Congressman Barney Frank
The Washington Blade reported yesterday that the leadership of the House of Representatives was about to strip gender identity and expression from the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would leave transgendered and gender-variant people without protection from discrimination under federal law when ENDA is enacted.
The Blade report of the House leadership’s intentions sparked alarm and outrage from many LGBT activists across the country. Nine national LGBT organizations announced that they would oppose any effort to strip transgender-specific language from the bill. Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the National Stonewall Democrats, the National Coalition for LGBT Health, Pride At Work (AFL-CIO), the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Projects, Mautner Project and the National Center for Transgender Equality.
“Our collective position remains clear and consistent regarding the status of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act,” the groups said in a joint statement. “Our organizations oppose the removal of protections for transgender people from ENDA. We would also oppose any employment nondiscrimination bill that did not protect transgender people,” the joint statement declared. “While we don’t doubt the sincerity of congressional leadership’s intent to take action and be helpful to the LGBT community, we cannot disagree more with this strategy. We will continue to work with LGBT-supportive members of Congress to urge their colleagues to immediately drop this strategy.”
In a statement issued on Friday morning, the National Center for Transgender Equality declared, “Yesterday our Congressional allies apparently abandoned the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (H.R. 2015), the centerpiece of the LGBT legislative agenda, and introduced two new pieces of legislation which separate the protected classes of gender identity and sexual orientation. NCTE firmly rejects this strategy and joins most other national and many state LGBT organizations in actively opposing these two new bills.”
In addition to the national organizations, leading state organizations, such as the Empire State Pride Agenda, have also publicly stated their opposition to the removal of the transgender-specific language in ENDA. “Being from a state where it is still perfectly legal to fire someone from their job because the boss does not like the way they express their masculinity or femininity, it is absolutely imperative the Employment Non-Discrimination Act be passed with protections based upon gender identity,” said Alan Van Capelle, the executive director of Empire State Pride Agenda, in a statement issued late on Thursday. “There can be no compromise on the question of whether or not some or all of our community will be included in this bill when it goes to the floor of the House or Representatives and the Senate for a vote. ENDA must provide workplace non-discrimination protections for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people. All of our community must be protected. We will be urging New York’s Congressional Delegation not to yield on this critical matter and to ask their colleagues to take the same position.”
The New York delegation, of course, includes Senator Hillary Clinton, the front runner for the Democratic presidential nomination; but so far, Hillary has maintained a stony silence on the issue. Significantly, Hillary has never once voiced support — in public or even in private — even for the principle of protecting transgendered people from discrimination, let alone for the explicit inclusion of gender identity and expression in ENDA.
The elephant in the room, unmentioned in any of these statements in favor of a trans-inclusive ENDA, is the Human Rights Campaign. As the wealthiest and most powerful LGBT organization in the country, the position that HRC takes on this issue could very well determine whether the bill that is signed into law includes or excludes transgendered people. HRC and U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) for many years were the targets of the ire of transgender activists who saw them as the impediments to transgender inclusion in ENDA.
This morning, 365gay.com quoted a spokesperson for as having said Thursday that the votes are “just not there” to pass the bill as it now stands. As one of only two openly gay members of Congress and the senior of the two, Frank is widely seen as the spokesperson for the LGBT community, even when as in this case he so obviously does not speak for the community. But Frank’s role as a ‘gatekeeper’ for LGBT-related legislation shows how problematic it can be for Congressional Democrats to give him such power as the appointed ‘head gay.’
Unfortunately, the Washington Post editorialized today in favor of stripping transgender-inclusive language from ENDA, declaring, “Delaying passage of ENDA, which was first introduced in the House in the mid-1970s by Rep. Bella Abzug (D-N.Y.), until the transgender community changes enough hearts and minds would be a mistake.” The Post editorial board concludes, “Ultimately, those who work hard and play by the rules should not lose their jobs — or be denied opportunity — because of who they are.” My question to the Post is, why should transgendered people lose their jobs or be denied opportunity because of who they are?
The Equality Federation (formerly the Federation of Statewide LGBT Advocacy Organizations) rightly insists that “There is no room for “compromise” when the subject is equality for all.” In the statement issued yesterday, the Federation noted, “The professed justification for including some LGBT people and not others is that ENDA may not pass if transgender-inclusive language is part of the bill. This would mean that, even if the bill were to pass and become law, it would still be legal in the vast majority of states, including Texas, to fire someone from their job simply because of their gender identity and/or expression.”
