ENDA hits snag over transgender inclusion

http://www.washblade.com/thelatest/thelatest.cfm?blog_id=14507
By Lou Chibbaro
9/26/2007

'House Democratic leaders are strongly considering dropping anti-discrimination protections for transgender persons from the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, after an internal Democratic head count on Wednesday found that the bill would likely be defeated if it included the trans provision, multiple sources familiar with the bill said'.

We need to write to HRC and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and to Mara and tell them not to exclude the Transgender community. They have done this before with other bills.  HRC said that we were included that means we are included in the ENDA bill. I would rather have it be dropped than to have us dropped out. If we are dropped it will cause a divide amongst ourselves and that is what the opposition wants.
Sheila

Has anyone actually seen the wording for it?

I'm curious if they're worried about the same things mentioned on another thread... that the ENDA protections will allow anyone to wear anything they want to work, and for any reason or motivation?

Yea, I know that's controversial around here, but it's also not surprising that many people won't want employees coming in wearing fetish clothing, etc.

I'm just throwing this out there for thought: what if ENDA required a formal TS diagnosis in order for protections?

~Kate~

I've already sent my HR congress critter an e-mail...

Karen

I sent a letter to my congressman and to Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, as well.  To email her a note, if you aren't a constituent, go here: http://www.speaker.gov/contact/

This is the main portion of the letter I sent to both representatives:

QuoteI am a transgender woman who lives in ××××× New York.  Words cannot begin to illustrate the abject dismay I feel after reading a report from the Washington Blade that the Democratic leadership is considering the elimination of gender identity and expression from HR2015, or ENDA as it is called.  This is the same thing that happened in New York State ten years ago when the same provisions in our state's Sexual Orientation Nondiscrimination Act (SONDA) were removed with the promise that gender identity and expression would be added at a later date.  Ten years!  I am still not protected under the SONDA law and have to rely on judicial precedent which can be overturned at any time to protect me from being fired and otherwise discriminated against.  On the basis of this sad experience I am convinced that if HR2015 has its gender identity and expression protections removed that it will be decades more, if ever, until the many thousands of transgendered people in our country can enjoy the rights and protections afforded to every other American.

I therefore urge you in the strongest possible terms to resist the elimination of gender identity and expression from HR2015 and to work with your colleagues in the House to fight off any such efforts by others.  Transgendered people are simply too few in number and political power to get protecion without being helped along by the whole Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered community.  Abandoning gender expression and identity protections for political expediency will condemn me and thousands like me across the nation to decades more of fear, hiding and self-abnegation because of the real dangers of 'legal discrimination' (what a horrible pairing of words!) they will face.  Please, do your best not to let this happen.  And if it happens, notwithstanding your best efforts, please let the bill die and try again next year.

We all need to make the effort to be heard.  We are about to be abandoned and we need to scream about it as often and as loudly as we can.

hugs & smiles
Emelye

Posted on: September 27, 2007, 10:59:06 PM

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Quote from: Kate on September 27, 2007, 01:10:11 PM
I'm curious if they're worried about the same things mentioned on another thread... that the ENDA protections will allow anyone to wear anything they want to work, and for any reason or motivation?

This misconception is being used by the fascists to justify denying us our natural God given rights: Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  I do not see how this law would do anything of the sort.

Hugs & smiles again,
Emelye

QuoteI'm just throwing this out there for thought: what if ENDA required a formal TS diagnosis in order for protections?

Exactly why I spent half my evening writing to everyone from the reps to the HRC advocating trans-protections be dropped from the Bill. Until this community gets their message together, their act together, no soup for you!

Quote from: Thundra on September 27, 2007, 10:44:06 PM

QuoteI'm just throwing this out there for thought: what if ENDA required a formal TS diagnosis in order for protections?

Exactly why I spent half my evening writing to everyone from the reps to the HRC advocating trans-protections be dropped from the Bill. Until this community gets their message together, their act together, no soup for you!

i know i've been singing this same tune over and over, i.e., that the trans people should not splinter away from the GLBT.

for those trans peeps who thought it'd be so great to split the T off the GLBT: Now do you think it's so great? We need cohesion for important political protections. Look, even people like Thundra already think we should all piss off because of a few remarks by a few trans girls who by no means speak for all of us.

