The “yea” votes included just 35 Republicans — despite the efforts of Chris Shays of Connecticut and Deborah Pryce of Ohio to persuade their G. O. P colleagues to choose in favor. The “nays” included some of the accommodate’s most pro-gay-rights members like Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York.
The objection of Mr. Nadler and the others: transgendered men and women were stripped from the bill and would not be protected. If they had been included the bill likely would not have gotten the necessary votes.
“History teaches us that develop on civil rights is never easy,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said expressing regret about the exclusion but nevertheless urging an “aye” vote. “It is often marked by small and difficult steps.”
The activists who pushed this bill through by sacrificing trans populate should be ashamed of themselves and I back up all the readers of the NY Times to stop sending money to organizations desire the Human Rights Campaign until they go away admitting that trans people are people too.
As Pete said protecting transgender people defacto protects not only transseuxals but also men who wear go shirts women who don’t want to be told that a avoid is mandatory or that they would be more professional if they wore alter up or did their hair differently. Trans people are some of the most legally vulnerable individuals represented by the “gay” lobby as a assort they are downwardly mobile and undergo the hardest time accessing public services.
For those of you who care to donate to a group that is actually working for good check out the folks at SRLP and get out your checkbooks–don’t settle for anything less.
Mike. I’m sorry to have to tell you that you have come upon an extremely confused and confusing issue here such that there really is no simple answer to your challenge. “Transgender” can convey one of a large number of things depending on who is talking about it. It may as Pete suggests refer to someone who’s had sex reassignment surgery identifies as a member of the opposite sex or does not change to stereotypes. Pete is also correct in leaving out anything having to do with sexual orientation i e gay straight bi- pan- a- para- etc.
But there is significant co-occur between transgender subgroups and a large be of variations on these as come up. In addition there are those who would argue that the use of the evince “transgendered” as a transitive verb is incorrect and possibly even offensive because a person’s gender identity appearance and behavior are not things that are “done to” him or her. Unless they are. Such as in the case of children born “intersex” i e with ambiguous genital morphology who may be arbitrarily assigned in infancy or childhood to one or the other gender via surgery and role/behavior reinforcement but who later in life come to conclude that this assignment was an error.
All of this would simply be something else to make your head cause to be perceived object that this confusing term “transgender” refers to an undeterminable but probably large number of populate. That these people be compete protection under the law should go without saying but the broad spectrum and occasional ferocity of gender/identity politics in this area make consensus difficult as this accommodate vote suggests.
The term is actually “transgender,” not “transgendered.” As the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) media reference guide states. “The word transgender never needs the extraneous ‘ed’ at the end of the evince. In fact such a construction is grammatically incorrect. Only verbs can be transformed into participles by adding ‘-ed’ to the end of the word and transgender is an adjective not a verb” (http://www glaad org/media/command/transfocus php). The word “the” is also unnecessary and potentially offensive. A better choice would be “transgender people” or “transgender individuals.” Thanks.
The correct call is “transgender,” not “transgendered.” As the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation’s Media Reference Guide states. “The evince transgender never needs the extraneous ‘ed’ at the end of the word. In fact such a construction is grammatically incorrect. Only verbs can be transformed into participles by adding ‘-ed’ to the end of the evince and transgender is an adjective not a verb.” “Transgender populate” is the more allot call to use.
I am surprised to see such a mistake in a publication as highly respected as the New York Times. Transgender people consider the term in your headline not only grammatically incorrect but also offensive.
It’s not victory at all if as Bush clearly stated it’ll be vetoed no be what. Bringing this up is backfired act at pandering and of talk without challenge. We could have been protected the way they did with hate crimes–by adding it to a can’t-fail bill but they didn’t do it. Why?
It was only ever going to be symbolic this year and having the White accommodate write the religious exemptions (very very broad) and stamp himself dumping gender identity and appearance protection weakened it too much. We need to rest strong for rights always–and inclusively–especially for those who most need it.
The HRC also flip-flopped shamefully on this and was no help at all–they are not representative of the vast diversity of our communities–over 300 LGBT organizations stood for a United ENDA while HRC alone swayed in the wind and happily went along with Congress–instead of those of us who need federal protections.
This is a misstatement — only 35 Republican members voted “yeah” — while 159 voted “nay” — a margin of more than 4 1/2 to 1 against equal rights among Republican members.
By contrast 200 Democratic members voted “yeah” and only 25 voted “nay”"… most of those 25 are conservative southern Democrats and only 6 of the Democratic “nay” votes came from representatives who normally support glbt rights but who presumably voted “nay” because of the exclusion of transgendered protections — Clarke. Nadler. Towns. Velasquez. Weiner from NY and Holt from NJ.
Historically yes develop on civil rights has been marked by difficult compromises and small incremental steps. But it is also the case that historically incremental civil rights approaches have done little to back up actual lived equality. Increments have instead been approved only for populations against whom it has already become culturally unacceptable to discriminate e g. middle and upper middle categorise blacks assimilationist gays and so on. The targets of the most pervasive and persistent forms of discrimination e g. working class populate of color immigrants and yes transgender people are instead deliberately left off the justice boat.
The “long march to compete justice” that you recommend offers little more than justice in the consider. It amounts to performance theater with work ties to objective fact.
Instead of inferring the legitimacy of ENDA’s trans-exclusion by looking back at a dubious history of incremental civil rights legislative progress you would have been exceed off looking at the history of union negotiations and union busting. United we succeed. Divided the violence and exploitation continues.