In the interests of full disclosure, I should mention that the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy is a member of the Equality Federation and that, as chair, I represent NYAGRA in the Federation. As anyone can tell you who does transgender advocacy work, transgendered people are even more vulnerable to discrimination in employment as well as housing and public accommodations than are non-transgendered lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) people. So if anything, House Democrats should be especially concerned to ensure the full and explicit protection of transgendered people if they are seriously interested in prohibiting discrimination in employment.
If you support full equality for all LGBT people, you can take action by going to the Equality Federation site.
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"antiwar anti-bigot leftwing parties"
Parties that oppose this atrocious war, and oppose bigotry are not "leftwing parties". They are parties well into the mainstream of American public opinion. Polls show that a quite lop-sided, comfortable majority oppose both bigotry and this war.
It's the Democratic Party that is showing itself to be more and more of a center-right, if not right-wing (as opposed to the Republicans' far, far right) party.
Until enough Americans will finally give someone other than the lesser of two evils a chance, all they will get is more evil -- lesser, more, or otherwise.
When anyone brings up third parties, everyone always thinks of the presidential race. Everyone doesn't even consider voting for them unless they will somehow be able to sweep the White House in one tidal wave of anti-establishment sentiment, something that people know will not happen in this country unless they're convinced that everyone else will be voting for the insurgent party as well. Don't people pay attention to history of true populist movements, at all? No alternative party to the established powers has hardly ever wrenched power away from the establishment in one election. Look at Japan and how long it took them to topple the (Not so) Liberal Democratic Party from the upper house in Japan's legislative body, which isn't the one that selects the prime minister, but is still a good place to be able to. It took them almost 60 years.
So go ahead -- if you must vote for a Democrat in the presidential race (especially if you live in a crucial battleground state), I've got news for you -- it's nothing new. However, vote for a mainstream third party for Congress. If you keep voting for Democrats no matter how badly they screw you over, they can keep doing so, while consistenly marginalizing anyone who stands for the majority of American public opinion as "fringe". Don't you think they enjoy risking nothing when deciding the legislative agenda, and then getting reelected year after year after year? They push them meme that you must vote against their opponents, because defeating Republicans is the only way to prevent complete, apocalypse, and yet, once they win, all we see is many (about 55%) of the bad patterns continue even when they finally succeed in scaring American votes enough? It's time to call them out, and vote out enough of them from Congress in 2008 to scare them into working for us! (Instead of just finding ways to shut us up.) Create a viable opposition party in Congress, even if they start with a small bloc of only 10 seats in the House of Representatives when Democrats complete their fear-based takeover in 2009. At least we'll have 10 elected representatives that genuinely have our interests in mind.
Or everyone can act like Democrats are the only choice, and keep seeing more and more of the same. It's their choice. I know I've made mine.
I am in a live-in monogamous relationship with a transsexual man for almost five years now. First we lived in a rural Conservative town and now in a predominately Republican suburb 290 miles away that we moved to two weeks ago. We are registered Independents with a history of swing voting. We live here for the social peace and cost of living that can't be found in the cities.
We have never considered ourselves queers or a part of the queer community, even before we met each other. We consider transsexualism to be nothing more than a medical condition.
You people can just keep supporting divide and conquer politics that will eventually defeat your community. You people missed the obvious in that Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi are attempting to divide the queer community along gender lines in addition to the class lines that they have been working on relentlessly over the years. It is only a matter of time before the Queer Community is further divided along gender lines: Male and Female (Gay and Lesbian) in an attempt to dismantle it.
It is interesting to note that someone on this website claimed that congress regarded Barney Frank as the head gay. The same line of thinking seems to support that congress also considers Nancy Pelosi to be the head feminist.
The feminist movement has undoubtedly been weakened with lesbians and bi-sexual women turning their political attention to the queer movement over the feminist movement. It seems apparent that she would stop at nothing to forcefully bring them back into her fold, even at the expense of queer rights.
Historically transsexuals have been marginalized just as much, if not more so by the queer and feminist elements than the chauvinist heterosexual male movement represented primarily by Judeo-Christianity. Thankfully, Nancy Pelosi does not represent the majority of women’s political views; just an uncomfortably large and powerful minority of them. Barney Frank’s views do reflect the majority of the queer community’s views (52% - 48 %)
The people of Medford, OR took a far better personal liking to me than they did to the Gays and Lesbians of that town. I am sure it will be the same in Vancouver, WA (suburb of Portland, OR). I will be happy to spread the message that “gays and lesbians are unworthy of civil rights protections due to their own selfishness, foolishness and hypocritical nature.” I will continue to spread this message until there is a profound change in the Queer community’s postion on transsexual civil rights.
