Why Ask Why?

‘Marc’, commenting on AmericaSlog, asks:

Why might the HRC have resisted including trans folks in the bill? Could it have been that the political work needed to build a coalition in support of it had not been done?

Marc, have you ever considered the possibility that, prior to announcing carefully-worded support for an inclusive ENDA in 2004, HRC didn’t actually do the amount (or any) of the ‘education’ it had claimed to have done in previous years?

Is the Scam Now Complete?

Alex Blaze over at Bilerico reacts to the alleged reason - fear of Repug attack ads - that some first-term Dems are going further than simply not supporting the Baldwin Amendment, instead not wanting the Amendment to be brought up at all:

What a great decision! Now there won’t be any attack ads in 2008! Democrats will sail right back into Congress since Republicans won’t have any reason to run attack ads!

Now that that problem is solved, the fresman Repugs can move on to their next trick: sucking pianos into their lungs.

More on the Characteristically ‘Incrementalism’-Centric Queer Channel Media

From Cathryn over at Pam’s House Blend:

The transphobic Washington Blade is currently offering a flood of gay  attorney opinions regarding the dumping of trans people from ENDA.

Hmmmmm…

Maybe I should start calling it Queer Channel FOX.

Naaaaahhh…

I wouldn’t want to insult FOX.

Shilling for Queer Channel Media’s Kevin Naff, The John posits:

When you talk to real gays and lesbians, rather than their supposed leaders, there isn’t a groundswell to kill ENDA at all

So, now…The John can determined who among us is real and who isn’t?

He has PUREGay-Dar?

What next?  Will he pontificate through his blog whilst suspended in see-thru box that is suspended in mid air?

An Open Letter to Barney Frank

Posted by a 42-year-old trans woman over at Pam’s House Blend:

 You should be ashamed.  I know you don’t think you are “transphobic” — that you are simply trying to get something, anything, through.  I know that you think you are doing the right thing.

But you have decieved yourself and the public — you have forsaken your constitutional obligations.  The Orignal Bill never had any of the concerns you raise in your speeches until after you chose to remove the transgender elements.

This entire debacle is your own doing.  The controversy is yours, and yours alone.  You might want to pass the buck to Pelosi, but everyone knows that this is your baby and she’s going to let you di it. You are an elder statesman.

AS such, you are likely subject to many of the older prejudices that were instilled in so many of us during the 1970’s.  Or perhaps you aren’t aware of the incredible advances in knowedge and understanding made jsut within the last 8 years.

YOu speak of “doing it another time”.  Giving us our rights at a nother time.

Despite this being the second and third time that you have, yourself, sandbagged the “least of those”, I’m actually willing to give you a chance.  An opportunity to prove to myself — and all my brothers and sisters who might not act or look straight enough for our common political foes, inclusive of yourself — that you really do mean this.

 Tell us, now, when this opportunity will happen.  Who will sponsor the bill.  And guarantee it. Not “as best you can”, but an absolute, ironclad guarantee that it will happen on a specific day and date.

 I am unemployed. I’ve been looking for a job for six months. I am fully qualified to do the jobs I am seeking and have excellent references anmd prior work history.  I dress professionaly, sharp and clean. I’m 42 and am frequently told I look ten to fifteen years younger than that.

After 1,137 applications (as of this writing), I have had 34 intrgviews, all of which ended within 40 minutes because I’m transgender.

If anyone is keeping track: no. I’m not that 42 y.o. trans woman - though when I saw that paragraph, I was wondering if, perhaps, I hadn’t sleep-blogged.

That 42 y.o. woman still holds out hope that Barney is capable of giving a damn - ands capable of not lying to trans people.

[T]he symbolism of an inclusive bill being passed has enormous effect on the population. IT sets a signal that says “this is wrong”, even if its not a law yet.

You are saying it isn’t wrong. And harming my family by doing so.

 You are doing this. I hold you, personally, responsible.

 So will you — can you? — give me that date and that promise?

If not, then make *now* that time and fulfill that promise. Please.

Barney will make you a promise - just like he and HRC have done for years.

Then, you leave the room - and they do what they had always planned to do to begin with - which is to make sure that you, me and all of us get to send out 1,137 more applications to people who will have no obligation under any civil rights law to even look at them.

The only difference will be an increased likelihood that the job you were qualified for - that you never even got an interview for - will go to someone who supported the version of ENDA that codified your third-class citizenship.

Non-ENDA-Specific: Remembering Paul Wellstone

Here is has a nice remembrance of a man who the Senate needs today even more than it did five years ago, when he died in a plane crash up in northern Minnesota.