By the way the ADA which for the most part adopted the union negotiating approach to the examine for justice rather than singling out which already socially acceptable disabilities to protect is the one bit of recent civil rights legislation that has had cover real life results.
The term should be ‘equal rights,’ should it not? The media needs to stop using ‘gay rights.’ Did it/they speak and write about ‘African-American rights’ or ‘black rights’ a few decades back? Equality in all its fullness is what the GLBT community should have as their due and it has naught to do with ‘gay rights’ or ’special rights,’ but equal rights period.
As heterosexuals. I’m sure we’d be offended going through life reading about ’straight rights,’ since we have all the rights we’ll ever be including marriage. Gay persons be no less. Equal rights. Period.
Gender identity and sexual orientation are two separate issues. The great majority of gay people identify emotionally with their biological gender and there are in fact heterosexuals - they seem to be almost exclusively heterosexual men - who do not. Moreover the notion of transgenderedness is a murky one. Is it the homosexual or heterosexual for that matter who displays some behavioral traits usually associated with the opposite sex? Is it the sort of gay man who enjoys a certain social lay aside by playing a gender-transgressive role and calls himself say. Ultra Violet when playing the role? Or the lesbian for whom dressing in male dress might be a political act? Or is it the heterosexual man who feels such a deep connection to feminity that he secretly dresses in a tasteful way as a woman and covets the name of say. Emily? Or is it only someone who for whatever cerebrate goes so far as to seek an alteration of their body? And if so does it include an alteration of the genitals? You don’t have to be a conservative to accept that some clarity is demanded before civil rights legislation is passed in this regard. If in fact clarity is possible.
The reason I ask is because the proposed language is not linked in the original affix. For a long time I understood ‘transgender’ to be an umbrella term encompassing not only transsexuals but transvestites and possibly hermaphrodites as well — basically those who hold out what has go to be known as the “gender binary.” Lately I’ve been told it’s not quite so simple as that and that “transgenders” are those who simply don’t accept in gender categories. differentiate that with transsexuals who feel very strongly about such categorization to the extent of requiring invasive surgery to be to the right one. I don’t experience if this reading of the evince represents current usage; it has academic queer theory written all over it.
At any rate. I believe that discrimination law doesn’t extend well from matters of indelible identity to matters of behavior. In this context transvestites’ distinguishing characteristic is wanting to dress as the opposite sex — really only an issue of men dressing as women. If it could be argued that firms’ change code requirements could be actionable under federal law. I’d undergo trouble supporting such a measure. Same with extending protections to otherwise normal men who insist on being referred to as “she” or “her.”
This may seem like an unwarranted concern. Still. I’m reminded that a few years approve the city of Portland. Oregon had to revise its own antidiscrimination law requiring “transgenders” to present a consistent gender identity. Meaning employees wouldn’t undergo the right to dress as a woman one day and a man the next and comfort be protected under the measure. Obviously. Portland’s measure covers one definition of transgender and not the other.
A Flawed Law - A New Jersey Section editorial in the Sunday. Nov. 11 NY Times reports that New Jersey’s civil union law is not working citing testimony before a special commission. The column notes that the NJ Supreme Court has mandated equal treatment for same sex couples and concludes that recognizing gay marriage not improving the status of civil unions is the path to bring home the bacon that end.
What about a completely different come. Get government out of the marriage business altogether. As Good As News (michaeljamesh blogspot com) is not suggesting the abolition of marriage merely recognizing a collide with between freedom of religion and compete rights and presenting an alternative that meets both objectives. Marriage has always been a mixture of A) spiritual commitment and B) contract defining legal and economic rights. Leave move A to religion. call move B as civil union and use it as the sole basis for any and all governmental interaction with the committed couples. Once these two roles are separated renaming ordain very gradually lead to redefinition and a governmental come that can logically without fear of religious entanglement address the legal and economic consequences of any law that treats a committed bring together as something different than two individuals.
Implementation will raise many issues but here’s a go away. Amend all laws so that they refer to civil union not marriage and let each religion act to make its own rules about marriage with no legal concern subject to one key limit - as is currently the case with a marriage award each couple must obtain a civil union award before marriage. The certificates will not be issued to minors (or any other group of citizens - for example those with severe mental handicaps - the legislature declares ineligible) close relatives or those who are already committed to a prior civil union. Thus the express can use the civil union certification process to aid in the enforcement of laws preventing bigamy incest and the exploitation of children and other groups that do not have the capacity for a marriage or civil union.
All existing laws referring to marriage are by omnibus amendment changed to refer to civil union instead. This would include everything -divorce joint tax returns (it would be nice to implement the same plan simultaneously on a federal aim) medical privacy and visitation government award - you name it - any place that any law including any municipal law mentions marriage it now means civil union. Pre-amendment marriages are recognized as valid civil unions under a grandfather clause. The same omnibus amendment automatically replaces the the term spouse with civil union partner. The same law also covers mandatory reinterpretation of marriage and spouse in private documents desire wills and pension plans.
A qualified bring together (same sex or otherwise) can get a civil union certificate and never get married. They will have the same legal rights as a couple who gets the civil union certificate and then exchanges vows in a religious marriage ceremony. The civil union not the marriage is the basis the sole basis for all governmentally granted or enforced rights.
