Nancy Pelosi’s new direction for America apparently doesn’t include transgendered Americans.
The drama over the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) reached a climax today when the leadership of the House of Representatives brought the bill to the floor for a vote.
Late this afternoon, the House voted 235-184 in favor of H.R. 3685 — the version of the bill that does not include gender identity and expression — rather than H.R. 2015, which does, but which has now been all but abandoned by the leadership and even by its lead sponsor.
U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the lead sponsor of both bills, had introduced H.R. 2015 in April, to the applause of virtually every sector of the organized LGBT community. But Frank abruptly switched gears in September, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the Democratic leadership decided — apparently on the basis of a ‘whip count’ the numbers from which have never been released — that they did not have the votes to pass H.R. 2015. At Frank’s prompting, Pelosi and the House leadership decided to push ahead with H.R. 3685, without consulting with the LGBT community who were the ostensible object of ENDA’s protection.
The decision to go ahead without gender identity and expression — language that would explicitly include transgendered people and that would enhance protections for non-transgendered LGB people. When on September 28 the Speaker announced her decision, it provoked a firestorm of protest from LGBT organizations across the country, who formed an ad hoc coalition. United ENDA includes over 350 national, state and local organizations that are committed to full transgender inclusion in ENDA.
Only one major national LGBT organization refused to join ENDA and support its call for members of Congress to vote against any bill that did not include gender identity. After promising never to support any version of ENDA without gender identity, the Human Rights Campaign — the largest and most influential LGBT organization in the country — shifted position to ‘neutral’ in October, saying that HRC would not tell members of Congress to vote for or against the stripped-down bill. But after H.R. 3685 passed the House Education & Labor Committee, HRC then shifted again, lobbying House members to vote for the non-inclusive version of ENDA.
HRC did nominally support the amendment put forward by the other openly gay member of Congress, U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), which would have restored gender identity to the stripped-down version of the bill (HR 3685). But the House leadership offered Baldwin only ten minutes on the floor of the House before forcing her to withdraw the amendment. In doing so, the Speaker and the leadership broke their promise to the members of the House Education & Labor Committee that they would have the opportunity to vote on the Baldwin amendment on the floor of the House if they voted in favor of the non-inclusive version of the bill in committee.
My sources tell me that there were at least four Democrats who agreed to vote in favor of ENDA in committee only after being assured that they would have the opportunity to vote in favor of Tammy Baldwin’s gender identity amendment on the floor. Had those four Democrats voted against H.R. 3685 in committee, the bill would have never come to the floor. But having gotten the votes they needed to get the non-inclusive version of the bill through committee, Frank and the House leadership then betrayed their promise — to members of their own party — to offer a vote on the floor of the House on gender identity.
Seven Democrats courageously defied their own party leadership in the House and voted against H.R. 3865 on principle:
Yvette Clark (D-NY)
Rush Holt (D-NJ)
Michael Michaud (D-ME)
Jerrold Nadler (D-NY)
Ed Towns (D-NY)
Nydia Velazquez (D-NY)
Anthony Weiner (D-NY)
All seven were from the Northeast, and five were from New York City. Among the progressive Democrats who took to the floor of the House to speak in favor of transgender inclusion, U.S. Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) gave a particularly eloquent speech on the floor of the House in arguing that the House should only pass legislation that would protect all members of the LGBT community from discrimination. The only Democratic presidential candidate who is a sitting member of the House, U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), also spoke in favor of transgender inclusion. But most House Democrats were cowered by their party’s leadership into voting for a bill whose effect has been divisive rather than unifying.
With House passage of H.R. 3685, attention will now shift to the Senate, where Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) is preparing to introduce ENDA in that body. It is not yet clear whether the version Kennedy will introduce will include gender identity or not; but chances of passage in the Senate are far from clear, given that the Senate majority leader exercises far less institutional authority than the Speaker of the House. And of course, even if ENDA passes the Senate, it will not become law because the White House has already indicated that a presidential veto is in the offing no matter what version of the bill reaches George W. Bush’s desk.
The House leadership’s betrayal of the transgender community — and of the larger LGBT community represented by United ENDA — for purely partisan gain may well come back to haunt the Democrats. And HRC’s betrayal of its promise to the transgender community will have even more profound implications for the ability of that organization to work as part of a unified LGBT movement.
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Your friends over at the KKK welcome bigots like you with open arms.
Meanwhile, The San Franciso Chronicle takes a better approach:
“On Protecting Gay Americans from Workplace Discrimination Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) vote tests our values
An incrementalist law is a blunder
…the recent history of the LGBT movement suggests that incremental approaches sometimes prove effective, still American history is rife with counter-examples where the increments won were far too modest and actually slowed progress and where the sacrifices made were unconscionable by most any measure.
