When the Employment Non-Discrimination Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Nov. 7 by a vote of 235 to 184, the Human Rights Campaign issued a press release full of triumphalism, quoting HRC president Joe Solmonese as saying, “Today, we witnessed the making of civil rights history in the U.S. House of Representatives by the passing of ENDA.”
Of course, even HRC felt the need to address the gender identity issue, indicating that the organization was “disappointed that HR 3685 did not include protections for transgender Americans,” but also expressing the belief that “the successful passage of Congressman Frank’s bill is a step forward for all Americans, and that it paves the way for additional progress to outlaw workplace discrimination based on gender identity.”
But the only openly transgendered member of HRC’s board of directors resigned her position shortly before passage of the non-inclusive ENDA to protest HRC’s decision to betray the organization’s promise never to move forward with an ENDA bill that did not include gender identity.
“Rights for some gained at the expense of rights for others is not something to be celebrated,” wrote Donna Rose in an op-ed in The Advocate posted to its website on Nov. 9. “In a very real sense the soul of the LGBT community is crying today,” Rose continued. “It has been torn from the inside out.”
Passage of the non-inclusive ENDA provoked criticism from virtually every other LGBT organization working at the national, state, or local level in the United States and from individual members of the LGBT community across the country.
Equality Federation (formerly the Federation of Statewide LGBT Advocacy Organizations) issued a statement noting that “Over the past few weeks, Equality Federation and 40 state organizations have stood with over 350 national, state, and local lgbt groups in the United ENDA coalition to urge Congress to pass legislation that bans discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual andtransgender workers. Federation member groups educated their constituents about the importance of inclusive legislation, and tens of thousands of equality supporters from across the country contacted their congressional representatives urging passage of an inclusive ENDA.”
The Federation statement went on to say that “Equality Federation and state leaders are profoundly disappointed that these voices were not heard. But we are not defeated. The legislation passed today will not become law. Instead, it will be debated and reintroduced in a future session of Congress. Equality Federation and state organizations will continue educational and lobbying efforts to ensure that the ENDA finally enacted will be an inclusive law.”
Another member organization of United ENDA, Pride At Work, expressed disappointment at the passage of ENDA, declaring, “The passage this evening by the House of Representatives of a deeply flawed version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) is deeply disappointing. Both the removal of gender identity protections for the bill and the incorporation of the language of the infamous Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) into legislation that was supposed to free the LGBT community from discrimination are unacceptable to Pride at Work, the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender constituency group of the AFL-CIO.”
PAW went on to say, “It is disgraceful that the removal of gender identity language from the bill would leave transgender people – the most vulnerable part of our community – unprotected from bias on the job. And it is simply appalling that Congressional Democrats would write the demeaning language of DOMA into LGBT legislation in a vain effort to win the votes of a few Republicans and conservative Democrats. Pride at Work calls on the Labor and LGBT community and its friends and allies to continue the struggle for a fully inclusive ENDA, and for the removal of language that validates the denial of marriage equality in all but one state.”
The debate over ENDA this fall has been the most divisive conflict rending the community for at least a decade, and the debacle resulting from the decision of the House leadership — with the encouragement of HRC — to move forward with a profoundly flawed bill against the expressed will of the organized LGBT community will have ramifications for many years to come.
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The "trans" I believe you're referring to is "transvestite", and still has NOTHING to do with being a drag queen. A transvestite finds a psychological/sexual enjoyment/thrill/whatever-you-want-to-call-it from dressing up in the opposite sex's clothing. That also has nothing to do with being Transexual, Maura. Transexual, and Transgender are people who feel/believe that they were born into the wrong-gendered body. It has nothing to do with getting a woody over wearing women's panties.
Fine! Now that we have that finalized - might I ask... which particular brand of crack were y'all smoking if you seriously believed that the current administration and congress would ever pass any, ANY - toothless or not - version of a antidiscrimination or hate crimes bill?!!! Did every homosexual, transexual, lesbian, even bisexual in this country - except for yours truely, Mommie Dammit - fall out of bed, smack your head on the wall and say to yourselves, "Gee! I think I'll delude myself into thinking that the United States government is really my friend. And now I'm a free, equal, and fully integrated citizen of the my own country! YIPPEE!!!!" O' DAMMIT, Child! Wake up and smell the horseshit! Until you get off your collective whining asses and put a bitter old drag queen into White House - and no, Hillary is not an acceptible substitute - we will NEVER be "equal. And endowed by their Creator with certain, inalienable rights...."
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Puhleeeeeeez! Really Ms. Hennessey Sweetheart you REALLY need to brush up on your Gay/Lesbian history there a bit! On the subject of ENDA, I believe the dems are going to attach it to a military spending bill sooooo....Dickhead Bush signs it or else loses his military funding. Maybe I stand to be corrected but that's what I heard. Peace all.
Thank you for proving my points so completely.
Reminds me of the saying:
"Give some people a shovel and they bury themselves".
And while you have all been squallbing about this issue, the Hate Crimes Act is in danger of dying in Congress. Bush will veto ENDA and the Dems fear that they cannot pass the Matthew Shepard Act. We accomplished very little, really.