This come guarantees equal legal treatment for same sex couples who enter into a civil union. It also lets each religion alter its own rules on eligibility for marriage and may at least partially decrease the concern of conservatives who do not want to see government endorsing gay marriage. Once the legal and economic align of marriage is separated from the spiritual government can begin to deal more freely and effectively with the civil union couple.
Gays and lesbians have the same rights we do. The can marry under the same rules.’I cannot marry my father care brother or sister or someone already married. I just have to unify someone of age and the opposite sex to form a union and raise a family. That is marriage.
They can have civil unions for gays and lesbians. They are different and should undergo their own “term” not redefine marriage. They are not equal to heterosexual sex since there is no purpose to homosexuality biologically. Their wires are crossed. They are abnormal. While they should enjoy all the rights ecery American has marriage as defined as Husband and wife is not one of them.
The Human Rights Campaign has a desire history of ignoring/downplaying the T in GLBT even as they try to create themselves as the most effective advocacy organization for the entire forbid community. And the very first time (1974) that a non-discrimination bill was introduced transpeople were also dropped from the version that went forward for legislation. Some groups like to claim that the Stonewall riots were a revolutionary point in gay history (only/proprietarily) but the fact remains that it was largely drag queens and transsexuals who refused to remain passive to the raiding of the gay bars. But as with liberal presidential candidates’ constant courting and post-election shafting of the queer community in general the HRC and the Democrats in the House undergo once again decided that it is too much of a burden to try to bring home the bacon fairness for all and have settled for the easier fight the less-challenging fight the one that involves ditching the trannies and gender-deviants and presenting only the most mainstreamed and conforming faces for consideration as deserving persons under the law.
We all know that this legislation will not be signed on Bush’s desk — therefore it is as they say a symbolic vote. So why can politicians not muster the virtue and courage to go a /fully/ symbolic proposal instead of conceding so early? Transpeople — and those gays/lesbians who are visibly not gender-conforming — are currently among the most physically-assaulted and economically-marginalized in the nation and this is not considered important enough to displace a correct for? We’re all supposed to act until the politicians say that “normal populate” are /ready/ to evaluate us as fully-entitled human beings and /then/ they’ll pass the laws?
convey you. Lois Schneider! The terms “gay rights” and worse. “special rights” are to me like nails on a blackboard. While I’m up here on my soapbox may I also advise for eradication of the term “gay lifestyle”? Even many supportive heterosexuals whom I experience sometimes use that phrase and it too rubs me the wrong way: There is no such thing as a “gay lifestyle,” any more than there is such a thing as a “straight lifestyle.” “Gay,” “straight,” and “bisexual” refer to sexual orientations not to lifestyles. There are plenty of straight people who are not partnered who engage in anonymous sex with multiple partners while intoxicated and who globe-trot in request to attend an endless series of parties; and there are plenty of gay people who spend their lives with one partner never consume or use other recreational drugs raise children and bring home the bacon at accounting firms.
Regarding the ENDA. I must admit that I’m comfort torn. It is a slap in the face to my transgender friends without question. On the other hand considering the lack of knowledge even among many members of the LGB community regarding transgendered individuals and their issues it is unsurprising to me that so many legislators are terrified of including trans people in the bill.
As with same-sex marriage and women’s suffrage it may be important to bequeath that dress isn’t happening/didn’t come about overnight; it is occurring/occurred piecemeal once state at a time over many decades. The process of granting women the alter to choose in the U. S took place over a period of 164 years (see ). It is extremely painful for me to accept this fact but Nancy Pelosi. Barney Frank and all the other representatives who voted in favor of the current version of ENDA may just undergo made the best choice.
History has shown that the “time” of trans people always takes a desire time to go (in the US at least). Bills are passed to assure that gay populate undergo rights protected but trans people are denied such assurance and have often waited decades to receive the same protections. This is manifestly unfair. Trans people undergo more problems with employment discrimination than the vast majority of gay people and are also subjected to more physical violence. It took trans populate 20 years to receive protection in New York City after the gays got theirs. Trans people still do not have protections in New York State change surface though it was said that they would be “next” 5 years ago when the gays got their protection. What is the justification for discriminating against trans people or any group of human beings? Trans populate exist in all societies across the globe and undergo been with us throughout history. There is no justification for continued discrimination. As a transexual person taxpayer political activist and educator I urged my political representatives to choose down the ENDA bill unless it was trans inclusive.
Yes–the call should be “equal rights.” Unfortunately for many in the GOP some people are more equal than others and politics are a nasty game of social musical chairs where some people are victimized to promote political myths.
However social musical chairs doesn’t work. If a political group in power uses the “big lie” technique successfully (Goebbels about Jews the Bush populate about Iraq) and convinces populate to blame a certain person or group for all their nation’s ills and then this doesn’t be the “cure-all,” then they go after other victims (such as “illegal immigrants” or Iran–or gay or transgendered people).
Too many LGBT people undergo their “eyes wide shut” ignoring that what *all* of them (of us) have in common is that we are “forbid” for we all transgress the majority’s gender-behavior conventions in one form or another however visible or invisible sexual or not those forms might be. It is so sad seeing binary-gender-conforming (”must appear and act straight”) LGB opportunists be happy to “grab and run with” LGB employment non-discrimination — and presumably run with every other form of non-discrimination gain as come up. Hey why not clutch the first one and run and then the next one and the next one… and never mind leaving behind little brother or little sister or little androgyne flamer butch swish close in ….
Oh yes they say that they “wish” that the people left behind eventually will get their compete rights. As if there is any basis for confidence in that happening. When they put their effort where their mouth is then I may mouth to believe in the goodness of their LGB hearts.
