John Aravosis is a Disingenuous Transphobic Shyster

But we already knew that, didn’t we? 

Well, if there were any doubts, take a look at a paragraph of prototypical gay-primacy legal ‘analysis’ three-card monte that he slipped into a post about Frankenphobe’s year-in-advance exit interview with Queer Channel Media:

As for the [Massachusetts] trans bill, they got a lot more protections at the local level than we have at the national level, so it’s hardly “nothing.” And even the bill that’s a “sell out” offers a lot more protections than ENDA would offer us – so would passage of ENDA at the national level be a sell out too?

This is both the disease and the result of having the disease.

It is the disease in that this compact, seemingly-inoccuous, gay-male-with-money-approved nugget of anti-knowledge can be tramsmitted as easily as a virus – often without evil intent even if there was evil intent with the transmission of it in that AmericaBlah post.  People eager to believe it will think its true – the way that people are willing to believe that anyone eager to hop in the sack with them is safe. 

And we know how that usually turns out, eh?

Even people who have no eagerness to believe bullshit will believe it because, to anyone with anything else also on their minds, it sounds reasonable.

You know…

Muslim terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center, so we have to go to war against Saddam Hussein…

Lowering taxes on the job-creators will cause them to be more willing to create jobs…

HRC hring one trans woman actually means something…

Just like the swisscheeseification of the American collective brain that Fox ‘News’ has worked upon America, this latest fit of Aravosisism is the result in that previous generations of gay-rights-industry transphobic circle-jerkery has not only unleashed people who actually believe this insanity but has actually unleashed some people who not only believe it but think that they’re really, really, really, really, really doing right by trans people when they re-ejaculate it into the civil rights discourse.  (I hereby refer thee to the comments to a posting about the St. Barney interview over at Towleroad.)

Lets parse John Aravosis’s disingenuous bullshit (and in doing so, decide for yourselves if he’s worthy of any benefit of any doubt as to where he fits into that dichotomy) shall we? 

Okay, step one:

they got a lot more protections at the local level than we have at the national level

Wow…

This is one really industrial-strength-ugly hydra. 

Well, here goes…

1. “they” got a lot less protections at the local level than you
2. “you” (standing in for all of you through the ages) have had that superiority of protection for over 22 years now at that local level
3. “they” have no more protections at the national level than you
4. for quite some time (the era of the “sexual orientation”-only executive order), “they” had less protections than you at the national level

Moving on…

so it’s hardly “nothing.”

That actually remains to be seen.  Once entities that, at first glance, appear to be covered by the bill realize the true significance of clear legislative history of public accommodations being purposely and deliberatively excluded from the bill, most if not all employment protections will, in practice, be erased (and, with no job, renting much less buying some form of housing becomes just another illusion – you know, like trans employees at NGLTF.)  Moreover, that same clear legislative history of public accommodations being purposely and deliberatively excluded from the bill will at some point be used by some court in Massachusetts to declare that all of the amorphous decisional law-based “sex” decisions that we were supposed to bend over and say ‘thank you’ for and be satisfied with were overturned as to public accommodations.  In short, it may well not be hardly nothing; it quite possibly may be worse than nothing.

even the bill that’s a “sell out” offers a lot more protections than ENDA would offer us

Refer back to the little fact that in the relevant jurisdiction – Massachusetts, not the federal level – that means that some people (care to guess who?) have more than rights than others.  If the Massachusetts trans bill had included employment discrimination protections and, say, a handful of puppy treats, then that would indeed be broader in scope for trans people than even a legitimate version of the federal ENDA would be and if the 1989 Massachusetts gay-only rights law had not provided for puppy treats then we’d even have something under Massachusetts state anti-discrimination law that you don’t. 

But my dogs – who tell me that they’re licensed to practice law in Massachusetts (though I have my doubts; I think they’re just trying to impress me to get some puppy treats) – tell me that not only did gays not get any puppy treats in 1989 but, after a thorough reading of the 2011 trans bill, it appears that trans people didn’t get any either.

Of course, if the Massachusetts trans bill had included employment discrimination protections as well as all other protections that gays and lesbians grabbed for themselves and themselves alone back in 1989 – thereby making gays and lesbians in Massachusetts live with the painful indignity of knowing that trans people are actually fully equal to them – then that would be broader in scope for trans people as well as gays and lesbians than the federal ENDA would be. 

No puppy treats for you John.

Now, in addition…

You don’t really want me to continue the above analysis via comparison to the sort of federal ENDA that you were trying to ramrod into federal law back in 2007, do you John?

so would passage of ENDA at the national level be a sell out too?

I’ll ask again: You don’t really want me to continue that analysis via comparison to the sort of federal ENDA that you were trying to ramrod into federal law back in 2007, do you John?

Well, screw you.  I’m going to.

If it is a legitimate version of ENDA, then yes it is indeed a sell-out – but (1) a sell-out that was engineered by St. Barney, et. al. back in the early 1990s by deciding to go for employment only, and (2), by virtue of it being a legitimate version of ENDA, a sell-out of not just LGBs but also of Ts – but it would be a sell-out that would result in all LGBTs having the sole nugget of employment anti-discrimination protections.

On the other hand…

If it is the type of ENDA bill that you championed – just as disingenuously as you’re doing now – right along with St. Barney of Strife, the, once again, it is indeed a sell-out – but (1) a sell-out that was engineered by St. Barney, et. al. back in the early 1990s by deciding to go for employment only, but (2), by virtue of it being an illegitimate version of ENDA, an additional level of sell-out – of Ts – resulting in all LGBs having a federal, statutory right to discriminate against trans people in any private employment context given that any relevance that the Vandy Beth Glenn decision might have to Title VII sex discrimination law would be wiped out via Congress knowingly, purposefully and openly ejecting trans coverage from ENDA’s scope.

December 2011…

Its the new October 2007.