Breaking News: Trans-inclusive ENDA introduced in the House
A new, trans-inclusive version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) was introduced in the House today by Barney Frank. The bill would protect against workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
According to Mara Keisling, head of the National Center for Transgender Equality, this bill has TWICE as many co-sponsors as last year. Awesome. More info (and live updates about the bill) available on Mara's Twitter feed here.
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This is awesome news - thank you for sharing!
Finally!
This is good news!
During the recent LGB frustration with DADT, gay marriage, and the general inertia of the Obama administration with regards to LGB issues, I couldn't help but roll my eyes a bit at queers' indignation and outrage at having it suggested to them that they would have to wait for their rights until later. As a trans person, I've heard the same line again and again from many cis queers regarding trans rights (including ENDA).
I hope this trans-inclusive ENDA is the beginning of real inclusion in LGB politics, and that the experience of having cis queer rights pushed to the backburner by supposed allies has taught them to realize what an offensive thing it is to tell trans people or any group that their rights should have to wait until later.
Very excited about this and I really hope that Obama comes out and is very vocal about his support for this bill. He just recently included anti-discrimination laws for his office but he seems to want to keep his (minor) legislative support for the GLBT community on the DL. He needs to be vocal and strong about this.
Excellent. :)
While I truly do support the efforts of Mara Keisling, Barney Frank and others doing their part for LGBT rights, I am neither excited nor expecting very much to come of this bill.
Am I jaded? Perhaps. But as a trans-person, I am sick and tired of watching DC play with my human rights. I have gut feeling this will be a repeat of every other trans-inclusive ENDA bill:
1. A well-written trans-inclusive bill is introduced to the House or the Senate.
2. Some transphobic "centrist" Dem or Repub will amend the bill to remove gender language from the bill. This will be done in the name of partisan compromise, in an effort appease bigoted assholes in the House and/or the Senate. (We should just ignore them already. Why would you want to compromise and work together with insane violent bigots anyway?)
3. The bill will either be held and die in a committee, or make it to a floor vote where no Repubs will vote for it, and a few Democrats won't vote for it either because the gender-inclusive language was removed.
4. The bill will fail, and some Democrat talking head will go on TV an talk about how trans-people need to be patient, that we need to take little steps, etc. and so on. In general people will ignore the scary and very real possibility people will just forget about protecting trans-people if and when a sexuality-only ENDA passes.
Yeah, I think this is one rollercoaster that trans people are totally justified in being leery of. Sad but true.
I kind of hoped that the issue would be seen as more important after the Library of Congress case and all, but you have a point. Unfortunately, this is the political process. Some judges on some courts (I won't say who) say that all we can do is resort to this process and yeah...that stinks when it comes to fundamental rights. Is cautiously optimistic good for you for now?