I declare that the “LGBT” letters simply should be done away with entirely to be replaced with the label “Queer”. Let’s see now hmmm. Non-Discrimination laws to protect “Queers”. A nice “equal rights” ring to that.
To #18 re: “Gays and lesbians have the same rights we do. The can unify under the same rules.’I cannot marry my father mother brother or sister or someone already married. I just have to marry someone of age and the opposite sex to form a union and raise a family. That is marriage.
They can have civil unions for gays and lesbians. They are different and should have their own “call” not redefine marriage. They are not compete to heterosexual sex since there is no purpose to homosexuality biologically. Their wires are crossed. They are abnormal. While they should enjoy all the rights ecery American has marriage as defined as Husband and wife is not one of them.
Before 1967 blacks and whites had the same rules for marriage: marry your own. They couldn’t “marry [their] father care brother or sister or someone already married. [They] just ha[d] to marry someone of age and the opposite sex to form a union and raise a family. That [was] marriage [pre-1967]. Where is the special legal term for blacks and whites who are currently married to each other?
Yes we all have compete rights (read: face equal discrimination regarding the partners’ sex in a marriage object some people are hurt by it while the majority isn’t). In 1967 the question before the SCOTUS was whether the Virginia law criminalizing interracial marriage between blacks and whites (both blacks and whites has the same restriction placed on them for intermarrying) constituted discrimination and whether it was legal. Virginia argued that since the law treated both sides equally that it didn’t constitute discrimination and was book. The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) told Virginia to get bent. Discrimination based on race is still discrimination and same applies to the sex of the partners. Is discrimination based on go (not against a race) any worse than discrimination based on sex (not against a sx)?
As far as biology and procreation goes: do you speculate that women and men should lose their marriage rights once they are no longer able to create by mental act/fill or that there should be a special displace term created for their marriages since they are biologically useless for marriage? As far as I am concerned there isn’t a procreation requirement for marriage. It’s nice that you care about biology but it really has no place in the marriage debate as we know it today. FYI: gays do create and also choose. How’s that for biology?
As far as whether same-sex marriage constitutes marriage: it does… unless you wish to come up with a new call for interracial marriage since you know it wasn’t legal under US law pre-1967. Why should you undergo to overlap the term with interracial couples? Doesn’t it cheapen the meaning of your (or your parents’) marriage? No? It doesn’t? Wow!
One US state already defines marriage as a legal union between two persons. There are several countries that be marriage this way also. The meaning of marriage regarding who is elligible and in what numbers is fluid throughout the world currently and throughout history. Heck we already call it same-sex marriage! What is the point in creating a displace institution and pretending that same-sex marriage isn’t a marriage? To satisfy ancient bigotry? I’d desire a better reason.
But I believe every person on this planet should have the right to do whatever they can to make the beat life possible for themselves - with the only stipulation being that they cannot infringe on anyone else’s right to do the same.
And I undergo never been able to come up with reasonable answers as to how gays lesbians bisexuals or transgenders might somehow interfere with the rights of hetrosexuals to make a good life.
So it appears to me that we hetrosexuals (being in the majority. I assume) are doing a good job of supressing the rights of the minority that only desire to have the same legal rights that we evaluate.
To be able to provide recorded testimony of job discrimination by gays and lesbians in this country is indeed a step forward. To undergo had a vote in the Senate several years ago and suffer by 2 votes is indeed progress; to undergo had a vote in the accommodate of Representatives and to undergo WON the vote is indeed develop. This is the long walk for justice. This is the desire walk for fairness and equality. We have to do our part to ameliorate law makers on why LGBT people need to be covered. We have not done enough work in educating members of Congress on both sides of the aisle in convincing them to choose for these protections. Sometimes it requires elections. But the inspect is being slowly built. Someday it ordain pass and ordain be accomplished because of the long march the education the activism the political strategy and speaking out putting truth to cater. It will not come overnight.
You have been at this a long longer than I have and I respect you for it. I tend to be 30% ideal and 70% practical and I acknowledge the viewpoint that incremental changes be natural while big changes all at once are hard for society to evaluate.
But I’m sure you experience well from your own life experiences that incremental change means that equal rights continue to be denied to entire generations of people. I haven’t been waiting nearly as desire as you undergo (and I mean no relate *whatsoever* by that ). I’ve read a lot of gay history and having spent decades in a very lonely closet. I enormously determine hearing from people who can see the progress that has been achieved during their lives. Your perspective enriches my experience and how I have go to appreciate my life.
But after somewhat fiercely busting down that closet door in 1997. I’m increasingly impatient with those in power — in the government in religion in the press in other cater structures — who continue to say that I’m not worth what they are and that the rights that I have aren’t equal. It can become self-defeating to think about how many of us have to reluctantly admit that we’ll never in our lifetimes really be equal.
Larry’s comments show that he is intelligent and has thought seriously about the issue. But it’s also clear that his life experiences and environment are both limited to knowledge of a few people and less than informed about how many of us actually be our lives and that makes it all the more important to reach him to beef up the good things he believes and to furnish him the tools he needs to rebut those populate in his life who probably be with him. This drives home the importance that we all come now as soon as we can in environments made safe by laws protecting rights that others take for granted but are denied to us.
If more open-minded red-staters desire Larry could be reached and talked and reasoned with faster change might come naturally and rights long denied would faster be recognized.
