Gov. Charlie Baker was heckled and booed off the stage last night mid-speech when he showed lackluster support for legislation aimed at protecting the rights of transgendered people after protesters pleaded “Sign the bill!”

Baker spoke for about 18 minutes as 30 demonstrators stood silently in the front row holding signs that read “Public Spaces = Our Spaces. Trans Rights Now!” until he finally addressed the issue.

“We should not discriminate against anyone in the commonwealth of Mass.,” Baker said.

“If and when (the bill) lands on my desk, I’ll talk to all parties involved,” he started to say before a chant of “Sign the bill” broke out.

Baker tried to rally by returning to the opioid epidemic and urging those in the crowd to “continue to have those conversations,” about the public access bill, but he was shouted at and booed.

He then walked off the stage and left the ballroom at the Boston Marriott Copley Place.

The governor had been invited to address the gathering at the Boston Spirit Magazine’s LGBT Executive Networking Night.

Lorelei Erisis, a transgender resident from Ayer who works in Cambridge, called it “one of the most politically tone-deaf speeches I’ve ever heard.”

“Forget trans people, this is an LGBT event and he barely even mentioned LGB issues, never mind the public access issue,” she said. “He talked about the MBTA, he talked about his success with the opioid issues, which are all very important issues for him to be working on, but they are not necessarily relevant to this room full of rainbow flags. His silence to us is a de facto promise that he will veto. I hoped to be a Gov. Baker fan. I wanted to be optimistic.”

The long-stalled bill extending anti-discrimination rights to transgender persons in public areas like restrooms could be debated in the Senate as early as May, Senate President Stanley C. Rosenberg said yesterday.

Rosenberg supports the transgender anti-discrimination bill, as does House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo.

“We can take note of that fact that as North Carolina, Georgia and Mississippi have so recently shown us, denial of equal rights is not only hurtful to real people, it has disastrous economic and business implications,” Rosenberg said.

Amid silence from Baker, Attorney General Maura Healey has pushed the bill — as have 43 companies and business groups, including Apple, Biogen, EMC, Facebook, Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, John Hancock, J.P. Licks, Microsoft, National Grid, Partners Healthcare, Suffolk Construction, Uber and others who signed a letter in support.

Suffolk Construction President John Fish told the Herald, “We have to continue to look forward as opposed to looking to the past, and to me this is a very forward-thinking piece of legislation.”

A statement from the governor’s office said, “He supports the 2011 legislation that expanded protections to transgender individuals and looks forward to reviewing additional legislation should it reach his desk.”