However, i do rather take exception to your comments, Thundra. the words that hurt you, as you must know, were not the thoughts of all of us. i think you hang out here, as i do, because you know there are some really unique personalities within the trans community.

i am not particularly impressed with most people. but i am very impressed with a large number of the people on this site. it might sound stupid, but they make me think, they make me laugh, they make me cry. and there are many, many people here whom i would like to meet personally and count as friends. which is not normal for me. most of the people i know face to face, i try to stay away from.

and i believe that you feel the same way about lots of the people on this site, or you wouldn't be here.

also, i've always counted you as one of the really interesting people i wanted to meet, until recently, when you really started hurting my feelings.   

please don't judge all of us because of the remarks of a few.

-ell

Quote from: Thundra on September 27, 2007, 10:44:06 PM

QuoteI'm just throwing this out there for thought: what if ENDA required a formal TS diagnosis in order for protections?

Exactly why I spent half my evening writing to everyone from the reps to the HRC advocating trans-protections be dropped from the Bill. Until this community gets their message together, their act together, no soup for you!

I sometimes think we're so anxious and scared to find protections for our own situations, we don't stop and put ourselves in an employer's shoes and see it from THEIR point of view.

Again, I don't know how ENDA is worded. If it's totally open-ended as far as the TG portion goes, then I don't agree with it. People shouldn't be "protected" when wearing outrageous, fetishistic clothing to work. Genetic women and men aren't protected, so neither should TG people. I'm sorry, but if I ran an office, I do NOT want anyone coming in to work strutting around in 5" spiked boots and a miniskirt, whatever sex they are.

But write it like this and I'd be happy: "Sex cannot be used to determine appropriateness of clothing or behaviour." Tada! Done. Simple. Now *everyone* is subject to the same considerations and office limitations. If an office requires skirts be knee length at least, then genetic men TOO must conform to that rule. If an office won't let genetic women wear a bikini to work, then genetic men can't either.

It's not about adding "special protections for TG people," it's about removing bigotry and discimination, IMHO.

Does anyone know what ENDA actually DOES say? How is the "protection" worded?

~Kate~

UPDATE from the
National Center for Transgender Equality
September 28, 2007
   
NCTE Statement on the
Employment Non-Discrimination Act

(Washington, DC) - Yesterday our Congressional allies apparently abandoned the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (H.R. 2015), the centerpiece of the LGBT legislative agenda, and introduced two new pieces of legislation which separate the protected classes of gender identity and sexual orientation. NCTE firmly rejects this strategy and joins most other national and many state LGBT organizations in actively opposing these two new bills.

Until last week, the majority of our congressional allies and organizational partners were confident that our years of diligent work were ready to bear fruit. We believe that the original version ENDA, which was fully inclusive of both gender identity and sexual orientation, was prematurely abandoned and should still be called to a vote.

NCTE thanks our friends in Congress for the important work that has already been done, but calls on them to return to their efforts to pass this historic piece of legislation.

It is disheartening to see that a bill, drafted over several years through a collaborative effort of LGBT advocates and allies, would be rejected without a vote and without the counsel or assent of a single one of these organizations.

There has been increasing support over the last decade to include transgender people in all local, state and federal legislation designed to end the injustice and inequality which has been perpetrated against LGBT Americans for generations.  In fact there are currently 13 states, the DC and over 100 municipalities which already have passed similar anti discrimination laws to protect people on the basis of both gender identity and sexual orientation. 

It is unacceptable at this juncture in the national conversation about the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans that transgender people should be excluded from equal protections under the law.

We call on all members of Congress to remember the promise of the Declaration of Independence that all people are created equally and deserve the assurance of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Quote from: Kate on September 28, 2007, 10:03:35 AM
Again, I don't know how ENDA is worded...

OK, well if Wiki is correct, the (now excluded) TG protections applied ONLY to those undergoing "gender transition," simply saying that transitioning people could only be held to the same standards as anyone else of their target sex.

~Kate~

That dream dancer is on fire lately....   good!  I love it

tink

QuoteThat dream dancer is on fire lately....   good!  I love it

LOL!  I would think that lots of women here have first hand knowledge of the fairie kingdom.

Like Momma used to say, no matter how you dress up a pig, it's still gonna oink and lie around in *&^%.