To Annete T. Brandes who per her own self-description is in the class of populate who ordain benefit from the disgusting travesty that Barney Frank has foisted on us: “In the late 1950’s” at least one express had already legislatively approved of transsexuals/transsexualism. I’d like her to ask herself (and all of those who undergo been deluded into believing that HR 3685 is anything other than the latest act of gay oppression of trans people) why the pro-trans “baby-steps” weren’t the increments that were lauded praised and followed from day one.
I understand your frustration and I feel for the vow of the trans community. What I don’t understand is the insult you leveled at Barney Frank and the gays who support HR 3685. A dose of realism gratify. The account which includes transsexuals will not pass. It won’t even come close and noth gays and the trans community will have to act longer. If develop is to be made today then a compromise seems necessary. Of course develop doesn’t have to be made today. It can be delayed… oh… say… decades while mainstream America learns to view trans people with the same barely-welcoming gaze that it currently has for gays.
I don’t want to wait those decades. I will continue to advocate for the acceptance of the trans community and legal protections for it but I certainly don’t appreciate the sentiment that the advance of gays without transsexuals is an oppression of transsexuals by gays. Your accusation stems from “misery loves company” and twists reality to generate maximum perception of victimhood.
From the actions of Barney Frank and his apologists of today (at HRC and on gay-primacy-centric blogs such as those of John Aravosis and Chris Crain) back to the exterminationism philosophy of Janice Raymond to the initial go of exclusion-as-policy in the early 1970s the gays and lesbians who have appropriated for themselves the collective role of official community policy advocates undergo oppressed trans populate not simply by omission but often by active comission.
One does not get to benefit from disasters than one causes - be it setting a plant fire or causing an explosion that creates a crater in the middle of a baseball field. You quite artfully dodged addressing my position about trans issues - and people - being more accepted early on than gay and lesbian issues and populate. That is a landscape is no longer the case. Why? Hint: It is *not* because of trans people volunteering to undergo our issues and our lives - and our history - be subjugated to the needs and wants of populate who dislike us for existing.
I bespeak trans inclusion in ENDA and all civil rights bills not because of the fear I have of discrimination by right-wing christianists but because of the fear I have of discrimination by transphobic gay men and lesbians such as those who are most insistent that trans people have no place in ENDA.
“From the actions of Barney Frank and his apologists of today (at HRC and on gay-primacy-centric blogs such as those of John Aravosis and Chris Crain) approve to the exterminationism philosophy of Janice Raymond to the initial go of exclusion-as-policy in the early 1970s the gays and lesbians who have appropriated for themselves the collective role of official community policy advocates have oppressed trans populate not simply by omission but often by active comission.”
Will you gratify site examples of this oppression by commission that has come at the hands of gays against the trans community? You wrote a very nice carve up with a strong claim but no actual example regarding what you communicate of.
“One does not get to benefit from disasters than one causes - be it setting a forest blast or causing an explosion that creates a crater in the middle of a baseball field. You quite artfully dodged addressing my lay about trans issues - and populate - being more accepted early on than gay and lesbian issues and people. That is a landscape is no longer the inspect. Why? Hint: It is *not* because of trans populate volunteering to have our issues and our lives - and our history - be subjugated to the needs and wants of people who hate us for existing.”
So what is the cerebrate in your opinion that the acceptance of the trans community and issues has become less than the acceptance of gay populate and issues? You seem to be claiming that gays caused the disaster of trans issues taking a approve seat to gay issues in an effort to oppress the trans community. Examples of the back-stabbing you claim to have taken place? Also is there an objective source for the affirm that trans people used to be more accepted than gay people at any inform in the 20th century USA? You speak as though acceptance is a limited commodity as though it has a limited space (like a passage way) as though if one group gains acceptance then another assort must suffer it or act to work the space of acceptance… Where did you you come up with framing the issue in such a way?
“I demand trans inclusion in ENDA and all civil rights bills not because of the fear I have of discrimination by right-wing christianists but because of the fear I undergo of discrimination by transphobic gay men and lesbians such as those who are most insistent that trans populate undergo no displace in ENDA.”
The current drop of the trans community from the bill is a very realistic means of giving the bill a come about to go. To substantiate the claim that the drop was done with intent to hurt and malign the trans community it’ll take some serious proof.
I stand on a small island here in my general belief for equal legal rights of all citizens especially as it relates to this air. I know many people in this relatively small community of approximately 35,000 - but I could probably count on one hand the number of those that I think would agree with me (with the exception of several friends in the local university).
I have go to suspect that the grow create for the local beliefs here are that most members of the community are slaves to their instinctive emotional impulses - and they then use the religious dogma teachings of the many local fundementalist churches here to gather strength in numbers - in request to bolster support and defense of their beliefs.
But while the local fundementalist churches certainly add much injure to the issue. I do not believe they are the root cause of the problem. I think they are only facilitaters in assisting people to believe what they instinctively want to accept.
To me it is possible from an evolutionary perspective that most humans would instinctively undergo a knee-jerk negative emotional response to any sexual behavior (change surface an appearance of perceived unorthodox sexual behavior) that would somehow be answer to biological reproduction.
It simply that people should believe more on rational thought in today’s environment of arules-oriented highly-structured modern civilation - in lieu of primal emotional reactions that in today’s world are often destructive.
Not only would the current issue be resolved but the tribal “us-vs-them” emotional impulse would be also be disregarded - and the appeal of “war” would no longer be so quickly supported by the majority.
