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| ‘I know more than 30 friends who have lost their jobs, lost their careers,
lost their homes, lost custody of their children — just because of gender
identity and expression,’ said transgender rights activist Mara
Keisling.
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HOME > NEWS > NATIONAL NEWS
By: ADRIAN BRUNE COMMENTS
 
In a sudden and unexpected decision — made as about 20 transgender rights
activists demonstrated outside its headquarters — the Human Rights Campaign’s
board of directors voted not to support the proposed Employment Non-Discrimination
Act next year unless it includes protections based on gender identity and expression.
Protesters welcomed the policy shift and lunched with board members after
the announcement was made.
But the move marks a dramatic departure from a position affirmed just last
year by Winnie Stachelberg, HRC’s political director, who told the Blade
in August 2003, “Now is not the time to add gender identity to ENDA.
“I listen to members of Congress and many of them — not all of
them, but many — have said adding [transgender protections] will slow
passage of this bill down.”
Hill observers have speculated that adding the gender identity and expression
protections would alienate some sponsors.
“We have been talking with the HRC throughout the entire process, but
we will continue to hear the opinions of all stakeholders,” said Jim
Manley, a spokesperson for one of the ENDA’s lead sponsors, Sen. Edward
Kennedy (D-Mass.). “Our goal is to get the legislation passed.”
The HRC board and its chief lobbyists said the organization needed to adhere
more closely to a recently refined mission statement, which now actively heralds
rights for transgendered people.
“We don’t know what is going to happen at the end of the day,
even though the board took a real deliberative stance, looking at every prospect
from every angle,” said Chris Labonte, HRC’s legislative director. “We
have to do the education that discrimination affects the entire community and
hope to hold on to the sponsors.”
ENDA would extend existing workplace non-discrimination protections based
on race, gender, religion, national origin and disability to include sexual
orientation. Since its 1994 introduction in Congress, transgender rights advocates
have fought to have protections based on gender identity and expression added
to the bill.
But HRC, with its political ear to the ground, had always balked on supporting
a change in the bill’s language, cautiously shepherding it through Congress
on the advice of its two main sponsors, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Kennedy.
But in the past two years, transgender rights activists pushed HRC harder.
The country’s largest gay rights lobby sat down with trans rights advocates
in the summer of 2003 to figure out how to expand the legislation’s umbrella
without alienating its sponsors. In the meantime, though, HRC went ahead with
its lobbying efforts for passage of ENDA in its original format during the
108th Congress.
Last summer, Barney Frank agreed with Stachelberg’s assessment that adding
protections based on gender identity and expression would slow down passage
of the bill.
“ENDA will not [include gender identity] because there would have been
a very significant fall-off, especially among Republicans,” he said at
the time. “We had talked about that, … but my sense is that, particularly
among Republicans, it’s a problem.”
Frank could not be reached for comment by press time this week.
Transgender rights advocates turned up the heat on HRC this summer. At the
forefront of the effort is Mara Keisling, the new executive director of the
National Center for Transgender Equality, formed in early 1993 as a lobbying
force for transgender rights legislation.
Keisling had helped successfully lobby the legislature in her home state of
Pennsylvania to include gender identity in its hate crimes bill, which former
Gov. Mark Schweiker, a Republican, signed into law in 2002. She came to Washington
with ENDA on her legislative list.
“I know more than 30 friends who have lost their jobs, lost their careers,
lost their homes, lost custody of their children — just because of gender
identity and expression,” Keisling said. “They had exemplary records,
and even won awards, but once they come out, employers claim these people are
horrible employees.”
In June, Keisling and her staff returned to the HRC with new reasoning: ENDA
was not going anywhere under a Republican Congress. What would the HRC lose
by demanding that a broad gender identity clause be inserted in the bill?
HRC conducted polls and found that 61 percent of registered voters and 85
percent of gay and lesbian voters support workplace protections based on gender
identity and expression. Jacques also got directly involved and met with Keisling
several times.
Human Rights Campaign Executive Director trong>Cheryl Jacques pointed to polling
data that shows 85 percent of gay voters support workplace protections
based on gender identity ...
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