”

But others who spoke at the hearing questioned the need for federal intervention.

“We have numerous federal and state laws and employer policies already on the books that help prevent discriminatory practices,” said Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.). “Do we need yet another federal law?”

J.C. Miller, a Washington attorney who specializes in discrimination cases, also said federal intervention would do little to ease prejudices.

“We cannot legislate people being nice to each other,” she said. “It would be nice to do that, but we cannot. We all know that. We cannot legislate people’s internal thoughts and processes.”

Rep. Linda Sánchez (D-Calif.) and other lawmakers, though, countered Miller.

“No, we can’t legislate what people’s thoughts are, but we can legislate their actions,” Sánchez said. “And where we find discrimination, we can say that is something that is unlawful.”

The hearing came seven months after House members voted 235-184 to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which bars workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation. The measure does not bar discrimination based on gender identity.

A separate bill to enact such protections is before two House subcommittees, including the one that hosted the June 26 hearing, but no major actions regarding the bill are pending in either subcommittee.

It’s unclear whether either measure will advance during this congressional session.

Consequently, advocates used the June 26 hearing to lay the groundwork for future legislative proposals and win new allies.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who is gay, also encouraged the many transgender people who attended the hearing to be tenacious in their push for protection.

“I recognize when I first got involved in politics, if I was honest about who I was, it would have made some people nervous,” he said. “But they got used to me. I just want to reassure people here, they’re going to get used to you.”

In additional comments to lawmakers, Frank said that transgender people were making a reasonable request in seeking basic workplace protections.

“Nobody’s asking anybody to have dinner with people, or take them to the movies,” he said. “No one is being given license to misbehave.”

Miller and Glen Lavy, senior counsel at the conservative Alliance Defense Fund, countered that such protections could prove problematic to businesses and trigger numerous lawsuits if not clearly written.

But their testimony did not stick with some lawmakers at the hearing.

“You know, we put people in space,” Hare said. “We can figure this out.”