Why ‘Transphobic Con Artists’ is About the Nicest Way That One Can Describe ‘Equality’ Maryland

Seen recently in the comments to an ENDABlog post:

I find it endlessly amusing that you call yourself a legal historian with little regard for facts, law or history. Sad bullying narcissist.

Not surprisingly, that was from one of ‘Equality’ Maryland’s chief propagandapologists, Cathy Brennan.

Now, seen recently on the ‘Equality’ Maryland Facebook page:

The person who, eight hours ago, was being allowed to post on Facebook in the name of ‘Equality’ Maryland – and who may or may not be the same person who made that comment to the ENDABlog post – was making an analogy via a question.

Or, well, attempting to do so.

Now, here’s the history that one needs to be aware of before digesting that analogy:

1. 1974-1993: Federal gay rights proposals were (a) proposals to add “sexual orientation” in general to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, (b) not trans-inclusive, but (c) were, simply by existing as bills and not even as law, nevertleless used by some courts as rationalization to rule against transsexuals in sex discrimination cases.
2. 1994-2006: Federal gay rights proposals (a) were, because of a blanket concession by Barney Frank, HRC(F), et. al., known as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act because they only addressed employment; and (b) were not trans-inclusive.
3. 2007: The federal gay rights proposal (a) was, because of a blanket concession by Barney Frank, HRC, et. al., known as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act because it only addressed employment; and (b) was trans-inclusive as HR 2015.
4. 2007-8: The federal gay rights proposal (a) was, because of a blanket concession by Barney Frank, HRC, et. al., known as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act because it only addressed employment; and (b) was, thanks to a backroom deal that had been arranged even before Joe Solmonese openly lied to trans people at Souther Comfort about HRC’s level of support for trans-inclusivity, hay-only as HR 3685.
5. 2009-10: The federal gay rights proposal (a) was, because of a blanket concession by Barney Frank, HRC, et. al., known as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act because it only addressed employment; and (b) was trans-inclusive (though we don’t know how trans-exterminationist it would have become via the ‘mark-up’ language that The Quisling claims not to have seen.)

This will come as a great shock to the person who, eight hours ago, was being allowed to post on Facebook in the name of ‘Equality’ Maryland (and will likely dishearten to the point of drinking/depression/suicide anyone who may have taught that person logic, analogies and/or legal reasoning and given the person who, eight hours ago, was being allowed to post on Facebook in the name of ‘Equality’ Maryland a passing grade in any or all of them), but none of the above legal frameworks – even the Bella Abzug-era gay-only proposals – are analogous to what Maryland law will be if the monstrosity of HB 235 becomes law.

If one of the Bella Abzug-era gay-only Civil Rights Act Amendment proposals had become law, federal law would give everything to gays and nothing to trans people (you know, kinda sorta the way that Maryland state law ended up under the 2001 law that was championed by people like Cathy Brennan, who – as those of us who refuse to be bullied into removing history from our brains – branded as “anti-gay” supporters of gay rights who took the principled position of opposing the gay-only bill because it left trans people in the cold?)

If one of the ENDA Mark I bills had become law, federal law would give everything regarding employment to gays and nothing to gays regarding anything else – and, of course, nothing at all to trans people.

If the 2007 ENDA Mark II bill had become law, federal law would give everything regarding employment to gays and trans people and nothing to gays or trans people regarding anything else.

If the 2007 ENDA Mark III bill had become law, federal law would give everything regarding employment to gays and nothing to gays regarding anything else – and, of course, nothing at all to trans people.

If the 2009 ENDA Mark II-redux bill had become law, federal law would give everything regarding employment to gays and trans people and nothing to gays or trans people regarding anything else.

Make no mistake.  Do not read any of this as even the slightest bit of implicit approval for any of the transphobic ENDA bills (pre- or post-1994), but I ask this question: Do any of these scenarios, even the transphobic ones, align with the situation – the situation that will be Maryland law under HB 235 – of gays and trans people appearing at first glance to be equal but actually with trans people being singled out on one front whose breadth of omission no Maryland court would  ever be able to refrain from including the history of ‘not my shower’ in interpreting (irrespective of whether any of the ‘not my shower’ crap is ever actually cited in any court opinion)?

Remember: When someone tells you to ignore history, that person has an agenda – and your best interests are not part of it.