Beyond that, the ENDA is not attached to the war appropriations bill. That’s the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes bill. The Democrats put it there hoping it'll get cut in the House/Senate conference or vetoed by Bush. Then they can say "We tried. Really we did. But our hands are tied."
That was a very slick maneuver, almost Clintonesque in its sliminess. They vote for a war funding bill they pledged to oppose in during the 2006 elections AND nobody notices because the hate crimes bill is attached as rider AND they set up the hate crimes bill for a fall AND they claim they did their best AND they're off the hook with the bigots.
Ouch! No KY or Vaseline for us in all this.
Beyond that, the ENDA is not attached to the war appropriations bill. That’s the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes bill. The Democrats put it there hoping it'll get cut in the House/Senate conference or vetoed by Bush. Then they can say "We tried. Really we did. But our hands are tied."
That was a very slick maneuver. They vote for a war funding bill they pledged to oppose in during the 2006 elections and nobody notices because the hate crimes bill is attached as rider, they set up the hate crimes bill for a fall, they claim they did their best, and they're off the hook with the bigots.
Ouch! No KY or Vaseline for us in all this.
Gay men, this is why the gay liberation movement only got going when women's liberation got going. If it's going to be legal to fire some wimpy guy for loving musical theatre, you're only safe if your mainstream, and probably closeted, i.e. no meaningful political gain.
It would be BETTER to have ENDA without specific gay/lesbian/bisexual protection than without gender expression protection. Most of us (including non-conforming straight folks)would still be protected under gender expression, few of us are protected without it.
In my first message, I purposely did not write the source of my information that Rep. Frank, Traitor to Gays, told the Democratic Caucus in Congress that it was alright for them to vote against DOMA. He told them in 1996 that Gays and Lesbians would understand. This vote was at the same time ENDA was being voted on prior to the presidential election that year. Rep. Frank was acting for the White House and not civil rights as he now enjoys telling everyone about his personal history.
His staffer then posted the following with Rep. Frank answering: "I have just seen the posting from someone named George DeCarlo relaying a story told to him by someone named Marc Loveless who is relaying a conversation that he had with Congressman Bobby Rush. Since this now is a third-hand report of what I was supposed to have said, I am not surprised that it is seriously inaccurate.
First, I never told the Democratic Caucus - nor any other group nor individual - that the Defense of Marriage Act "wasn't something that L & G really cared about." I made it clear throughout that discussion in 1996 that I and other gay and lesbian people strongly opposed the measure. I spoke frequently against it in Committee and on the floor, and, in fact, I offered an amendment to try to kill the most obnoxious part of it - the one that prevents couples in a same-sex marriage from getting federal benefits. That is the one that will be tested by people in federal court after Massachusetts goes forward with same-sex marriage. On that particular amendment, by the way, although we lost badly, I was successful in getting a small majority of the Democrats to vote with us. Unfortunately, we only got three Republican votes on that issue.
Some Democrats had asked me not to offer the amendment because they thought it would be a difficult one for them to vote on, precisely because it undercut the rationale that voting for DOMA was a way to protect states rights. But I thought it was important for our cause that the amendment be offered, and I disregarded these requests.
I did tell a small number of Democrats that I thought that members of the gay and lesbian community would support them electorally even if they voted for DOMA. That small group consisted of Democrats from politically marginal districts in which they faced strong Republican opponents, usually right-wingers, and where, despite this, the Democrats in question had strong
pro-gay records. In other words, I did tell a few Democrats who voted with us on gays in the military, cosponsored the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, supported putting protection for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people into the Hate Crimes Act, supported the domestic partnership laws of the District of Columbia against Congressional efforts to undo them, etc., that I believed gay and lesbian voters would continue to support them against homophobic opponents if DOMA was the only issue on which they had voted against us. I note in this third-hand story that Congressman Bobby Rush is mentioned. Since Congressman Rush holds a very safe Chicago seat, he is not one of the people to whom I would have said that. I should note that things have evolved politically since then, and in the current situation, since the issue before the Congress is not directly same-sex marriage but whether or not a Constitutional amendment should be passed banning it, the political situation is very different. I am strongly urging all of my Democratic colleagues to vote against this particular Constitutional amendment because I do not think that the political situation is comparable to that of DOMA in 1996. There is of course one similarity - both of these are divisive, anti-gay issues brought up by the Republicans within a few months of a Presidential Election. REP. BARNEY FRANK"
I then responded with this information from a friend in Chicago that they did not know I had.:
"From: Marc Loveless
Let me just share one story about Barney Frank. During the debate about DOMA I was lobbying Congressman Bobby Rush (D-IL, 1st District). He told me that Barney had stood up in the democratic Caucus and told them to vote for DOMA because it wasn't something that L&G really cared about and they could say that they were told to vote for it.
