Kettle, Pot, Yadda Yadda Yadda…..

Matt ‘SONDA – yes, that SONDA, the still-gay-only-SONDA nine years later’ Foreman is over at Shillerico pretending to constructively oppose HRC:

The reality is that we are two separate movements: the Human Rights Campaign and everyone else.

Imagine if we could get past these divisions and present a truly united front in the fight for complete equality for LGBT people. There is a chance to do this right now, as the HRC Board of Directors works to name a successor to its president, Joe Solmonese, who will be stepping down in March.

…

[T]he cause of LGBT equality has suffered because of a deficit of trust and a surplus of ill will between HRC and the rest of the movement.

That last sentence will appear to most to be a neutral encapsulation of the history of the LGBT movement over the last few decades.  In reality, however, its as much of a dodge as Herman Cain’s press conference was yesterday or the typical Boner-Cantor-apologist claim that both major parties are equally responsible for the state of the economy. 

Every last ounce of ill-will directed at the Rhode Island Avenue Cesspool has been earned by the Rhode Island Avenue Cesspool – whereas, the Rhode Island Avenue Cesspool has yet to amass even one quintillionth of the moral capital necessary to even think about legitimately expressing any ill-will against any LGB and/or T individual or group.  (Four years after ENDA 3685 and, still, the only trans woman to ever be allowed to earn a living as an employee of the Rhode Island Avenue Cesspool is someone whose primary pre-HRC experience consisted of being a preacher in Europe?  I rest my case.  No appeals.)

The cause of LGBT equality has suffered not only because of actions taken by HRC that simply are not in the best interests of the vast majority of the LGBT people that it claims to represent but because of actions taken by HRC that actively and substantively harm trans people.

You know, Matt…

The way that the Empire State Pride Agenda (ESPA) – under your control a decade ago – acted in a manner that has actively and substantively harmed trans people not simply in the state of New York (via SONDA) but by neutering what was left of the National Gay-Lesbian Task Force once you got bumped up there from the back benches of state policy advocacy.  Maybe you don’t remember the gay transphobes who, for all of their transphobia, were actually historically accurate in 2007 when they called you out as a toothless hypocrite for claiming to support a national trans-inclusive gay rights law when you folded like an onion skin tent on the issue at the state level – but I do.

And right now I smell a gay neo-Armstrong Williams and a very inorganic, deceptively worded pile of criticism of HRC.

As the members of the HRC board weighs the next steps for the organization they lead, let’s imagine an alternative to the recent state of affairs…

• Imagine if HRC’s political donations were actually in sync with those of Gill Action’s Political OutGiving program and the Victory Fund’s work to elect LGBT people to office.
• Imagine if organizations with deep understanding of specific issues – the needs of gay families, bullying or anti-LGBT violence, work in communities of color or faith, marriage equality, etc. – could partner with, rather than compete with or work around HRC on their specific priorities.
• Imagine if the grassroots, grasstops and financial clout of the LGBT community was brought to bear in a focused way on our top priorities.
• Imagine if HRC partnered with Equality Federation organizations and local groups to build their collective power, lists, fundraising bases and expertise.
• Imagine if information and leverage points were shared honestly so that our community could start playing legislators and policymakers the way they play us now.

Can you imagine?

I can. Let’s hope that the HRC board of directors can, too. Because if they do, then we all win.

Especially the out-of-touch. marriage-derangement-syndrome-addled champagne-swillers of Rhode Island Avenue – for whom you’ve just mapped out what you and they can claim is a cooperative strategy but, in reality, is just a take-over strategy.  There is no such thing as Wal-Mart cooperating with locally-owned grocery stores and pharmacies, there is no such thing as Koch-owned officeholders cooperating with legitimately-elected representatives – and there is no such thing as HRC cooperating with state and local interests.  The illegitimate end of each of those truthful dichotomies has interests that are fundamentally opposed to and incompatible with the interests of the legitimate, productive masses at the opposite ends.