One of my deep regrets about the years I lived in Minnesota was that I didn’t get a chance to meet him.

And to think - his seat is now occupied by the hollowest of the hollow: Norm Coleman.

A double tragedy.

For Those Who Don’t Like Conservaqueer Math, We Have More Conservaqueer Math

From that ever-so-reliable, ever-so-objective Queer Channel Media, Kevin Naff does his best Dale Carpenter impression:

Of course we should support a landmark gay rights bill pending before Congress, even if it’s not perfect, right? A vocal minority says we should not.

Minority?

My ass. 

Now, he does his best Barney Frank impression:

But taking the extreme position of “all or nothing” ignores the practical realties of passing federal legislation.

You mean the practical reality of 2007: that the person who currently exercises control over the office of the president is a christofascist nutcase who unconstitutionally uses every aspect of the power he has been handed to consecrate ‘faith-based’ guv-ment - and who won’t spend money to help sick children?

That reality?

The reality that includes no rational scenario by which any ENDA could even get through the Senate, much less see ink from that christofascist’s pen?

That reality?

Note how Naff actually started off his piece:

SUPPORTING GAY-ONLY ENDA has quickly become the opinion that dare not speak its name.

At several cocktail parties and other events over the last few weeks, friends, colleagues and acquaintances have been anxious to chat about the ENDA fight and most seem bewildered by all the controversy.

And he’s claiming its the anti-incrementalists who are a minority?

I ask all of the working-class gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and trans people: How many cocktail parties in any circle have you been to of late?

1 > 300

The vocal minority was - and still is - Barney Frank, who, for years, buffaloed even the very notion of a trans-inclusive ENDA.

The vocal minority was - and still is - HRC, a self-perpetuating cesspool of a transphobic autocracy comprised of DC (and DC-esque) elitists (not all of whom are even gay to any degree - which, ironically, is one of the whiny canards used to justify trans-exclusion; ’some trans people aren’t gay’) that has less of a connection to the reality of the lives of any of the people it has fraudulently appropriated the perception of the right to represent than the Bush Administration does to the Constitution.

Conservaqueer Math: 1 > 300

Dale Carpenter, in the Bay Area Reporter asks if United ENDA represents the entire community.

The correctness of an all-or-nothing approach to civil rights is not determined solely by the number of organizations or people who favor or oppose it.

Ohhh…somehow, methinks it would - for you - if 300 organizations opposed inclusion and only one supported it.

Missing from the list is the largest and most influential gay political group, the Human Rights Campaign.

Influential?  How about clueless when it comes to the realities of what the overall GLBT demographic wanted - and was saying it wanted.

1 >  300 ?

There are no gay Republican organizations listed, yet more than 25 percent of gay people regularly vote Republican in national elections.

Uh huh.  How’s that workin’ for ya?

No gay Republican orgs, eh?

1.02 > 300

Still looks pretty squirelly to me.

Do the listed groups even represent their own members?

Howzabout asking that of HRC before you ask it of any other organization, Dale.

In short, there is simply no good evidence for United ENDA’s claim that the community opposes an incremental approach to civil rights.

No - there’s no good evidence that those elements of the community that might seem to be against trans-inclusion have ever been provided with an accurate, ENDA-contextual definition of “incremental.”

Certainly, there are people who are of a trans-don’t-give-a-shit posture - and others who are flat-out, unapologetic transphobes and, if strapped to a lie detector, would be shown to be willing to ask their congresscritters to oppose ENDA if it was to include us.

Much like when one hears George W. Buch talk about bringing ‘democracy’ to the Middle East (its not “democracy” defined as we all think its defined, but “democracy” as defined by the current ruling junta: a neo-fascist corporation-centric oligarchy in which the people’s right to decide anything is an alien concept), when one hears conservaqueers speak of “incremental” progress on things like ENDA, their definition is as far removed from your - and my - definition of “incremental” as can be imagined.

Timid Reps? Reps Full of Fear? Yeah - That’s What We Voted For in ‘06…NOT

From Gay People’s Chronicle (Ohio):

“We should not be so timid about protecting transgender people,” [Rep. Tammy] Baldwin said.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Cleveland is the only Ohioan on the Education and Labor Committee. He is also an original co-sponsor of the transgender-inclusive ENDA.

Kucinich agrees with Baldwin that the original bill should not have been pulled back.

“It’s fear,” Kucinich said of the leadership strategy.

The non-inclusive bill passed the committee October 18 by a vote of 27 to 21, with Kucinich voting against it as a protest.

“And so today when we’re confronted with this legislation, we should be mindful that discrimination of any kind is un-American and should not be tolerated,” Kucinich told the committee.