Just a little info to think about the Democrats."
Rep. Frank's staffer did not respond but since that time I have let all Gays and Lesbians know about the Congressman and some history he is hiding.
Thank you,
George DeCarlo
member Lavender Green (LGBTIQ) Caucus of the Green Party
908-342-1275 (cell)
geodecarlo@yahoo.com
If Barney Frank were forced to introduce a compromise bill that banned discrimination for transgendered people and lesbians but not gay men, then I, as a gay man, would still support it if it were the only feasible thing to do.
The reality is that this compromise bill might be signed by the President because it is attached to a war spending bill. Just because all progress may take longer than we want, we shouldn't prevent any progress from happening because we want it all now.
It is sad that Tammy Baldwin and some gay organizations are opposing a bill banning discrimination against gay and lesbian people in employment. How many gay and lesbian people do they think should be fired from their jobs before they are willing to oppose discrimination against them even if it means compromising?
Not to say symbolism isn't important -- being willing to toss aside the most vulnerable members of the LBGT communities without even an attempt to line up more support sure sends a signal to the pro-bigotry side: we're willing to cave even before things get serious.
Rather than cutting loose trans people without warning, Frank and company could have said, "hey folks we need more votes, go lobby your representatives."
This isn't "half a loaf is better than none," this is "You can starve as long as I get mine."
As far as waiting politely...
Did gays and lesbians "wait their turn" when they pushed for inclusion in civil rights legislation in the '70s, when they were told doing so might harm efforts by racial minorities?
Did they "wait their turn" when they demanded funding for HIV/AIDS research and finding a cure for it get higher priority in the '80s, when established groups felt that doing so would take badly-needed money away from other fatal diseases?
Did they "wait their turn" when they demanded that their rights be acknowledged and respected in the '90s?
Did they "wait their turn" in 2003 when they pushed for marriage equality in the face of warnings that it could have a disastrous impact before a critical presidential election?
And color me cynical, but "we'll come back for you later" hasn't had a particularly good track record.
In New York and Maryland, trans people helped pass LBG anti-discrimination laws six years after being told to wait. Six years later they're still waiting -- and left to fend for themselves while LGB organizations focus on marriage equality.
In Barney Frank's home state, LGB anti-discrimination laws were passed 17 years ago. Trans people are still waiting.
But if any of this doesn't convince you, think about this: omitting gender identity leaves a huge loophole to be exploited by careful bigots, e.g. "We didn't fire you because you're gay/lesbian, we fired you because you're nelly/butch."
As Martin Luther King Jr. said, in the long run it would be the arguments of our enemies, but rather the silence of our friends, that will be remembered.
The Democrats are willing to pass bills that slosh a cosmetic whitewash over the harmful effects of bigotry but precious little else. If they were serious they’d start by repealing the Clintons DADT and DOMA. Then they’d change ENDA and the Matthew Shepard act to give them real teeth.
It ‘s a step forward to put more thugs in jail for hate crimes but the worst criminals are the political and religious bigots who promote violence. Until the heavy hand of the law begins to flush them out of their churches and offices and into cells their bigotry will embolden a fresh supply of thugs who’ll keep coming at us.
As it stands, the Democrats and liberal Republicans are just going to continue their duplicity; they’ll tell anyone silly enough to believe them that, “God knows, we tried, really we did, but our hands are tied.’’ They’ll wheel and deal about whether or not transgendered people are worthy or being treated as equal citizens. They’ll attach the hate crimes bill to a war appropriations measure and if it gets lost in the House/Senate conference committee or vetoed by Bush they can claim they fought the good fight. These stage managed dramas are put on create the illusion that these cynical sell outs are on our side but a rapidly growing number of GLBT people know it’s a lie.
ABOUT THE ELECTION; when you get fed up with the war and being sold out consider not squandering your vote on the twin parties of war and bigotry. Use it positively by voting for antiwar anti-bigot leftwing parties or best of all for the union led US Labor Party. Beyond that, we need to begin seriously questioning our allegiance to a social and political system that requires imperial wars of aggression to sustain itself and bigotry to divide and rule at home.