Nice ad hominem. Are we supposed to believe your misogynistic ass?
> No rights were gained at the expense of the transgendered.
True. A powerful message of gay on trans hate was broadcast to the world, however. You are writing to bash transpeople. What does that say about you? And the message that was sent?
Nobody had any federal employement rights to begin with. Saying that 95 % of the LGBT community are gaining something at the expense of the other 5% ( transgendered ) is absurd.
Untrue. When you start making bogus analogies like this, you destroy your credibility ny painting yourself as an immoral hater.
Donna Rose and her ilk expect gays and lesbians to sit tight and wait patiently until America accepts the trangendered.
Isn't that what you are doing to us? How is it different? Or are you claiming that you deserve to go first, as in "special rights?"
It is not the fault of millions of gay and lesbian americans that the transgendered are misunderstood and not accepted by most americans.
It Is YOUR fault. Look at the hateraid you're spewing here.
If the transgendered and all the LBGT rights groups ( who made a major PR blunder by offending their core supporters ) are so damn bitter then the transgendered should hook their wagon to some other groups' train.
Maybe these leaders should address their moral failure to the LGBT community first. They failed us, not the other way around.
Who ever decided that the transgendered should be included in the LGB community ?
We were there from before the beginning. Ever hear of Reed Erickson?
And more so , who ever decided that they should be pandered to at the expense of gays and lesbians.
So, let me see. You wait for us, it's unfair to you. we wait for you, it's necessary. Special rights, anyone?
> The national and state LGBT groups have made it quite clear that the transgendered are significantly more important than the average gay man or lesbian.
No, just as important. Which is what seems to be the primary weed up your ass. Why is that?
> It is time for a national gay rights group which focuses on gays and lesbians period.
Like the HRC?
Somebody is stinking drunk on gay whine. Now THAT is a "drama queen!"
Rob Tanner is dead wrong. The same grubby political Quislings who rammed through the Democrats toothless version of ENDA, stripped of content and amended beyond recognition will use that as a precedent to destroy later bills. It's retarded to think otherwise.
Quisling: kw z´l ng, Nor. Norwegian fascist politician Vidkun Quisling assisted Nazi Germany to conquer his own country or, is a term used to describe traitors and collaborationists
donal1944@msn.com
Even less restraint
Let's start at the top:
#1 - Are you male or female? The name "Chris" could go either way (no pun intended) after all. You understand, I'm not biased (unlike certain other people in the conversation), just curious.
#2 - What is YOUR position on the ENDA fiasco? Your personal attack on me didn't hardly give a clue. (Yeah, right!) Tell us what you REALLY think.
#3 - Which dept. of HRC do you work for, or are you just another "well-intentioned" fund-raiser who thinks that trans-people should just shut up and "wait our turn"?
#4 - What model BMW (or Mercedes, or Lexus, or Hummer, etc.) do YOU drive to your cushy corporate job? (OOPS, there I go, speculating again. Bad Cyndi!)
(As always, all respect, no restraint) Cyndi
Your response to the two previous posters was not only unprofessional in terms of content, it was incredibly transparent in tone.
Your logic is self-servingly hypocritical and some of your condescending "speculations" betray a certain level of emotional immaturity.
You state that you are a politically active trans-woman. I hope for the sake of the trans-gender community that you are note a high profile representative for them. Though that would explain some dynamics of this controversy.
Since I don't know either of them, my next observation is going out on a limb as a bit of pure speculation.
It seems painfully obvious from the misinformed opinions stated from both of these presumably gay gentlemen that they belong to that extremely narrow demographic that MIGHT actually benefit from this horrendously flawed piece of legislation, even though they really don't NEED "protection".
That is to say they are probably both fully employed "straight-acting" (to use the commonly accepted vernacular) gay men whose orthodox gender presentation does not put their presumably comfortable lifestyles at risk.
To put it another way, it's easy to complacently comment on the plight of a huge group of people you don't understand from your Blackberry as you sit in traffic listening to the stereo in your BMW.
Have either of them ever had to make the gut-wrenching choice between paying rent and buying groceries just because narrow-minded xenophobic employers are squeemish about the way you look? Probably not.
How about if you try to "walk a mile" in somebody else's pumps fellas? Think about it.
>>>(all respect, no restraint)Cyndi Richards
Proclaiming passage of ENDA is a triumph, and the work is no where near complete. There is a Senate hurdle to jump, and a hostile president. Passage though sends a strong signal that sexual orientation is no longer un-natural, the "hidden love" or any of the other words attached to gays and lesbians. A signal to many in corporate america that firing glbts because they are glbt is plain wrong.
Soon, a new president will be elected, and the bills will most likely need re-passage. An easier political task with previous passage.
Like so much of our work for gay rights, this is another step, another foot forward. BUT, we have many steps to walk, and one critical step is the ultimate passage of legislation protecting those with gender identity. The work continues.
And while Donna Rose is entitled to her opinion, it's rhetorically dishonest to say that rights of some were gained at the expense of others... you can't "sacrifice" something that you don't already have.
That said, can we move on yet?