Deceptive piles of ‘analysis’ by feckless wonks-for-hire who have never had to live under the short end of the ‘compromises’ that they were rewarded with promotions for making won’t change that – and neither will whatever non-white-skin-clad and/or trans tom mouthpiece that the Rhode Island Avenue Cesspool comes up with as Pee Wee Solmonese’s replacement in order to claim that it really isn’t what it is, what it always has been and what it always will be.

Current odds, courtesy of my imaginary transsexual bookie:

• Stampp Corbin – even money
• Jonathan Capehart – even money
• Diego Sanchez – 3:2
• Winnie Stachelberg – 3:1
• Generic non-gay (but, of course, non-trans) person (in order to claim the ‘post-gay’ mantle): 3:1
• Susan Stanton – 4:1
• Ken Mehlman – 4:1
• Hilary Rosen: 10:1
• An Elizabeth Birch comeback: 20:1
• Generic trans person who might have some experience that can be protrayed to the malleable masses as being law or policy-related but whose actual experience is the substantive equivalent of being a preacher in Europe: 1,000: 1
• Generic trans person who has actual law or other policy-related experience and will actually work toward the best interests of trans people: 1,000,000,000:1
• Generic trans woman who has law or other policy-related experience and will actually work toward the best interests of trans people: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000:1

And We Should Start With Those Discriminated Against By Her Former Employer

One of the patron saints of transphobia, blabbering in Queer Channel Media about where things go from the DADT repeal:

[Winnie] Stachelberg said those working on the passage of ENDA “ought to learn” from the strategy of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal campaign, which made those aggrieved by the status quo the public faces of the repeal effort.

She noted that gay service members outed under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” were visible in the campaign and said it was “terribly important” in the effort.

“From Mike Almy, to [Victor] Fehrenbach, to [Anthony] Woods, to Stacey [Vasquez] to all the members of the military who suffered this discrimination coming forward telling their stories — it’s essential that our community tell the story of LGBT workplace discrimination in an equally powerful way,” she said.

I agree, and page one of the book which tells that tale should be the degree to which her former employer – the Rhode Island Avenue Cesspool – as well as almost all gay rights organizations discriminate against trans people, particularly trans women.

Memo to Richard Grenell: Trans People Have Been Demanding This For Over 15 Years

In the HuffPo:

Gay Americans from outside Washington should demand that they stop sacrificing progress to further their personal political careers.

Who is Richard Grenell, “Longest serving U.S. Spokesman in the history of the United Nations” (?), talking about?

The entrenched gay leaders in Washington, DC, have spent the last two years blaming Republicans for the fact that they themselves have struck out on Capitol Hill and will end the 111th Congress with nothing to show for their multimillion-dollar fundraising efforts. If this were a public company, the Board or the shareholders would have run these leaders out of town a long time ago.

Despite campaigning for decades to put Democrats in control of all of Washington, their dream ticket of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama failed to deliver what the gay leaders themselves promised the movement. Led by Joe Solmonese of Human <sic> Right Campaign and Aubrey Sarvis of the Servicemen’s Legal Defense Network, gay leaders have been tripping over themselves to protect President Obama from blame for not making the promised progress on gay equality. Solmonese and Sarvis are the faces of the most expensive failed gay campaign in history. Other gay leaders in Washington also have turned their comfortable and high-paying perches into a safe haven free from the consequences of job performance evaluations.

…

It’s time we found some young gay leaders who will work for equality and not be concerned about pleasing the Democratic Party.

