Jun 19, 2009  |  By: Lou Chibbaro Jr.  | COMMENTS     

An aide to U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said Wednesday that the congressman plans to introduce a revised version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act next week that will include protections for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Diego Sanchez, who is transgender and a senior policy adviser to Frank, said the bill has been changed from the so-called “gay-only” version that the House passed in 2007 to include language banning job discrimination based on gender identity as well as sexual orientation.

Sanchez said that, as of Wednesday, the bill had eight House co-sponsors, including four Democrats and four Republicans. Among the sponsors were gay House members Frank, Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), and Jared Polis (D-Colo.). The lead Republican sponsor is Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.).

Sanchez made his impromptu comments about ENDA at a morning policy meeting sponsored by gay rights attorney and political consultant Robert Raben of the Raben Group.

In an interview with the Blade on Tuesday, Frank said he believes prospects for passing a trans-inclusive ENDA have improved significantly since 2007, when he and other House Democratic leaders said the measure would be defeated if a gender identity clause were kept in the bill.

Over the strong objections of transgender activists and many gay advocacy groups, House Democratic leaders dropped the transgender provision from the bill in September 2007. The House went on to pass it the following month, but the measure died when the Senate took no action on it.

“Things have gotten better,” Frank said Tuesday. “The transgender community is lobbying hard.”

He said a House hearing last year on anti-trans discrimination helped build support for a non-discrimination bill with a gender identity provision.

Yet Frank said opposition still exists to non-discrimination legislation covering transgender persons. He pointed to concerns raised by activists in Massachusetts, New York and Maryland that they continue to encounter problems in pushing through state bills banning discrimination against transgender persons.

“I just need to remind people that when we have trouble doing something in New York, Maryland and Massachusetts, it doesn’t get easier when you have South Carolina, Utah and Nebraska,” he said.

Frank was referring to the conservative-leaning states whose members of Congress will be voting on the soon-to-be introduced trans-inclusive ENDA.

“But I am encouraged,” he said. “I think the transgender community and others have been doing this in a very good way. This time they have been doing the lobbying.”

Frank said that support for a trans-inclusive bill would also be helped by the 2008 election, which saw 20 more Democrats win seats in the House.

“Now, 20 more Democrats replacing 20 Republicans isn’t a net gain of 20 for LGBT issues,” he said. “But it’s a net gain of about 14 or 15. There are a couple of Republicans who are with us and a couple of Democrats who are against us,” he said, but overall, “that helps.”

“We know we have a healthy majority in the House for ENDA without transgender [protections],” he said. “So we are able now to focus our efforts on lobbying for transgender [protections]. We don’t have to do the dual lobbying because we had that [previous] vote [on a gay-only version of the bill].”

Frank said he, Baldwin and Polis were scheduled to meet with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday to discuss strategy for moving ahead with a House vote on a trans-inclusive ENDA in September.

But he would neither confirm nor deny Sanchez’s statement that he planned to drop ENDA into the legislative hopper next week.

“I’m hoping to have an announcement by next week,” Frank said. “We’re lining up the co-sponsors, so we should be ready to do something by next week.”