The division in
Congress about whether employment protections should
exclude transgender workers has forced unity for gay rights
activists across the board.
As the old saying
goes, nothing focuses the mind like the prospect of a
hanging in the morning. Last month the Democratic leadership
in Congress unexpectedly decided to strip protections
for gender identity and expression from the proposed
federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA. In
an unprecedented show of unity, within 48 hours more than
100 LGBT organizations from across the country sprang
into action to form United ENDA, a grassroots campaign
to pass only the original, unified bill. Indeed,
virtually every national LGBT organization unanimously
opposed the stripped-down version of ENDA as morally,
legally, and strategically wrong.
Last Friday, on
behalf of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, I
attended a meeting in which senior staffers from the
Democratic leadership informed LGBT advocates that our
congressional allies intend to move forward with a
sexual orientation-only bill -- over the opposition of
more than 300 LGBT organizations, including all of the LGBT
legal groups, the American Civil Liberties Union, National
Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the Equality Federation,
Pride at Work, Stonewall Democrats, the National Black
Justice Coalition, Parents, Families, and Friends of
Lesbians and Gays, and scores of state and local groups.
Tammy Baldwin’s staff relayed Representative
Baldwin’s opposition to this strategy and her
strong commitment to passing a bill that protects all
LGBT people. Indeed, from the start, Baldwin has
consistently maintained that we have the votes to pass
an inclusive ENDA and likely to fend off potential
Republican efforts to strip gender identity from the bill.
Throughout this
ordeal, Tammy Baldwin has shown extraordinary leadership
and courage, and she is fast emerging as our rising star in
Congress. Similarly, the Equality Federation, a
national coalition of state-based LGBT groups, has
emerged as a powerful new leader at the federal level.
In the past two weeks, the Equality Federation was able to
mobilize more than 55 state groups from 43 states to
oppose a noninclusive bill and to generate thousands
of e-mails, phone calls, and visits with congressional
representatives. Never before has the full power and
geographic diversity of the LGBT grassroots movement
been so dramatically in evidence. NGLTF has also
played a welcome new leadership role by coordinating the
efforts of other LGBT and allied groups in an
extremely nimble and effective campaign.
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Shannon Minter is the legal director for the National
Center for Lesbian Rights.