I guess trans leaders – young or middle-aged – are right <non-sic> out, eh?  But what would one expect from a call for something legitimate (a Rhode Island Avenue guillotine) thatg smellls an awful lot like neo-Log Cabin Crap:

I am not suggesting we dismiss the GOP sins of advocating for small government policies while practicing intrusive, big government tactics. But Republicans who advocate laissez-faire principles can be great allies, just as liberal Southern Democrats can be strong opponents working against us. But Solmonese and Sarvis have never seen it this way. For them, it’s all a process to help the Democratic Party win more seats. And for this failed strategy, they should be judged harshly.The partisan leaders of the gay and lesbian movement in Washington have spent endless political capital telling us that we would be better off if all of our elected officials were Democrats. They have spent millions of dollars trying to convince us that we will be taken care of by a partisan Democratic America.

Nope…

It IS neo-Log Cabin Crap.

We could literally set up a guillotine on Rhode Island Avenue and force every employee and board member of the Scampaign to, um…, get jiggy with it. 

And then we could re-populate the Neiman-Marcus-Xmas-catalog-purchased HRC castle with the conservaqueers that apparently are making this guy moist thinking about…

But what would that do with respect to:

1. The entrenched mechanisms of how both houses of Congress operate; and
2. The christianist psychosis – masquerading as ‘common sense’ economic populism – that has altered the DNA of the Republican Party officeholding elite?

Real people know what the answers are to those – and real people know that the fully-genetically-mutated Republican Party of 2010 is only slightly less likely to support the substantive legislative changes that real, living LGBT people need than was the proto-mutation version of 1995….

You know…

The Republican Party that Log Cabin-oids of the Clinton-era claimed would and should be our saviors (the trick being, of course, to ascertain their definition of “our.”)

If there is one lesson that the Obama Administration should have learned over the last two years is that the word “bipartisanship” should be expunged from any dictionary on any shelf in D.C.  The solution to what has (not) happened, however, is not to double down by snorting a second line of bipartisanship cyanide.  Sadly, we’ve seen that this is exactly what Obama is going to do  (and, in reality, already has done via his political re-animation of Mr. Triangulation.)  It damn sure isn’t what LGBT political organizations should do.  (Yes, it worked in Minnesota in 1975 but I hope I am not needed to point out that DC isn’t Minnesota and 2010 isn’t 1975.)

It is painfully obvious that the national gay leaders have promoted their own partisan agendas and careers within the Democratic Party instead of working to ensure passage of civil rights.

I can agree with this sentence – but I feel obligated to point out that this was obvious to trans people fifteen years ago.

And its not as if we kept our opinions to ourselves.

Of course, the fact that we didn’t keep our opinions to ourselves allowed the incestuous gay elite to refuse to hire any of us and then engage in a circle-jerk of rationalization for fifteen years.

The real tragedy is that gay leaders in Washington don’t have enough moxy to move their own political party — the party that controls the White House, the Senate and the House. It is a sign that they either don’t have the skills to make political progress or are too close to the Democratic leadership and therefore unwilling to make the necessary push.

Again – he’s presuming that any of them actually had accomplishing anything as a goal.  It has long been clear that the non-trans-specific systemic disease pulsing through the veins of the Rhode Island Avenue Riviera is not an inability to accomplish what non-DC LGBTs want, it is not actually having what non-DC LGBTs want as any goal whatsoever.

We can do better and we should start by demanding for Somonese’s and [SLDN’s Aubrey] Sarvis’ resignations.

Sounds like a typical Obama Administration ‘compromise everything away from the start’ maneuver.

We should start by demanding that HRC shut itself down, open its books to the people it has claimed to speak for (as well as to the civil and criminal authorities), and liquidate its assets for distribution to the state and local organizations that actually have done work over the last three decades.

If we start by only demanding that Solmonese quit, what we’ll get is a press release from the HRC BoD – hand-etched on a Dolce & Gabana logo-emblazoned crystal vase – that reads something like this:

To our good and loyal members and donors:  After pondering deeply the general trends of the world and the actual conditions obtaining in D.C. today, we have decided to effect a settlement of the present situation by resorting to an extraordinary measure.

We have ordered our P.R. people to communicate to you that our Board acknowledges the attitude of disgruntlement currently festering among those for whom we have arrogated the right to speak.

