10/01/2007
House Postpones Action on Non-Transgender ENDA
According to a press release from the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, "Tomorrow’s scheduled House committee action on a version of employment non-discrimination legislation without protections for transgender people has been postponed. A statement from Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Chairman Miller, Representative Frank and Rep. Baldwin said this would 'allow proponents of the legislation to continue their discussions with Members in the interest of passing the broadest possible bill.'"
NGLTF Executive Director Matt Foreman added: "Today's announced postponement of the scheduled House mark-up on the transgender-stripped Employment Non-Discrimination Act takes us in a positive direction. In this defining and morally transformative moment, our community has come together in an unprecedented way and said once and for all that we will leave no part of our community behind. We appreciate that a decision has been made to slow down this process, and we look forward to working with Congress over the upcoming weeks to educate them as to why this substitute bill strategy is seriously flawed, convince them to abandon this strategy, and instead advance a fully inclusive ENDA later this month."
Also, according to the NGLTF, a letter signed by 90 national and state LGBT organizations was sent to Congress today urging them to reject legislation that excludes transgender people.
There is also a petition online urging Congress to pass ENDA as it was originally envisioned, with all LGBT people included.
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This "delay" is Washington speak for "it's not going to pass", with or without the big T included.
As far as I can tell, the number of transsexuals/transgenders is very tiny, perhaps 1% of the number of gays. Their inclusion would not affect society in any large way so I suspect the difficulty was with minority Democratic caucuses in Congress not wanting to vote for ENDA in the first place. They tend to be more socially conservative.
Posted by: anon (gmail.com) | Oct 2, 2007 11:01:37 AM
Y'all can say that being transgendered has nothing to do with being gay. Some gay historians may argue that transgendered people were the original gay people. The rest of y'all were just closeted homosexuals who had no need to create a separate sub-culture. But this thread has reminded me that being gay has absolutely nothing to do with being open-minded, fair, and free of bigotry, racism, and most of all, misogyny.
I don't know whether y'all think of feminine gay males fitting into the catagory of transgendered, but we do. We are rebellious against society's requirements for gender role behavior. We play with Barbie Dolls when we're kids, we fall in love with Judy Garland when we're six years old, we have an unusual afinity for female icons as teenagers. We are not able to "pass" for straight. When a feminine male grows older, some of us retain our fem look and behavior. Others of us tend to "tone it down"--no more make-up, no more plucked eye-brows, no more tight-ass jeans--because we don't "look good" doing that anymore. When you include fem gay males (and masculine gay women) in the catagory of transgendered--and reject us as gay, do you fuckin' realize you are getting rid of maybe half of the fuckin' gay population?
This discussion topic really gets my goat. It is the one thing that gay men: black, white, Latino seem to share in common: hypocrisy and studipidy in some pathetic attempt to prove they are as manly as their gay-hating straight brothers.
Remember, if a queen can tell that you are gay before you or anybody told him, it is not because of some secret, unspoken, mystic chemistry call "gaydar". Queens don't have gaydar, we have "femdar". Now, how do you think we "clocked" your wannabe masculine ass, Miss Thaing?
Posted by: Derrick from PHilly | Oct 2, 2007 11:20:07 AM
Damn. Gay rights loses again, bigtime.
Our activists just snatched success away from our politicians.
Transpeople have dragged us down to defeat. Don't pretend you didn't. Who are the selfish ones?
Posted by: adamblast | Oct 2, 2007 11:36:26 AM
I assume the MLK comment was meant to be sarcastic.
There were many different groups during the 100 years of the civil rights movement.
MLK was the face of many of the plans and strategies that Baynard Rustin invisioned.
He was openly gay and on the front lines of the civil rights movement.
I think we in the LGBT community a lot to learn from the civil rights movement.
The then called Negros, didn't divide based on any superficial category - infact, there was a broad coallition of people, Christians, Jewish, White, Black, Latino (Puerto Ricans in the East Mexicans in the west and southwest) Asians and Native Americans.
"Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly"
All those involved in the LGBT movement would do well to study and copy the lessons learned from the civil rights movement.
Check this out http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/popular_requests/frequentdocs/birmingham.pdf
This letter has startling resemblence to the situation LBGT people face today in the USA. Just replace the word Negro with LGBT..
example:
"For years now I have heard the word “wait!”. It rings in the ear of every [GAY] with piercing familiarity. This “wait” has almost always meant “never”. We must come to see with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”"
Posted by: T. Zac | Oct 2, 2007 12:56:35 PM
Lets face it....ENDA IS NOW OFFICIALLY DEAD!
Period.
And We must also conclude that "Civil Unions" must also be stopped. This logic forces us now to recognize that we most only suport FULL MARRIGE RIGHTS ONLY!!
Posted by: MCnNYC | Oct 2, 2007 1:02:23 PM
T.Zac Thank you for bringing up B. Rustin I'm sure as a black gay man he dissavoved MLK and all his beliefs because MLK would not include or even speak of homo rights.
Another thought...I watched The War and thought of the proud and brave Black soldiers who fought in segregated troops one man said that he knew it was troublesome for them to enter a war fights for the rights of others yet he saw that his life was better than the struggles his father life saw and thought that he would fight for a country who didn't allow him to vote or eat at the same table as a white person that this country was the best chance for his son to have it better than him.
Posted by: MCnNYC | Oct 2, 2007 1:14:16 PM
The Human Rights Campaign, House Speaker Pelosi, D – CA, and Barney Frank outed gay Democrat of Massachusetts et al were just doing what comes naturally, selling us for twenty pieces of silver. In the Congress our issues become interconnected with others by their efforts to betray several groups at once. Democrats have to appear to be for GLBT rights while they torpedo them, and to appear to be for peace while supporting the war.
