As you may have heard by now, on Friday the House Democratic leadership, supported by Rep. Barney Frank, removed transgendered people from the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, saying they didn’t have to votes to pass ENDA. While a dozen major LBGT organization protested this, the Human Rights Campaign (the largest, most powerful LGBT lobbying group) has sat on its hands. Instead trans people are supposed to wait quietly for our turn.

Why the rush to get ENDA, which has been stalled for some time, to a vote on Friday the 5th? I’m sure it’s unrelated to the fact that Pelosi and Frank are supposed to honored at HRC’s National Dinner on Saturday the 6th…

The thing is Bush will veto ENDA with or without trans protection, and there’s not enough votes for an over-ride. So it’s always been a symbolic vote. 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.

Trans people have been in this fight a long time—if you haven’t heard about it, it’s because but it took 10 years before the LGB organizations would even agree to let us take part in ENDA. But eventually they realized including the most vulnerable members of the queer community was the right thing to do. Not to mention that 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 too nelly/butch (or just plain old not feminine/masculine enough.” So HRC began pushing for an trans-inclusive version of ENDA in 2004, promising that they wouldn’t support it’s passage without protections for gender identity. They’ve collected funds for their lobbying effort based on that promise and

It’s promise HRC President Joe Solmonese reiterated only two weeks ago at the Southern Comfort Conference, the nation’s largest trans gathering.




But apparently HRC isn’t willing to follow through on those promises, and instead has chosen to let trans people twist in the wind.

The only good news out of this whole debacle is the number of LGB people who’ve come forward to saw that they’re not willing to throw trans people into the volcano. One poll shows people oppose a ENDA without gender identity protection by a 10-1 margin. To those of us, willing to delay your own rights for those who are even more vulnerable, I salute you. As for the House Democratic leadership, Frank and the HRC…

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.

  • Thanks to Monica at TransGriot for raising these points.