A Dahl’s House

Hillary Clinton’s campaign issues a press release yesterday talking up their “LGB” support. Taking a look at the Hunter College poll cited by Hillary’s campaign, I found this nugget:”When asked about the proposed federal law making it illegal to discriminate against lesbians, gays, and bisexuals in employment, LGBs (by a margin of 60 to 37 percent) said that those seeking to pass the law were wrong to remove protections for transgendered people in order to get the votes necessary for passage in Congress.”

Interestingly, the Hunter College poll was done by the very same polling firm, Knowledge Networks, used by HRC for it’s “Hail Mary” poll—and funded by a grant from the Human Rights Campaign Foundation. Unlike the HRC poll, the Hunter College poll published all the details of its responses and methodology.

Hmmm… Hunter College’s poll says 60 percent of gays and lesbians thought excluding gender identity/expression was a mistake, HRC’s poll says 68 percent of them said dump the trannies—now that’s a margin of error…

Interestingly, the Hunter College poll also found the same percentage of respondents (36%) saying “rights of transgender people” and “ending the military’s ban on being openly gay” were “extremely important” goals. (Both tied for sixth on the list of top goals. The other goals, in order of preference, were: enacting employment non-discrimination laws, protections from bias crimes, securing spousal benefits, AIDS funding, legalizing same-sex marriage.)

BTW, as Autumn said: ”The first two paragraphs of the press release might not have mentioned T’s because they didn’t find enough T’s to be statistically significant for their poll, but I would think that in the last paragraph—where she mentions what she would do as president—she certaintly could have added that she was for LGBT civil rights/equality.” Given Hillary’s campaign is relentlessly on-message and never does anything until her people have thoroughly studied, vetted and surveyed the issue, I have a hard time thinking the omission was accidental.

Word is that the Matthew Shepard Act—the hate crimes legislation which does include gender identity/orientation—is in danger of being dropped from a “must-pass” defense funding bill. (Piggy-backing it on the defense bill was intended to force Bush into signing it.) However, now that the House and Senate are reconciling their versions of the bill, anti-LGBT conservatives are trying to strip the hates crimes provisions. (Meanwhile, anti-war liberal oppose the overall bill because parts of it support Bush’s efforts to continue the war in Iraq.)Time to call your Congress critters and let them know you support the hate crimes stipulations and want to keep them in the bill.BTW, it will be interesting to see if HRC —whose strategy this was—will count “no” votes against liberal politicians who’ve been gay-friendly in the past—the way they put blackmarks against the representives who voted against ENDA for not being inclusive enough. 

Yesterday Donna Rose and Jamison Green, the last two trans folk on HRC’s Business Council—which compiles the group’s Corporate Equality Index.— resigned in protest. (Rose had previously resigned her seat on HRC’s board over it’s support for an ENDA that excluded gender identity protections.) As Rose and Green explain:

Recent HRC policy decisions – to actively support a version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) that excludes our transgender brothers and sisters as well as gender-variant lesbian, gay, and bisexual people – have placed us in an untenable position. On November 8, the day after the ENDA vote in the House of Representatives, we requested an opportunity to meet personally with HRC President Joe Solmonese to share our concerns and to discuss HRC’s strategy for addressing recent legislative shortcomings before making a decision to stay or go. As the only transgender representatives on the Business Council our community expects us to have some influence, or at least to receive the courtesy of a consultation. Almost 3 weeks have passed since that request and we have heard nothing in response. This lack of response speaks volumes, so we feel compelled to take this stand today.

If you’re on an advisory council and you can’t get the time of day with the organization you’re advising for three weeks, then it’s clear they don’t give a shit about you or those you represent. It’s time for HRC to drop the pretense that they represent transgender interests.That said, I’m not one of those folks screaming “put HRC out of business.” While it might be emotionally satisfying, it’s a waste of effort better spent elsewhere. Fact is, HRC isn’t going away. We’ll probably have to work with them—I ran across the wonderful phrase “antagonistic cooperation” that describes my approach to future dealings with them—but we don’t have to support them. Sometimes they might even do things that benefit us—like the video messages they produced for the Transgender Day of Remembrance. But we’ll sure as hell should watch our backs when allied with them.The only silver lining is that we found this out now—when the stakes were only symbolic. Which gives us time build other alliances—not to mention getting better about our own lobbying efforts.

Had a great time yesterday going “in costume” to work. You can’t really see it in the picture, but I had a boa, so that with the cigarette holder I was nominally ’40s movie star or something. (BTW, I discovered that boas are hot—I mean temperature-wise. Which makes sense, since it’s not that different than having a down sleeping bag wrapped around your shoulders.)

The year before I went as Little Red Riding Hood and would’ve won the contest if I hadn’t been a consultant at the time—so those folks who’d been around then might’ve of noticed a pattern… But there were a lot of people wanting to see how I’d top last year’s costume.

The best part is the number of people who didn’t even recognize me (both years). For example, our HR director told me that when she first saw me, she wondered why there was a new hire that she didn’t know about.

The interesting thing is that one of the two other co-winners was Felicia, who’s a drag king in her spare time—and who came as a British bobby, complete with handlebar mustache, some very furry forearms and a piece of tissue covering a shaving accident (her trademark). Some there was a bit of high-profile gender-bending. Especially since our CEO made a point of having his picture taken with me. (I also had my picture taken with the HR director and one of C-level executives.)

The biggest challenge is figuring out how to top myself next year. There’s some adorable Marie Antoinette costumes (complete with matching shoes!), but not in plus size.

But everyone seemed to get a kick out of it, and a fair number of people in the company now know that I do drag. (A small number know that my crossdresser isn’t just for the stage.)