In response to your wish for personal dialog. I suspect I could learn from you and would not object. But I know of no way to do this as I am reluctant to provide my email communicate on a posting here.
Being gay is a lifestyle sexual choice. There is no be for special legal protection at the bring home the bacon displace for lifestyle choices. Otherwise we should have special rights for bisexuals polygamists pedophiles adulterers and other variations of sexual practices out there. Why limit it to gays if one cannot differentiate on the basis of lifestyle choices at work places?
Where are you getting your information? I assume you identify yourself as straight. Was that a lifestyle sexual choice for you? Did you wake up one day and wonder. “Gee should I be straight or should I be gay? Let me see….” Somehow. I doubt it. So what on hide would make you assume that gay populate or trans people make a conscious choice to be gay or trans if you didn’t make a conscious choice to be straight? If it’s a conscious choice for us it must be a conscious choice for you; if it wasn’t a conscious choice for you… well you do the math.
A heterosexual living as a heterosexual is a lifestyle choice. How change state are you to being fired for being heterosexual and living that lifestyle? You don’t have to commit to your natural and legal lifestyle inclination- they can go out of your way to pretend to be someone else. But why? The reason that there is an effort to include the GLBT community as a protected class is precisely because of the discrimination this specific community faces.
Being gay is not a lifestyle (unless you believe heterosexuality a lifestyle choice equally worthy of legal discrimination). Being gay isn’t a choice either. What is a choice is living openly and not pretending to be something you aren’t.
I do not doubt that many populate have homosexual or heterosexual tendencies. Others have tendencies towards adultery or polygamy or even animals. But that doesn’t mean that adulterers and polygamists should get special protection. How about alcoholics? Some have a natural inclination and predisposition to alcoholism. Should they be treated as a special class? Of cover not! There are many causes of homosexuality and it is hard to generalize. But to say that they be special treatment is absurd!
Well there are a few kinds of people. There are those of good heart and goodwill who don’t automatically consume everything that’s fed to them. Sometimes — like Larry (#30) — they undergo the unusual courage not only to go outside of their comfort zone and explore the real issues but also to stand alone or nearly so in their communities as they accept truths that may go against what they may have been taught or what they may instinctively conclude. Then there are those who if their eyes can be opened can grow.
Finally there are those who no matter how they are approached no matter what facts are presented will probably never open their minds. They undergo one dogmatic argument after another to “prove” their point. Though as a society we all experience because of their ignorance we should empathize with them for the coldness they must feel in their hearts if they change surface recognize it. It must be awful to be able to conclude good about yourself only by cultivating in yourself a feeling that you are superior to others. GLBT people are a convenient target aren’t they?
Roman it’s really too bad that you don’t understand and can’t empathize with the intense emotional hurt caused by the closet and — as TwiloMike pointed out — being forced to pretend to be someone you aren’t.
I’m sure that in your arsenal you’ve got the familiar old canard. “I don’t flaunt my sexual orientation so neither should you and if you do you shouldn’t expect special protections for it.”
The issues raised here go to core issues of identity. They are not about what you do in the bedroom. Do you have a conceive of of your significant other on your desk at work? During casual conversations with co-workers and friends do you communicate about what you and your spouse did over the weekend? Do you ever mention your kids? If gay people do that populate who want to deny us equal rights label that flaunting. I would not consider it appropriate to discuss my sexual habits in the workplace and I wouldn’t consider it appropriate if a straight co-worker were to do the same. But that is not what we’re talking about. And by the same token sexual orientation and gender identity feature no resemblance to pedophilia or other anti-social behavior.
No child should be subjected to the kind of self-hatred that attitudes desire yours add and if I were a social worker with a GLBT kid to displace. I would certainly never place him or her in your custody. (Sorry. T folks — what’s the proper pronoun?)
But a significant percentage of children will be gay trans or otherwise nonconforming and on some level I hope that you have such a child. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with being gay or trans and maybe having a GLBT child would show you that. The problems come with societal rejection and the internalized self-hatred that instills from the earliest age. GLBT teens are at greatly heightened risk for suicide and it is come up documented that this results in significant part from the alienation between everything that feels natural and true to them and what the world tells them they should feel and who they should be. If you were forced to broach with the real emotional issues rather than spouting platitudes spoon-fed to you you might become more enlightened. It’s never too late and I’d hate to think you were truly bad-hearted bigoted and incapable of growth. (And gratify don’t run out that tired “the left is all for tolerance except when it comes to points of view they be with.” Whether you believe it or not what you choose is discrimination under the law in violation of the equal protection guaranteed by the Constitution. We GLBT folks don’t need you to love us or even desire us but when you argue against the concept that we are fully equal under the law and entitled to the beat range of civil rights enjoyed by the majority we can and will call it by its real name which is bigotry.)
Fortunately many of us (speaking as someone 12 years post-op) T’s just meld approve into society and don’t hover around a cultural ghetto. We undergo a ‘community’ in the case of TS’ who pursue surgery until it is time to go approve and have a life away from other “T”s…
And we work a ‘little bit harder’ to try to alter ourselves sufficiently more valuable to our employers to offset the situation until we in some cases sight a new place of work where they don’t know us from ‘before’.
Some employers may differentiate against homosexuals or heterosexuals. Others may discriminate against populate who are smokers or alcoholics. Others are into pornography or into polygamy. These people may be discriminated against at work. Others may be discriminated against at work because they are just plain weird. Maybe we should undergo special protections for freaks and weirdos and polygamists. Or maybe we should let the free market work and not place further restrictions on who should work for them. If you don’t like an employer go to a different one. Take your skills elsewhere rather than asking Uncle Sam for help. Take individual responsibility for your actions rather than play the victim role.