To strive for the common prosperity and happiness of all gays and lesbians well as the security and well-being of our allies is the solemn obligation which has been handed down by our predecessors and which we lay close to the heart.

Indeed, we worked as we did for the past several years out of our sincere desire to insure the self-preservation of gay people and the stabilization of our rights, it being far from our thought either to infringe upon the goals of our allies or to embark upon personal financial aggrandizement.

But now the current leadership of our organization has lasted for nearly six years.  Despite the best that has been done by everyone – the gallant lobbying of our lobbyists, the diligence and assiduity of those who attend our Black-Tie galas and the devoted service of our many millions of members – all of whose existence are thoroughly documented, trust us – the DC political situation has developed not necessarily to the advantage of gays and lesbians, while the general trends of the nation have all turned against their interest.

What won’t be spelled out is that Solmonese will get a seven-figure severance.  What will be further stated is that either Winnie Stachelberg, Hilary Rosen or Ken Mehlman will be the next HRC E.D.

…and the torch is passed, and another champagne cork poppeth.

Hatful of the Hollowest: Stachelbergistic Ludditery

Apologies to The Smiths.

From a non-John post at AmericaBlog about the nothingness of the ‘certification’ trigger for the DADT ‘repeal’:

Stachelberg took a swipe at “gay people,” which is a not too subtle attack on gay activists and bloggers. (We keep hearing she has real issues with bloggers — and she’s pretty vocal about it. That’s odd since CAP [Center for American Progress] is also home to Think Progress, which has a slew of bloggers):

Some gay activists resented CAP’s involvement in the debate, arguing that the gay and lesbian community can speak for itself. Stachelberg said that CAP approached the issue from a national security perspective and worked in coordination with gay groups. “Let’s be clear. There are gay groups and there are gay people. So Servicemembers United, SLDN, HRC, Third Way [and] CAP, were the key gay groups working on this, and all of them knew about the certification language and had no problem with it,” she said.

Wait. What? Let’s be really clear: CAP isn’t a gay group. Third Way isn’t either.

And, again, we see that Stachelberg is proud of her certification language. Okay, we get it. But, she better be putting the full force of CAP and her friends at the White House behind the lobbying effort to kill that poison pill of adding all four service chiefs to the certification process.

Ryan spoke to John about Stachelberg’s commentary on “gay people” and his response was spot on:

One of those people Stachelberg is referring to is AMERICAblog.com’s John Aravosis, who was involved in the debate over DADT in the early ’90s. He has reluctantly embraced the compromise as better than nothing, but doesn’t think it’s worth taking credit for. “I get that Winnie and HRC both have a problem with bloggers, but we wouldn’t be where we are today if the gay blogs hadn’t weighed in. It’s usually typical of the people who screwed things up to then accuse everyone else of being less sophisticated,” he said. “How sophisticated do you have to be to get a deal that doesn’t guarantee repeal?”

Doesn’t guarantee repeal. Doesn’t guarantee open service. But, we’re the ones who don’t get it.

And trans people are who really don’t get it.

No, really.

We’ll get nothing from anything that that toxic HRC-radiation-emitting piece of garbage has any hand in crafting.

Ironically, its looking like gays and lesbians won’t either.

Contextual Botulism

[Cross-posted at Pam’s House Blend as a comment in this thread, but I thought it was worthy of stand-alone status here]

In response to a comment I made which pointed out that the decades of gay-primacy ‘incremental progress’ strategy has not been neutral to trans people but, in reality, has played an active role in making us worse off than we were 30+ years ago (in other words, I pointed out that Gay, Inc., has profited from creating misery for trans people) and that, no matter how old or young you are now, if you embrace the diseased lie of ‘incremental progress’ then you’re wrapping that history around your neck, ‘JJ in Chicago‘ responded with a claim to actually support full trans inclusion…

followed by a ‘but’ that consisted of the entirety of the Incrementalism-oid’s Guide to the Homosexually Pure Galaxy.  I quote the last two lines of it and then, never panicking, I unleash the one weapon that Incrementalism-oids have no defense against: Reality.

