Lez Keep It Real

This week has started out on the negative side for me. I usually try to rise above it, mixing in lighthearted posts with serious rants, but that’s just the way the cookie is a crumblin’ these days.

In the words of Destiny’s Child, I say, “No, no, no, no, no” even if HRC says, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.”

The Human Rights Campaign organization was one of a few Civil Rights groups to back the gay-only version of ENDA, otherwise known as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

Am I the only one who’s confused by this?

HRC has long since presented itself as a Civil Rights organization for gay, lesbian AND trangendered people. Somewhere along the way, the transgendered part was left off the table. Now HRC is endorsing a bill that is, in my mind, discriminatory against transgendered people. I’ve talked about it before, voicing my disapproval and the reasons why I disagree with the angle that in order to get all of the rights we want, we have to compromise first.

That’s crap.

I’ve been a fan of HRC for a long time, but I do not back their current stance on this. To me, it’s as if they’ve thrown an entire group of people under the bus instead of taking them along for the ride by saying, “We can’t include you in this right now, but don’t worry. Somewhere down the road, we’ll pick you back up.”

Aren’t we better than this? Don’t we know what it’s like to be left off the bus by other groups and organizations? What gives us the right to turn around and do it to others? Are we better? Are we any more deserving of the right to not be discriminated against at work than transgenders?

I say, “No, no, no, no, no!” And HRC says, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.”

Here’s why:

The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the nation’s most prominent mainline civil rights organization, called on members of the House of Representatives today to vote for a gay-only version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

The LCCR made its views known on ENDA in a two-page joint letter signed by LCCR and six other national civil rights groups, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Human Rights Campaign. HRC was the only gay rights group to sign on to the letter.

It was “extraordinarily difficult” to arrive at a position in support of a gay-only version of ENDA, the letter says, because the groups strongly support an earlier version of the bill that included protection against job discrimination targeting transgender persons as well as gays.

House Democratic leaders, with the support of gay Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), removed transgender protections from the bill, saying they determined the bill would go down to defeat if it included a trans provision.

It is “beyond dispute that transgender employees are particularly in need of those protections,” the letter says. “They face far more pervasive and severe bias in the workplace and society as a whole,” the letter says.

“As civil rights organizations, however, we are no strangers to painful compromise in the quest for equal protection of the law for all Americans,” it says. “From the Civil Rights Act of 1957 through the almost-passed District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act of 2007, legislative progress in the area of civil and human rights has almost always been incremental in nature,” the groups state in their joint letter.

“With each significant step toward progress, the civil rights community has also faced difficult and sometimes even agonizing tradeoffs,” the letter says.
“We have always recognized, however, that each legislative breakthrough has paved the way for additional progress in the future. With respect to ENDA, we take the same view.”

The other groups signing on to the letter include the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees; National Education Association; National Employment Lawyers Association; Religious Action Center of
Reform Judaism; and Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith.

Among the groups that did not sign the LCCR letter were the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, the National Center for Transgender Equality, and the National Black Justice Coalition, which represents black gays. READ MORE ~ The Washington Blade

“Agonizing tradeoffs.”

How did the bargaining go for that? “If you take off the T, from GLB, we will give you the N, in ENDA?”

I don’t see this as a step forward by any means. People say sometimes you have to give, in order to get. But I say, think about what you are giving up. Is the compromise really worth the what you get in return? In politics, I often see people compromise their morals, their beliefs and even their friends and families in order to get ahead.

How is this any different?

Remember the Good News Moment? That series lasted oh, about two weeks because it was so hard for me to find good news on a consistent basis. Maybe, in the up coming weeks, I’ll be able to do post about this situation that falls into the Good News category. Until then, keep your heads up T’s.

And I’ll continue to “keep it real” on your behalf.

ENDA, HRC, the washington blade, the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees, National Education Association, National Employment Lawyers Association, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, and Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, the National Center for Transgender Equality, the National Black Justice Coalition