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Trans People Likely Shut Out of ENDA |
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Written by Alex Cho
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Tuesday, 06 November 2007 |
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 Mass. Rep. Barney Frank
Openly gay Massachusetts representative removed the words "gender identity" from the bill's original wording, saying he feared it would not make it out of committee. An amendment was proposed to include trans people after the bill made it to the floor by openly lesbian Wisconsin representative Tammy Baldwin, but as of today, lawmakers fear there will not be enough votes to add the amendment to the legislation.
This has drawn deep debate from within the LGBT community for ostensibly sacrificing the rights of one portion of the community in order to advance others'. From 365gay.com:
Tuesday, however, it appeared
there are not the votes to pass an all inclusive version of
ENDA and in an open letter to members of Congress, HRC, the
NAACP, the National Education Association, the United Auto
Workers, The AFL-CIO, the National
Employment Lawyers Association, the Religious Action Center of
Reform Judaism, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the
American Federation of State, County, Municipal Employees and
a number of other groups said they would support ENDA without
gender identity.
The letter adds:
"While we are
greatly disappointed that the current version of ENDA is not
fully inclusive, our sense of frustration in this case is
directed at those who would clearly prefer to see no one from
the gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender community protected
at all."
This is the first time in over 30 years since the bill was first introduced that it has actually made it to the House floor for a full vote.
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written by Regina Fillangi on November 06, 2007
None of this matters because Bush is going to Veto it and there is no way we have enough votes to override the veto on this kind of bill.