Politics means compromise.

Food for thought, isn’t it?

541 words of toxic historical revisionism from one who will benefit from the spread of the disease of ‘gay-first compromise’.

I’m not sabotaging anything.

‘You’ already have.  Irrespective of what you individually claim you support, your willingness to embrace the ‘compromise’ lie of incremental progress while being someone who benefits from that lie means not only buying what those who came before you broke, but splicing their DNA into your cells.If you are willing to accept legislation that gives you special rights to discriminate against trans people, then…

You are John Aravosis.

You are Barney Frank.

You are Chris Crain.

You are Cheryl Jacques.

You are Tiffany Muller.

You are Matt Foreman.

You are Elizabeth Birch.

You are Winnie Stachelberg.

You are Shannon Avery.

You are Cathy Brennan.

You are Janice Raymond.

You are Steve Endean.

You are Jean O’Leary.

You are everyone and every organization that ejected transsexuals and other trans people from the gay rights movement and/or actively or passivily worked to create the third-class status we stagnate in today.

You and people like you are not going to run away, gay-only ENDA in hand, from the reality of what has been done TO us by Gay, Inc., over the last 30+ years and pollute the historical record with your cries that ‘incremental progress’ was a neo-manifest destiny of the homoesexually pure.

Rationalization on the Hoof

From a comment at the aforementioned Bilerico post:

The incrementalism in ENDA in 2007 was fundamentally different from what we’re seeing right now:

1. There was no chance ENDA would be passed back then, but this deal seems like it’ll get through

2. The DADT bill doesn’t cut any classes of people out – it just delays/jeopardizes/waters down the end result

3. Is there anyone who’s actually come out against the DADT deal, instead of just saying that it’s bad? Most of what I’ve read has been in the “it’s not enough” category, not much “this is so bad I’m lobbying for it not to pass”

Anyway, yeah, but they’re getting what they asked for. Nothing better’s going to pass at the moment, and they’re looking for a victory. It seems like CAP was in the right place at the right time with the right increment.

Recall that the same person, presumably a non-Stachelbergist, earlier wrote:

I support a fully inclusive ENDA only (compromise and incrementalism are OK in terms of rights and provisions and language, but not entire classes of people)

A nice sentiment.

But lets parse the current one, eh?

The incrementalism in ENDA in 2007 was fundamentally different from what we’re seeing right now:

Uh…

No.

Different, strictly speaking?  Yes.  Fundamentally?  No.

1. There was no chance ENDA would be passed back then, but this deal seems like it’ll get through

Two things:

(1) The full Senate.

(2) To mean anything, ‘getting through’ has to include the administrative morass that the ‘repeal’ faces even after Obama’s signature.

Fail 1.

2. The DADT bill doesn’t cut any classes of people out – it just delays/jeopardizes/waters down the end result

Really?  So if this bill actually passes and actually yields the Pentagon Prance that will actually erase DADT, then transsexuals will actually be able to serve openly in the military – as they can in the British military?

I didn’t think so.

And beyond that, it leaves out the biggest class of all: All LGBTs who either don’t want or can’t, for myriad non-DADT reasons, have a career in the military.

Fail 2.

3. Is there anyone who’s actually come out against the DADT deal, instead of just saying that it’s bad? Most of what I’ve read has been in the “it’s not enough” category, not much “this is so bad I’m lobbying for it not to pass”

Who’s being spoken of here?  Congresscritters?  If so, then maybe.  If actual people are, then its ‘Fail 3’, as most of what I’m seeing is in the ‘Its a mirage’ category.

Of course, that’s essentially the analysis of the ENDA-that-we’re-actually-allowed-to-see (and where is that mark-up language, again?) that got me labeled ‘idiot’ by Gay, Inc.’s Chosen Fraudmistress-in-Chief.