In the Senate Republicans and Democrats demonstrated their commitment to Iraqi self-determination by voting 75-23 in favor of partitioning Iraq. That will make the sale of Iraqi oil facilities to the oil pirates all that much easier. Then they approved the war funding bill by 92-3, with the hate crimes bill attached. Five senators were absent - all presidential candidates busy hustling the voters. In the house they tried to gut ENDA, hopefully unsuccessfully.
Those were Clintonesque maneuvers worthy of the Bill himself. They vote for the war funding act after promising not to during the 2006 elections, AND nobody notices because the hate crimes bill is attached as a 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, AND they divide up a sovereign nation to grab its oil. Slimy personified.
This Congressional gross out comes on the heels of this weeks Washington Post/ABC news poll that shows that most Americans want war funding cut off (3%), sharply reduced (43%) or reduced somewhat (23%). Unsurprisingly the same poll shows that Republican Bush is in the cellar with an approval rate of 33% and the Congressional Republicans and Democrats have dropped into the sewer with an approval rating of 29%.
But the Congress is just doing their duty for the ruling rich. Here’s a hint for conservatives and liberals who might be scratching their head when these deals go down. Recently George Shultz, former Reaganite Secretary of State and Nixonian Secretary of the Treasury said "Politics and the economy are all one big interactive system."
He neglected to say it but politicians, Republican and Democrat, are owned by the same people who own the economy, the ruling rich.
When you get sick and tired of it check out the US Labor Party.
Posted by: Bill Perdue, RainbowRED | Oct 2, 2007 5:46:12 PM
it's all very noble to want to be concerned about the rights of the transgendered, but gay and trans are NOT the same thing. just because it became fashionable to include all sexual minorities under the "LGBT" umbrella does not one single 'community' make. transexuals are actually more str8 than gay, they are just the 'wrong sex' .. and when you start to toss in transvestites and the gender confused, etc. you are piling on more than most folks are gonna be able to process at this point in our history. we are JUST getting to a place where most people can accept that some people are gay. shouldn't we be seizing that moment to finally get ENDA passed rather than worrying about bringing along the whole LGBTQGRVMD 'community' at once ?
we get some support in congress and then we turn on them and we wonder why we don't find more support.
Posted by: el polacko | Oct 2, 2007 7:28:49 PM
... for years the argument against ENDA was that employers would be forced to hire men in wigs and heels and we scoffed at that and tried to explain that that would not be the case because gay men are not trannies .... but now we are going to INSIST that the 'men in wigs and heels' be included ?!? insanity. we are our own worst enemy (or at least some of our p.c. 'leaders' are.)
Posted by: el polacko | Oct 2, 2007 7:37:20 PM
"... for years the argument against ENDA was that employers would be forced to hire men in wigs and heels and we scoffed at that and tried to explain that that would not be the case because gay men are not trannies .... but now we are going to INSIST that the 'men in wigs and heels' be included ?!? insanity. we are our own worst enemy (or at least some of our p.c. 'leaders' are.)"
For all you hysterical gay men who are worried about never seeing your civil rights because you think it's impossible to pass employment protections for TG people, the law has already been passed to protect TG people against employment discrimination in California and other states. It's not insanity - it's already been done and it's the way of the future. And you are absolutely right that they will use anti-transgender arguments to try and sabotage ENDA, WITH OR WITHOUT actual transgender inclusion in the law. That's because the bigots who oppose ENDA will try and paint it with every hateful thing they can paint it with, no matter what's actually in the bill. So we may as well win as big as we can because we aren't going to get a single pass from our opponents on this issue.
But what's really sad to me is the gay people on this site who are so ready to throw transgender people under a bus so that they can get gay civil rights for themselves faster. You people are so incredibly selfish and short-sighted. As a gay man, I want to say that trans people and gay people are absolutely part of the same community. Why do I say that? Because they have fought with us as friends and allies of ours against discrimination all of my 40 years I've been fighting for lgbt rights. You small-minded people who so quickly throw their friendship away and want to feed them to the wolves don't deserve civil rights if you aren't ready to fight for ALL our civil rights.
I'm glad this whole thing pisses you off - you deserve it. And we will win civil rights together, whether you selfish people are ready for it or not. Because the organizations that have opposed exclusion of trans people have already demonstrated that they have the numbers among the lgbt organizations to dictate how Democrats & LGBT organizations are going to approach this issue. So sorry, but you may as well quit your whining and get on board the ALL inclusive civil rights train. That's where things are headed.
Posted by: Puck | Oct 2, 2007 10:26:11 PM
Thanks so much, PUCK.
I got so emotional that my rants and insults couldn't open any minds, I know that. But I'm not sure I want to open any minds anymore, that's for intelligent, tolerant, educated folk like you to do. I'm just furious at these gay men who have the fucking audacity to define who is gay and who isn't. Effeminate gay males and drag queens began the "GAY" subculture long before these priviledged, spoiled homos were born. In the 1960's and 70's the sissies (they despise) made it possible for these imitation macho bastards to come out the closet, and we've always taken the brunt of anti-gay violence; so we don't need their fucking help for anything ...never have...NEVER HAVE!
Just a few months ago they were lynching Isaiah Washington for his stupid homophobic slur. The white gay war cry was, "You niggers ought to know better than to mistreat other minorities--seeing how much you niggers complain about oppression." Well, now here's the transgendered community's war cry to gay men, "You pompous, selfish FAGGOTS ought to know better than to mistreat another minority--seeing how much you FAGGOTS complain about oppression."
They want to separate feminine gay males and masculine gay females from the gay world...what arrogant cocksuckers!
Posted by: Derrick from Philly | Oct 3, 2007 11:36:56 AM