With ENDA, Frank is again leading the charge to pass a fatally compromised bill. While most incrementalist approaches to civil rights have sought to protect an entire group or “class” of people, and gradually expand protections, Frank’s ENDA compromise divides the LGBT community by protecting some members while betraying others. The scaled-back version of the bill would protect many lesbians and gays, true, but it leaves all transgender people unprotected from employment discrimination. According to several studies, unemployment among transgender people is believed to exceed 70 percent.
As a result, no national LGBT organization supports the Frank compromise, and hundreds of organizations around the country have risen up to oppose Frank’s efforts. Even worse, President Bush already has pledged to veto ENDA under any circumstances. So if the Congress is to vote on principle, one can’t help but ask: What principle?” November 7th, 2007
I am sure that Sylvia Rivera, one of the inciters of the Stonewall Uprising , must have eventually felt the same way about including straight appearing Lesbians.
I am appalled at how this issue has driven a wedge and exposed prejudices in the community. Trannies hijacking the movement? They were there from the beginning. Interestingly, an equal rights bill in Korea that excluded LGBT's as a whole in order to get it passed there is being denounced soundly as leaving the most vulnerable behind by the LGBT leadership. Sad state of affairs when we turn on our own por treat and denounce them like the conservatives denounce all of us. In talking with conservatives and debating LGBT rights with them, I found that they were never than obsesed with the transsexual, if the issue were limited to transsexuals and not some kind of "T" umbrella. The Conservatives in debates were always attacking the behaviour of gay men. Perhaps we could have gotten an LBT bill thorugh more easily?
Give me a break!
How naive to you think we are to think that it's realistically going to be followed up on in a matter of weeks, months or even YEARS. Decades, maybe. Another 30 years of this crap and we MIGHT get something employment-related passed, if we're lucky.
Personally, when I'm amongst other lesbian women, I feel like I have to hide the fact that I've transitioned out of fear of me or my partner being chastized for our relationship. It's bad enough that my relationship is insulted by regular society, but to be excluded from other lesbian couples because of something that I consider a medical condition is utterly ludicrious! I think this is a prime example of how much work transgender folk have left to do even within the LGB communities.
And yet I'm also a realist and have to at least entertain the possibility that Frank was right on one point - how much education there is left to do in regards to the realities of what it's like to be transgender. I don't feel that we should have been removed from ENDA and feel betrayed by the HRC for going along with the White Gay Males. But of course the White Males get priority these days, leaving transgender folk behind without so much as a second thought.
And this is not even CLOSE to the first time. How stupid do you think we are? What have you done to earn our faith besides tell us to STFU?
See http://gaycitynews.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=17004019
"The New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy continues not to support a non-inclusive SONDA, but not to oppose it either."
Hmm... where have I heard that before? Oh yes, HRC's position in October.
Duane was attacked by Jonathan Capehart, the out gay deputy editorial page editor of the Daily News, this week for what he called Duane’s efforts to “kill” SONDA by raising the transgender issue.
Capehart wrote, “Let’s be honest: Transgender issues are difficult for most people to understand.”
A close paraphrase of Barney Frank's statement too. In fact, the situation, the arguments, the phraseology, is identical, sometimes word-for-word.
Now what's the situation, 5 years later in New York. Have T's got rights, or at least, has there been progress?
"The Republican-led New York State Senate finally added sexual orientation to the state human rights law in 2002. But the Senate remains resistant to protecting transgendered people. It will not take up school anti-bullying legislation that includes sexual orientation and gender identity. Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno has said he is not interested in protecting, as he put it, "transvestites." *The Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act has not so much as had a hearing in his house.
For its part, the Democrat-dominated Assembly voted to open up marriage to same-sex couples earlier this year. However the Assembly, under
Speaker Sheldon Silver, has refused to take up amending the state human rights law to add "gender identity and expression."
T's have actually gone backwards. T's will get rights in New York in approximately... Never.
Meanwhile, no less than 3 states since then have passed GLBT, rather than GLB, legislation.
Matt Foreman, who worked tirelessly to pass a T-excluding SONDA, thinking that "progress is incremental" worked just as hard to prevent the same tactic being used in ENDA, as he had proof that it just doesn't work that way. 5 Congresscritters from NY voted against the new improved 100% Trans-Free ENDA for the same reason: because exclusion is forever. They've seen the proof.
Now Barney Frank - whose state of Massachusetts has same-sex marriage, but no employment protection for T's 20 years after a GLB-only bill was passed, knows this. So does HRC. But they wanted a win, no matter who had to suffer.
Now they're being called on it. We won't forget, and this time, we won't believe them when they say yet again "This time will be different, Promise."
Instead of focusing their ire on congress-critters like Souder whose noxious remarks during the floor debate showed us a glimpse of what will need to be overcome to get gender identity included in the next round, they would rather tear down real allies.
Friends tell you what you need to hear, not just what you want to hear...