Memo to the masses: Purple-n-yellow nose candy can never be stepped on enough to cut it down to non-toxic status.  You snort it even once, your brain is useless thereafter.

 

I rest my case. 

If you’ve ever accepted any ‘goodies’ from her, then, however much you may think that you’re sane, you’re not.

Stachelbergism: As Sick and Empty as Ever

Gee – if only a segment of the LGBT community had stood up and warned everyone else about what sort of diseased chicanery that Winnie Stachelberg is capable of.

Oh wait…

I think it was the T.

More specifically, it was that portion of the T that actually wants to see substantive progress.

I know, the term “substantive progress” should be a redundancy.  But, the term “Human Rights Campaign” shouldn’t be a self-contained lie.

From Bilerico:

John Aravosis of Americablog yesterday called out the liberal Center for American Progress (CAP).

As he notes, CAP has been on a rather public campaign to take credit for the entire Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell compromise that has much of the gay community in an uproar.

That compromise puts the power to nullify DADT into the hands of military leaders and the president six months or a year from now. It appears to be wildly unpopular in the gay community at large.

The Gay City News reported that the compromise had been drafted by CAP and circulated among legislators starting roughly two months ago, quoting Winnie Stachelberg.

Winnie Stachelberg, a former HRC employee and senior official at CAP, was instrumental in the “incrementalist” strategy that left transgender people out of ENDA for years, and stripped them out in 2007 once they managed to get in.

I note that Mr. Aravosis himself was fully in favor of incrementalism when it came to transgender people and ENDA in 2007.

So now we find out that Ms. Stachelberg, the ENDA incrementalist, left HRC, went to CAP, where she promptly applied her incrementalist strategies to DADT repeal.

The incrementalism shoe is on the other foot.

You remember Winnie the Shoe, don’t you?  I do now – because I did then.

Another transphobic hack with a history of ties to HRC comes out in favor of ‘incremental progress’.

This time, its Winnie Stachelberg – and, sadly, the Center for American Progress is giving her the space to shill for…well, you know:

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, H.R. 3685, introduced by Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), would make it illegal to fire, refuse to hire, or fail to promote employees simply based on sexual orientation. Protections for the LGBT community exist in a patchwork of states due to the hard work of the LGBT community, but there are surprisingly no federal prohibitions on discriminating against individuals based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Surprisingly?

Yes, its a shame – but a surprise?

Well, its also no surprise that someone who spent a good bit of time shilling directly for HRC would continue to party like its 1999. You can take the hack out of HRC, but you can’t take the HRC out of the hack it would seem.

[T]he transgender community isn’t the only group that will likely be left out of this narrower version of the legislation, including employees of small businesses, employees of religious institutions, and gay and lesbian individuals in the armed forces. But this bill was built on compromise; it was never intended to be the whole package, and should therefore be seen as a first step.

Uhhhhhhhhhh……no.

The first step was, depending on your chronological scope, either (a) all of the transphobic, gay-only ENDAs from 1975-2006, or (b) 2007 HR 2015.

2015?

You have heard of that, Winnie?

The trans-inclusive ENDA?

[I]t is wrong to fire someone because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. But right now the votes to pass an inclusive bill are just not there.

2015?

The trans-inclusive ENDA, which, if there actually were not the votes for it, should not have been introduced in the first place?

But, it was introduced, no?

I believe we can and should make progress—one step, and one inch, at a time.

But, of course, she gets all 2.54 centimeters.

We get to continue competing for employment in situations in which someone like her can get to decide whether a trans person is actually the best candidate for the job.

What do you trust more? Her well-funded sincerity? Or trans activists’ hungry analysis of how ‘incremental progress’ is a lie?