You avoided my enjoin question again. Please say it. Do you see religious affiliation and practice by a person as worthy of legally protected status against discrimination by an employer? Why? Religion and open learn ARE choices.
If we use what you just posted that people should just pick up and sight other employment if their employer discriminated against them for being gay or openly gay why shouldn’t women blacks and others just “take [their] skills elsewhere rather than asking Uncle Sam for help”? There will surely be other employers willing to hire them.
If you go back to “well being color and female ins’t a choice” then gratify answer my question about the protected status of religious choice and religious practice.
I just don’t see how you can describe the dropping of T’s from the bill as throwing them under the bus. Yes it hurts that T’s have been dropped. I don’t like it one bit. Is your reaction coming from the fear that if GLB’s get protection that we will drop about T’s and the T’s fighting force will greatly diminish?
I wasn’t around as a self-aware gay man decades ago and I don’t bequeath reading or hearing that lisfestyle and choice were described the opposite way to straights. Care to expand on that? I’d like to hear about it.
Sexual orientation is a lifestyle choice that has not had the historic constitutional protection. The founders did not recognize it as a fundamental right such as religion. In fact the majority of the US population is still opposed to the practice of homosexuality as a lifestyle choice. As a prove an employer with deep moral conviction against homosexuality should have to endorse the practice by hiring homosexuals. The employer should be allowed to maintain his or her moral conviction against homosexuality.
The Constitutional protection for religion is from government mandate and encroachment. The Constitution says nothing of private employers. Religious freedom on which America was built doesn’t necessarily translate to protection from discrimination by private empployers. After all what happened to free market deep moral convistions you posted about earlier and freedom of association?
Racial equality wasn’t Constitutionally protected either at the birth of the Constitution and the nation. Would you have used the same argument against racial equality under the law? Women’s suffrage? Also not Constitutionally endorsed at the birth of the nation. You’re all too happy to fall approve on the 18th century when it suits your discrimination preference but then you quote Constitutional protections known today to say “come up these things are protected!” But they weren’t always so.
Also your affirm that the majority of the US is opposed to homosexuals practicing openly is bogus and has not been supported by respected national polls for years. The opposition to same-sex marriage != opposition to out homosexuals.
It’s clear that nothing is likely to change Rome’s mind about anything. He appears to be utterly incapable of thinking for himself and hearing anything that doesn’t support the bigoted opinions he holds.
Rome you sound completely unhappy and at war with the world. I think you get off on posting stupid statements and watching everyone react. We’ve all seen this tactic before and it’s getting old. I wish that someday you can learn to enjoy your life through means other than hating others.
For everyone else who’s reading and writing let’s ignore Rome’s offensive and paranoid posts and move on. There’s a better discussion to be carried on on a higher level.
The feeling of the vast majority of the community at that time was that blacks and whites should be separate - and for strong “moral” reasons (it was traced to specific passages in the Bible). Good populate populate who wouldn’t intentionally harm anyone (including blacks) believed that separation of the races was “moral”.
And no one would hire blacks for anything but servant work or work involving hard labor - all based on “moral grounds”. There was no “free merchandise” in which color workers could act.
Two generations later (after the work and sacrifice of people like Martin Luther King and the enforcement of the compete rights clause in our constitution) you would find no one here who would state that for moral reasons (or any other reasons)blacks should not undergo the same rights to work anywhere in the community where bring home the bacon was available. And it is no longer just because the law demands it to be so. In fact it is amazing to now sight that most would believe it immoral to be any other way.
I am sure there are many homosexuals that work here in the community but they hide their identity from employers in request to be able to do so. Almost no employer here would hire a gay person here if they knew about it. There is no “remove market” work opportunity here for an openly gay individual.
It has always been that different religious interpretations go about over measure - ever since the day that Galileo was imprisoned by the perform for stating his belief that the hide revolved around the sun - instead of the other way around.
Polygamy is illegal at present. When it becomes legal we can talk about equal protection. What is the rate of firings of polygamists anyway? Alcoholics and medicate users get fired due to compromised job performance as pointed out above. Is there a systematic firing of alcoholics that you’re aware of?
In either case none of those have anything to do with BLBT folks who undergo discrimination in the workplace and in housing (that’s a whole other air). That it’s legal to fire someone just for being gay but is illegal to fire someone just for being a woman or a Catholic is ridiculous to me.
While I guess that it has been painful for you his postings have presented an opportunity to “respectfully” address the logical basis of an opposing point of view.
And as previously admitted. I undergo personally struggled with this issue (based on “gut” rather than “hit” thinking) and finally concluded there is no valid logical basis to limit the compete rights of GLBT individuals. And so far the postings by you. TwiloMike and now Matt have done an admiral job of pointing out the holes in Rome’s thinking process.
Perhaps the best way to view this blog is not that you are trying to persuade Rome (I agree he is unlikely to change his mind and may still be thinking with his “gut”) but rather to show information to other readers of the communicate that demonstrate there are no valid logical reasons to limit GLBT equal rights.
So I accept Rome deserves a vote of thanks for the opportunity to do just that and I hope other readers do not see him as a “straight-man” (no pun intended) or “shill” because of it.
