Aug 20, 2004   | COMMENTS     

in the wrong direction.

Crain fails to realize that, under a non-trans-inclusive ENDA, he and any other gay person can still be discriminated against solely because of their same-sex sexual orientation. All a discriminator would have to do is couch their reasons for such discrimination as being based upon the individual’s behavior as opposed to their stated or inferred same-sex romantic preference.

For example, if sued based upon the language of the currently proposed ENDA, a defendant would have a very good chance of escaping liability by claiming the discrimination was because the person’s behavior in dating or holding hands with someone gave the impression that the person was transsexual or transgender.

Or, they might claim that they don’t care about the individual’s preference for or attraction to members of the same sex — just the individual’s behavior that crosses gender lines.

Perhaps the worst aspect of Crain’s position is that it seeks to sub-marginalize one group of people within an already outgunned minority. Any distinction between the “GLB” community and the “T” community is illusory and false.

We are all gender variant — and therefore transgender — by virtue of our identity, behavior, sexual orientation, and/or choice of sexual partners.
RANDI BARNABEE
Twinsburg, Ohio

HRC has trans issue backward
To the Editors:
Cheryl Jacques defends the Human Rights Campaign’s decision to oppose the Employment Non-Discrimination Act unless it bans discrimination against transgender people. (“Putting the ‘T’ into ENDA,” op-ed, Aug. 13).

Rather than honestly defend the decision as the altruistic gift to transgender people that it is, Jacques instead chose to manipulate lesbians, gay men and bisexuals into believing that the addition was crucial to their own equal employment opportunity.

Jacques claims that if ENDA passes without additional protections for “gender identity or expression,” em