“I stand with the principles of the LGBT community to defend against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity,” Kucinich continued.

Kucinich said he cannot recall any member of the committee speaking against transgender inclusion.

“I would not have split this bill,” said Kucinich. “I would have reached out to Republican leadership in an attempt to not politicize this.”

“But some in leadership are worried about the spin,” Kucinich said.

Be honest, GLB America, the spin that is causing the real fear, discord and tumult is that which has been spun by those GLBs who want the special right to discriminate against trans people that Barney’s ENDA will create.

Pandering to bigots is killing ENDA

Don’t believe the hype about transgender rights activists holding anyone’s rights hostage. The problem has always been that the Democrats are willing to pander to anti-LGBT bigots whenever possible.

The Hill writes:

Reps. Tim Walz (Minn.) and Ron Klein (Fla.), leaders of the class of freshman Democrats, carried a message to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Tuesday that their fellow first-term lawmakers did not want to vote on an amendment extending civil rights to transgender employees.

House Education and Labor panel Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.), whose committee passed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, said he told the freshman lawmakers at their Wednesday breakfast with Pelosi that the amendment did not have the votes to pass and would not be brought to the House floor.

In addition, Miller told the freshmen he recognized that the amendment exposed the first-term lawmakers to political attacks from conservatives and liberals alike, said two sources who attended the breakfast.

So, to save those freshmen members of Congress from undue political embarrassment, trans rights — and gay rights, too — are being put off, possibly for years. Who is holding whom hostage?

Answer: It’s the transphobes.

Anyone who tells you it’s the transgender rights activists is blaming the victims, and is doing it in a grossly dishonest and transphobic way.

If it’s wrong for a Democratic politician to have a single campaign appearance with a gay man suffering from internalized homophobia and religiously inspired bigotry — and yeah, we do agree it’s a problem — then how much worse is it for transphobic Democratic elected officials to sway the Congressional leaders towards supporting workplace discrimination against transgender people?

Rep. Walz and Rep. Klein — are they supported by any other Democrats? Presidential candidates as endorsers maybe, or do they currently support any candidates themselves?

If Walz and Klein are not, themselves, transphobic bigots, then they are surely catering to the bigots within their own communities by opposing transgender rights. Why are they willing to divide the civil rights baby in half in order to appease their own  transphobic constituencies? Would they do this to any other minority group?

Walz was called upon to deliver the official Democratic radio address on January 13 — does this mean that Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic leadership endorse his anti-trans bigotry? Why are they letting a man who caters to trans-bashers in his community speak for the party?

Walz has been endorsed by Democrats such as John Kerry and Wes Clark. Does Kerry approve of transphobia? Why does Wes Clark think that it’s okay to fire good employees who are transgender? Or will he repudiate Walz and retract his endorsement?

Why are some kinds of bigotry allowable and others not? Why is it okay to pander to communities that hate transfolk, but not okay for other minorities?

If there’s going to be a new McClurkin Standard, I’d like to see it applied fairly, to all bigots — including transphobic ones. Politicians who want to cater to bigoted communities simply to make their election chances better are on notice.

Self-Serving Aravosisism Du Jour?

On AmericaSlog today:

There are a lot of rumors as to why today’s House floor vote on the GLB ENDA has been postponed.

…

[I]t’s not even clear if Baldwin still WANTS her trans amendment to be voted on now at all, because she may fear that the GLB ENDA crowd was right, that her amendment will go down in flames and that such a stunning defeat will set the trans community back years).

Hmmmm…if that reality has now been successfully manufactured, I wonder who it was that managed to weave it out of the cloth of initial receptivity to inclusion? 

For the answer, try checking here and here.

—-

ADDITION - 10/25/2007, 2:56 CDT:

I have to pass along the following comment to today’s Aravosisism:

You learned to spin well from your time with the GOP. You threw trannies under a bus because you wanted votes for your bigoted ENDA bill, now Obama did the same, courting black church goers, and he’s a bigot, but you’re a pragmatist who doesn’t give a damn about trannies. You’re not kidding anybody but yourself. It’s okay for you to deny trans right, but if a candidate appears with a confused ex-gay singer, it’s clubbering time. Please look in the mirror and wipe that brown shit off your nose. No one is more sad about the divisiveness you caused than the people you banned because we still believe you did more harm than good. Once in the GOP, always in the GOP. It’s like being gay, no such thing as an ex-gay, right? It’s all trans people fault for wanting workplace protections like every other human beings. When you point a finger at Obama, you’re pointing even more at yourself.

Ouch. 

It is signed ‘Banned American.’