Sadly, the debate over ENDA is tearing the LGBT community apart in some ways. Salon has an article (http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/10/11/transgender/index_np.html) by Susan Stryker that viciously attacks John Aravosis for agreeing with Barney Frank's pragmatic approach to getting a LGB version of ENDA passed in the event an LBGT version is dead on arrival. While John Aravosis may be, in Ms. Stryker's opinion "in the nosebleed section of the social hierarchy; if he gets any higher up the food chain he should be issued an oxygen mask," I can assure you that the LGB individuals who call my office on a regular basis after being fired or harassed at work because of their sexual orientation are not. There ARE millions of LGB individuals who lack any sort of employment protections. Ms. Stryker apparently doesn't give a flip about them based on her all or nothing rant.
Andrew Sullivan and I significantly disagree on the need for ENDA - I strongly favor its passage and think it will make a difference - but he is directly on point in his post (http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/10/why-i-still-loa.html#more) taking Stryker and those of her ilk to task:
This ad hominem attack on anyone's views who veers from far left orthodoxy is routine among the professional GBLTXYZers who mau-mau the rest of us. John Aravosis is an almost pathologically partisan Democrat, a gleeful outer of insufficiently correct closeted public figures, a blogger in the mold of Atrios ... but he still can't be oppressed enough to be valid for the gay left. Hey, John. It's wake-up time. They hate you too. Welcome to the club. As for the matter at hand, the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act, I was told two decades ago that this was the non-negotiable number one priority for gay Americans, that gay people couldn't afford to fight for marriage equality or military service or anything else until this vital law passed.
I was told to shut up about everything else in order to support this central goal. The Human Rights Campaign raked in tens of millions of dollars over twenty years with this message (while the private sector, with HRC's help, actually enacted many legal protections for gay employees, and while the debates about marriage and military service transformed the movement, in the face of HRC's opposition). But now ... not so much. The transgendered movement is so important that it's worth subjecting gay people to many more years of employment insecurity. Not so urgent, after all, is it? Gay people in red states without employment protection have to wait while pomo lefty activists in cushy gay lobby jobs preen about p.c. purity.
I'm no big supporter of ENDA and don't truly believe it will make much of a difference. Nonetheless, holding it up for transgendered inclusion after two decades of waiting seems bizarre even for the p.c. hell that is the gay rights establishment. I can't believe I'm with Barney Frank on this one. But I am.
Stryker may be in a position immune from job discrimination threats, but millions of LGB individuals are not so lucky. Her approach will likely leave them with no protections after 30 years of effort. Is she an idiot or what??
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