Those of us who live in reality have always known that, ultimately, Aravosisism is as empty as NCTE’s concern for the lives of trans women not named Keisling.  And some of us have been pointing out for years what those who could would never admit: that ‘incremental progress’ was even more of a lie than the Republicans’ mid-1990s  ‘principled’ drive for term limits.  After all, there were at least one or two Republican elected officials who voluntarily limited themselves to 12 years in Congress because they genuinely desired to limit themselves to the constructs of mid-1990s ‘term limits’ theory (even though we all knew then, and some Republicans have since admitted, that there was no ‘principle’ behind term limits; it was just a scam to force popular Democrats out of office.)  But there never really seemed as though there would be the opportunity to show, via controlled experiment, precisely to what degree ENDA-related ‘incremental progress’ was a lie and to what degree those who were pushing its virtures were liars – or worse.

To answer the question posed by Bruce Springsteen thirty years ago: A dream isn’t necessarily a lie if it doesn’t come true, but someone who continues to tell you that its going to come true even after she knows that its not is…

well, you know….

Strangely, if the reports of Winnie the Shoe’s involvement in the emptiness of the DADT ‘compromise’ are true, at least she’s maintaining some consistency – even while simply having shifted from one fraud to another. 

Aravosis, however….

Now, as for those actually defending the ‘compromise’….

You say you really believe that DADT – the policy itself, not the 1993 Congressional act which the ‘compromise’ targets – is going to go away?  Put your money (yours, not a pile from some HRC slush fund) where your mouth is.  There’ s bound to be a Las Vegas betting line on it.

At What Cost?

I received a facebook notice for a ‘campaign‘ to have Pres. Obama nominate Kathleen Sullivan to replace David Souter on the Supreme Court:

Kathleen Sullivan is hands down one of the most qualified candidates. She is a Marshall scholar and former Stanford Law dean whom constitutional law legend Laurence Tribe once called “the most extraordinary student I had ever had.” She is the author of the nation’s leading casebook in constitutional law, has litigated before the Supreme Court, and has been named one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America by the National Law Journal. Sullivan was also a professor of law at Harvard Law School from 1984 until 1993. She joined Stanford Law School in 1993 and became the Stanley Morrison Professor of Law in 1996. Sullivan then served as the dean of Stanford Law School from 1999 until 2004, when she voluntarily stepped down to serve as the inaugural director of a new Stanford center on constitutional law. Since 2004, she has been the Stanley Morrison Professor of Law at Stanford Law School.

In addition to this impressive list of qualifications, Sullivan is also a woman and openly gay which would bring some much needed diversity to the Supreme Court.

But at what cost?

Is she Janice Raymond with a J.D.?  Winnie Stachelberg with, well…, anything?

Actually, a better question might be: Does anyone who is pushing this ‘campaign’ give a shit? 

I’m being honest here by saying that I don’t know what her position is on trans people and/or issues – but that appears to be more consideration to the possibility of yet another political rape of trans people by gays and lesbians who don’t give a shit about the reality that far too many gains for gays and lesbians have not been neutral for trans people; they’ve actually caused us to lose ground politically and legally.

Sullivan would become the first ever openly gay Justice and third female Justice in United States history to serve on the Supreme Court leading to a Court that more truly reflects the composition of the American population.

You mean the way that the workforce at HRC reflects the LGBT population?  If so, I want none of it.

Evil

From the comments over at AmericaTrog(lodyte), Val has a nice retort to someone who claimed that “according to the ‘John is a bully’ crowd, it’s all John’s fault that T-ENDA didn’t have the votes to begin with,” and defended The John by asserting, “Silly me, I thought he was just reporting on that fact….”

Oh, what rot. John’s “reporting” has been strictly partisan editorializing – which is his right, but don’t try to pain him as an objective commentator, being unfairly criticized.

Will he “report” on Cheryl Jacque’s interview, which contradicts his own arguments and those of most of his apologists? He will not.

