by Sarah in Chicago
I just wanted to write a little bit about ENDA.
For those who don't live in the US, or are fucked up because they don't pay attention to politics, ENDA is the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which aims to add employment non-discrimination at the federal level to the LGBT community. Technically.
However, recently Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi, who are pushing the bill through congress, worried about the bill passing, posted a kind of ENDA-lite, where the T got dropped off the LGB. It also allowed larger exemptions for religious organisations. There had already been exemptions in there, but these ones would allow the fundies/evang. nutjobs to go to town with beating "Teh Gay" out of us, by trying to blindly ignore that we even exist.
Now, selfishness aside in regards to the exemptions, I personally find dropping trans-people from the bill morally repugnant.
And not just because I have trans-friends. But because they have been a part of 'Us' since the very fucking beginning. People forget that the riot that in the cultural imagination began the modern gay rights movement wasn't a gay or lesbian riot; it was fucking drag queens; it was a TRANS riot! Trans people have not just been fighting alongside us, they're not just allies of us, they ARE us!
Sure, not all trans people are LGB, but they are very much a part of our community. Being gay doesn't result in hate because we fuck the same sex, it results in hate because at its heart fucking the same sex is about disrupting gender norms, norms that the hegemonic cultural markers are HEAVILY invested in and police to ensure compliance with. We disrupt one of the fundamental organising principles in our society; gender, and we will get fucked because of it.
We get fucked because we are ALL trans to a certain extent, as queers. Now, that isn't minimising the particularities and specifics of the trans identity, because I would never be so crass as to claim the identity category, in much the same way as I won't take on the identity category pacific-islander, even though I technically am. Because, in being both white and lesbian, I exist in, or near to, the privileged category in regards to race and queerness.
But this doesn't negate what I am saying here. Trans people ARE us, they ARE an intrinsic part of our community. Including gender-identity and gender-expression/presentation in anti-discrimination legislation doesn't just protect trans individuals, it also protects those of us gays, lesbians, and bisexuals that don't quite fit exactly the ideal of hegemonic gender presentations in our society. The queeny gay-boy, the butch-lesbian, etc all get attacked as much for their gender-expression as for their sexuality. In fact, their sexuality becomes a part of their non-normative gender-expression.
Now, I understand fundamentally that politics is about compromising, and picking one's battles. The old cliché is that the best political solution is one where EVERYONE leaves the table pissed-off. Hence, for me, this means the issue isn't WHETHER one compromises in politics, but WHERE one compromises. One, in order to be effective in politics, needs to decide where one can draw the line, and where one should not. Where one can certainly compromise, and where one can not. To compromise everything is to lose everything, as your goals don't exist at that point.
And to me, and my values, that line that we don't cross is in adding discrimination to an anti-discrimination bill.
There is a wonderful quote by Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) in 'Star Trek: First Contact' (arguably one of the best Star Trek movies of all time) where he says in amongst a small monologue:
"We draw the line HERE. THIS FAR. NO FURTHER!"
(go read the rest of the monologue, I still get chills listening to it. And yes, I know he eventually compromises on it, but that doesn't negate the value in what he is saying, for what he actually does do is to rethink WHERE his line is, not if there is a line to draw).
We include trans people in ENDA; this is the point where we no longer fall-back. There will be no further compromises. To drop trans people from ENDA would not just be a compromise in politics, it would be a compromise in morals. As Al Gore says about global warming "This isn't a political issue, this is a moral issue".
Of course, it almost is a moot issue anyway. As Shrub The Ever Cowardly King has vowed to veto any such legislation, just like he's vowed to veto the expansion of the federal hate-crimes law should the House and Senate agree on a uniform version. However, to a certain extent, this makes passing a complete, full, and strong version, an original version, of ENDA, even more compelling, because then its symbolism truly has power, truly SAYS something, as we stand together, TOGETHER, against the sides of hate and intolerance, and have that snivelling little snot of a presidential-pretender stand for that hate and small-mindedness that would try to prevent our tide of equality. If it is to be a symbol, then let it be a symbol of all that is good in progressivism and liberalism; our tolerance and our diversity.
To Frank, Pelosi, and those waffling cowards in HRC (that are covering their ears to the ENTIRE rest of the LGBT political community who oppose this ENDA-lite), you are NO ally of mine if you push for this bill. You side with those snivelling worms that would deny us our rights because we make them uncomfortable. That think we are 'icky'.
To pass this watered down budweiser version of ENDA is a fucking moral failing of the most obvious and egregious variety.
I stand with trans people on this because they would, have, and do stand with me.
(Cross-posted.)
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