I am most upset at HRC (where I once worked as a law fellow). In September, a high ranking HRC political staff member sat on a panel at the Lavender Law Conference in Chicago and clearly stated that HRC would not support ENDA if it did not cover transgender Americans. HRC implied as much in 2004 when the Board agreed to support a transgender inclusive EDNA and hate crimes bill. I am reminded by the famous poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller:
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.
As a minority community, gays and lesbians depend upon non-gays to stand up for our rights. We should be ashamed for selling out a minority within our own community. We even know that transgender Americans generally need the protection that EDNA was to offer them more that gays and lesbians. Together we stand or together we fall. As a community we fell down yesterday.
There is every reason to attack both Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi. Barney Frank came out after secretly crafting an Non-inclusive ENDA and and accused the LGBT community of not being supportive to that point. His shock at the massive backlash ( 300 LGBT organizations and even NOW ) showed just how much of a fraud he is. He never let the community know there were problems with votes or needed support, he just secretly created unwanted legislation and then rolled his eyes like he was shocked at the LGBT distress.
This was not a historical move, it was a historical betrayal. Franks actions will go down as the dictionary term for double dealing. Bush will veto the bill and Frank will have shattered the illusion of that no one in the LGBT would sell the other out . Frank will sell out anyone ! To Frank there is no LGBT , it is G only and he has brought shame to that community. Hopefully it is his last term. How can anyone blame Bush for ignoring the American peoples will when Frank is just as much running his own agenda.
If not for wonderful people like member of the House Tammy Baldwin this would be a totally destructive experience. Leave it to a lesbian woman to have more guts then any posturing male pretender . She is a hero to the TG community and should be honored for her political courage and tactical brilliance. She refused from the beginning to agree . When Frank backstabbed the community Tammy stepped in with her own bill. The LGBT community has been also been just incredibly supportive as has NOW. We walk away with wounds from traitor Franks Benedict Arnold but also with the steel forged by 300 LGBT organizations in our hand. It is a wonderful community that knows the meaning of loyalty , honor and solidarity. I love them all.
You must be one of those lesbians with a bank account and a career who has the luxury to make such a statement.
Queens started the civil rights movement for equality in San Francisco and then New York, all because we wanted to dine out and have a cocktail. The freedom and prospertity all members of the queer community now have, largely was gained on the backs, pumps, and feathers of fabulous trans activists who have got more grit and determination in their little fingers than most people ever dreamed of. Why shouldn't we be directors, producers, ceo's, professor's and the major stars of our lives, we have had the courage to be the stars of everyone else's? Liza Minelli once said, "Every woman must have a philosophy." I say philosophies are nice, but banck accounts and careers are far better.
Sincerely yours, and living below the poverty level in Vermont in need of more opportunities.
Jaquelline A. Robertson
According to Lambda Legal if these protections don’t include gender identity they won’t have the legal weight to win in the courts and commissions. Those bodies are overwhelmingly biased on the side of employers, businesses and bigots. Going up against them without the necessary tools is a wasted effort. Then Democrat version of ENDA won't fly in the courts or the commissions. It's toothless. It’s an empty, cruel hoax.
That’s why, fifty odd years after the passage of the various Civil Rights Acts that ‘outlawed’ racist discrimination, bigotry and bias still produce widespread poverty, housing and job discrimination and why lethal racist travesties like Katrina are the norm, not the exception. That’s why after the incidents in Jena the hanging noose has become the new symbol for the old bigotry.
When the Democrats made their closed door decision to strip ENDA and offer their bigot/boss friendly version their only concern was their grubby quest for money from bosses, bigots and lobbyists. We were not part of the equation and they threw all of us, not just transsexuals under the bus. No one will ever forget that, in spite of the spin doctors, apologists and quislings. Nor will we forget that they traded us, one again, as they did with DOMA and DADT, for money and to pander to bigots.
WITH DEMOCRATS LIKE THESE, WHO NEEDS REPUBLICANS?
What was true when the first American Revolution birthed our nation is true today; listen to what Sam Adams had to say on the subject of politicians who’d sell out for a few dollars or a few votes:
”IF ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace.
We seek not your counsel, nor your arms.
Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” Samuel Adams, Boston, 1777
In 1820, discussing the future of the Union and slavery, Thomas Jefferson said “"… this momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror."
The treachery of the Democrats is our fire bell.
It’s a clear warning, we have no choice but to move on and build a political voice independent of the Republicans and Democrats. It’s time to defiantly step out of the last closet, dependence on our enemies in the Democratic and Republican parties.
Our battle for equality is compulsory. Once we stop spinning our wheels in the cage the Democrats and Republicans have set aside for us and create our own political identity, cultivate friends and allies and begin to fight in our own name then we’ll have every prospect of winning. We can do that in the union led US Labor Party.
If we lose who knows what kind of final solution Pat Robertson and Rupert Murdoch will impose, but it’s won’t be pretty.