And don’t forget that this did not start *after* United ENDA took what may have been a poorly framed stance. Right out of the gate, John accused the trans community of attaching themselves to the GL movement by way of coercion. Even though several of us have acknowledged that passing ENDA in any form constitutes right action, neither he nor any of you have budged an inch from that initial position, insisting that trans people are only marginally part of “your” community, and refusing to see that perhaps many of your own alleged compatriots saw right action in the alliance to begin with.

Rot, I say. From the neck up.

I will again respectfully disagree with Val about passing Barney’s ENDA being right.  But, the rest of this is spot-on (or rot-on as the case may be.) 

In fact, the ‘attachment-by-coercion’ fantasy is one of the reasons that I will continue to refer to the passage of Barney’s ENDA as evil.  I do understand that there are some non-transphobic GLBs who honestly analyzed the situation and feel as though that, ultimately, that was the right thing to do (and not because of the ‘attachment-by-coercion’ fantasy or the other fantasies o’ convenience manufactured by the Aravosis-Crain-Carpenter-Rosen-Stachelberg wing of the gay wrongs industry.)

The evil I predominantly point to is a creeping terror – an evil with origins long before most of the people doing most of the blogging about this got involved in GLBT politics.

There is some legitimate room for legitimate discussion about the exact degree to which trans people were involved at the beginning of the gay rights movement – even some legitimate room for legitimate discussion about the exact degree to which specific persons (such as Sylvia Rivera) participated at Stonewall.

However, what is unquestionable is that, early on, conscious decisions were made to force trans people and trans issues out.  Who one wants to point to as patient zero of this sickness (Jean O’Leary, Robin Morgan, Steve Endean, etc.) is actually immaterial.  What came after was the consecration of Janice Raymond’s paranoid psychosis as legitimate policy, an infant gay rights industry that would have rather french-kissed James Watt than even think about trans issues, and wilfull excision of all community institutional memory of the degree to which trans (particularly transsexual) issues and law actually had been accepted by mainstream law and society in spite of the negativity we endured from gays and lesbians.

That’s the evil.

In 2007, that abject hatred of anything trans – hatred put into policy by GL advocates of a quarter-century ago – has led to the false reality that the Aravosises, the Crains, the Carpenters, the Rosens and the Stachelbergs use as the foundation for new-generation fraud such as the ‘political necessity’ of passing Barney’s ENDA – and passing political gas in the faces of those who most need employment anti-discrimination protections.

That evil is embodied in Barney’s ENDA.

That evil is inseperable from Barney’s ENDA.

That evil is why I will never accept Barney’s ENDA as having any legitimacy.

That evil is why Barney’s ENDA is not legitimate – and why it will never be legitimate.

Link Roundup for Tuesday

Here are some ENDA links for you:

• Monica Roberts at TransGriot pens a letter to the Congressional Black Congress.
• dyssonance at Pam’s points out the ways John Aravosis doesn’t understand marriage rights when he chides transfolk for getting married.
• Oh, speaking of Aravosis, he’s still a whiner who continues on acting like any other offended right-winger besieged by “teh PeeCee police!”
• Workplace Prof Blog says that we’ll look back on gender identity protections as “an obvious no-brainer,” comparable to sexual discrimination inclusion in Title VII 44 years ago.
• Good As You compares the ENDA opinions of Concerned Women For America to a dog fart.
• Vanessa Edwards Foster at Transadvocate writes about HRC killing hope.
• Also at Transadvocate, Lincoln Rose tells how to hold HRC accountable.
• Autumn Sandeen calls for truth in labeling: Winnie Stachelberg is a known transphobe.
• Left in SF notes that United ENDA is raising money for ads on liberal blogs. Probably not AmericaBlog, though?
• Denise at Life, Law, Gender shares her personal experiences and urges readers to support gender identity in ENDA.

The ENDA-lite (3685) vote may happen tomorrow; the Baldwin amendment vote may happen today. I’m hoping to speak with Rep. Raul Grijalva, my congressman and a supporter of gender identity protections in ENDA, soon.