John Aravosis round-up

Will add more to this later, but here are some of the responses to John Aravosis’ little anti-inclusion rant in Salon:

• Aravosis: Whitewashing the Transgender Movement by Marti Abernathey
• Bucking the Supposed Liberal Gay Orthodoxy by Alex Blaze
• Bus Stop by David Ehrenstein
• Aravosis at Salon by Patrick
• Yo, Aravosis! Read this! Then apologize! by H. Lukas Green

The party of surrender

Here’s the long version of Barney Frank yesterday, on the floor of the House, arguing against trans-inclusion in ENDA.

Here’s the short version:

I am tired of fighting, so let’s just give up now, we’ve done enough. Oh, and: See also Aravosis, John.

UPDATE: More on Barney from Pam

Barney is calling a press conference for tomorrow to fight against — no, not the bigoted Democrats within his own party who refuse to extend protections to transgender people, but rather, well…us.  And nearly every LGBT organization in the country.

Happy National Coming Out Day!

First they came…

A meditation on GENDA, the Jena Six, and other family business

by just Kelly

Acknowledgments to Pr. Martin Niemoller

First they came for the transfolk:
She-males and butches, sad gender freaks, dragging the movement down.
And I said nothing, because they were never really our people.

They came for the rest of ’em,
The swaggering bull dykes, the mincing fairies, affronts to normalcy and traitors to their sex.
And I laughed along with the others, and said nothing.

Then they came for the street people:
The hookers and hustlers, junkies and runaways. Irresponsible types.
And I said nothing, because I was Respectable. What was *their* problem?

Then they came for the other races:
The black, the brown, blind rage and easy targets.
But I was white, and it wasn’t my battle, so I said nothing.

And then, one day, they came for me.
I who did nothing, said nothing. Compromised and bent.
And there was nothing left for them to take.

(October 2007)

A moment of truth

At the Bilerco Project, Nadine Smith reminds us of the time that disability rights activists were asked to throw a small group under the bus, and chose not to:

Years ago I heard Tim McFeeley, then Executive Director of HRC, tell the story of how the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act was almost halted by the disability community leaders themselves.

In 1990, the landmark measure had passed the House and the Senate with bipartisan majorities and was on its way to then President George H. W. Bush who had already firmly committed to signing the bill. But disability community leaders, many of whom had spent decades fighting for this historic legislation were not happy. In the final moments, both chambers had suddenly amended the ADA to specifically exclude HIV positive waiters, cooks and anyone designated a “food-handler”.

With passage utterly assured, Rep. Joe Barton and the National Restaurant Association might have thought that the last minute exclusion of HIV positive workers would be no big deal. Perhaps they thought exploiting the public’s fear of AIDS and ignorance about how HIV is transmitted, would be treated as a minor issue effecting a tiny population. They were wrong.

Before the bill reached Bush’s desk, Patrisha Wright, the leader of the coalition fighting for passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, asked Tim to represent HRC in a delegation of disability leaders scheduled to meet the next morning at the White House. The only purpose of the meeting was to demand that the food handler amendment be removed from the bill.

They gathered in the Roosevelt Room at the White House with C. Boyden Gray, Counsel to the President and Tim described his amazement as disability community leaders unwaveringly demanded that the bill cover people with HIV equally.

“One of those leaders, Bob Williams, a man afflicted with cerebral palsy and who later became Commissioner of the Administration on Developmental Disabilities in the Clinton Administration, using a spell board because he could not speak, communicated the message that the disability community would rather have no ADA than an ADA that excluded people with HIV.

“I think no one would have blamed these ADA leaders if they had accepted the food handlers’ exclusion. But that’s not what happened. I will never forget their principled stand in solidarity with this small segment of HIV+ workers. So much was at stake for them. The White House was not responsive to their position, but we were able to reverse the House and Senate votes by stripping the amendment out in conference. As a result, HIV positive workers who handle food are covered by the ADA to this day.”

Despite what you might hear, it’s not an act of courage to compromise to the bigots. It’s not the way that a principled civil rights movement lays the groundwork for equal rights. “Incremental” approaches — we’ll pick up the unpopular people later, alone — don’t magically transform into equality.

Sometimes you need to draw a line in the sand. Otherwise, what are we fighting for, if not our principles?

The Stonewall Rebellion: Whose Riot Is It Anyway?

Here’s a link to an essay written by my friend Michael Woodward, who works at Wingspan and with the Southern Arizona Gender Alliance, back in June 2007:

The Stonewall Rebellion: Whose Riot Is It Anyway?

Each year the LGBT community celebrates its pride in June to mark the anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, an event considered by most as the “shot heard ‘round the world” for the gay rights movement.

I wanted to take a moment to reflect on another side of Stonewall—one you likely have not heard as much about.

While the Stonewall Rebellion galvanized the quest for gay and lesbian equality, it also sparked what has become one of the longest-running controversies in the movement: the rift between the gay and lesbian community and the transgender population.

Read the whole thing, as they say on the Intarwebs.

UPDATE: More History Goodness:

Monica explains why the transgender community hates HRC.

Open Thread: Gimme some links

Let’s start off with an open thread where you can post links in the comments.

Give us some blogs to blogroll. Point out some people who have written nice stuff about this topic. News articles about ENDA are welcome (yeah, we know about Salon). You can even promote your own blog here.

Welcome to ENDAblog!

This is a group blog devoted to promoting an inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

As a group, we support this statement:

The undersigned represent the vast and celebrated diversity of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in this country. Some of us are national leaders of organizations with tens of thousands of members and constituents, some of us run the only local organization in our state. But we are united in a common cause: We ask you to keep working with us on an Employment Non-Discrimination Act that protects everyone in our community, and to oppose any substitute legislation that leaves some of us behind.

We ask and hope that in this moment of truth, you will stand for the courage real leadership sometimes demands. You each command enormous respect from all of us and we do appreciate the difficulty of balancing a variety of competing demands. But the correct course in this case and on this legislation is strikingly clear. We oppose legislation that leaves part of our community without protections and basic security that the rest of us are provided.

You told us you supported a fully inclusive ENDA and would bring it up for a vote this year. We expect that you will honor that commitment and we look forward to working together to pass a bill that we can all be proud to support.

If you are a blogger who is blogging for inclusion of gender identity in ENDA, please email us and we will add you to our blogroll.

If you would like to be a guest blogger or part of the ENDAblog core blogging team, please email us as well.

If you’re not a blogger but would like us to post your statement in support of trans-inclusive ENDA, again, please email us.