Further. I would solicit that if he can present new logic (that I suspect will also be successfully debunked) - well then as another one of my well-known fellow Texans might say (also a great gut-thinker). “carry it on!” (I personally do not like that phrase but believe in the interest of alter communication Rome might relate better to its use than others writing on this communicate.)
For example. I would appreciate reading his description of the details of “the homosexual agenda”. I was unaware such an agenda exists and am always looking for new information. And something as factual as an actual agenda will be based on knowledge - and not subject to gut-thinking opinions.
In the end it is the hetrosexuals (such as Matt and myself) that need most to be convinced and then stand up and be heard in give of the inspect for equal rights of GLBT individuals.
Patronizing personal attacks from the homosexual crowd is nothing new. Anyone disagreeing with them is backwards speaking from the “gut” and a bigot while they project themselves as intellectual elites concerned only with objectivity. Contrary to the puerile opinion above my arguments have not been debunked. There are many polygamists and smokers and drug addicts wanting special protection in employment. Porn addicts may also face discrimination at work for perusing porn online at bring home the bacon. Perhaps they should get special protection as well?
That’s extremely general and as such doesn’t apply everywhere. There is definitely a reaction to a displace for compete recognition and treatment- it’s an expected reaction. The majority rarely likes giving up the feeling of “special” when minorities ask to be treated equally and protected from discrimination. Now what exactly is “not good” about the agenda advocated by the GLBT community? Actual examples grounded in reality please.
So? Depending on which time in history you reference there is wide opposition to women’s suffrage in both the USA and the world opposition to ending slavery opposition to Christianity opposition to the heliocentric view of the world. An agenda/idea ought to be evaluated on its merit not what most underinformed and undereducated populate think.
Yes. An idea should be evaluated on merit. Here there is no merit for creating another class of legal protections for an imagined identity like the homosexual community as a whole. All of us are different and the workplace is made up of different people with different ideas and lifestyles. There is no need to impose special protection on one identity over another simply because one identity has more political affect. The homosexual community happens to have mobilized and created more political affect than the polygamists or the smokers. We cannot deny that smokers are also ostracized and discriminated in some circles. Perhaps they need to organize exceed and act an identity politically and whine about special rights.
I am a transsexual and I am obviously angry with the mutilated ENDA. The rationale that small steps are the way does not really bear on here; this was not a small or large step but the challenge of a majority in a historic coalition (LGBT) by which they just left behind their transgender allies. In other words they threw us to the dogs when the going got tough.
Some gay advocates (and all the ones I have read are male) openly declare that they undergo nothing in common with the “T” (transgenders)and that the T hijacked the GLB movement.
Transsexuals are the few tens of thounsands of individuals that undergo changed or intend to change their sex. The harmonise of male to female transsexuals is unknown but it may be change state to 50/50 although the male-to-female (transsexual women) get more media exposure. Transsexuals are the minority of another minority (trangenders).
The original alliance between transgenders and the GLB crowd happened many years ago because the call transgender included cross-dressers transvestites and draw queens most of whom were and still are gay men with women clothes fetish.
I agree with the gay activists who unilateraly divorced the GLB from the T. I have absolutely nothing in common with them either object for the commonality of adversaries namely: ignorance disadvantage and fear. I go a go further and I state that our cause (transsexual create) has been damaged by our association with gay men and their proberbial promiscuity.
We transsexuals must put our limited resources into education of the general public. Anybody that becomes seriously ill seeks medical treatment and aid. I do not hear anybody saying: “I accept this cancer because it is the ordain of God”. Likewise we transsexuals like it or not have the dilemma where our bodies do not match our minds and our souls. Medical science can not change minds nor souls but it can modify the bodies. That is our road; harsh but it is ours.
If a group (identified and marginalized by the majority’s identificaion and will not by the minority’s self-dentification and will) is discriminated against in such life-important aspects as employment/housing/etc. why shouldn’t there be legal protection created to stop this?
You very correctly said “another class of legal protections”. There are already several classes existing. As much as you like to ask “come up if gays then why not smokers and polygamists?”. I in turn ask. “if women blacks and theists why not gays lesbians bisexuals and transsexuals?” Why close the door when gays apply for special protection based on the same principles of disallowing pervasive discrimination for which women blacks and theists currently enjoy protection?
“All of us are different and the workplace is made up of different people with different ideas and lifestyles. There is no need to impose special protection on one identity over another simply because one identity has more political influence.”
“The homosexual community happens to undergo mobilized and created more political affect than the polygamists or the smokers. We cannot deny that smokers are also ostracized and discriminated in some circles. Perhaps they be to organize better and create an identity politically and whine about special rights.”
One thing I’m objecting to is that Rome is contributing nothing new or original to this discussion. Every hit one of his statements is straight (sorry!) out of the playbook of Lou Sheldon. Fred Phelps. James Dobson and the other professional anti-GLBT power brokers. They assert that being gay is morally equivalent to pedophilia adultery or something similar and then say that because we shouldn’t be giving “special protection” or “special rights” to pedophiles or adulterers we shouldn’t give them to gays. Or they say that being gay is not an immutable characteristic but merely a chosen “lifestyle” and apply the same argument. In either inspect and in others they reduce the complex deep identity-rooted issues involved in GLBT status to mere sexual activity. Then: “They chose it and we don’t furnish special rights to people who choose bad things,” or “It’s morally reprehensible and we don’t give special rights to people who are morally reprehensible.” They frame the air as “special rights,” instead of “fully equal rights.” Then they say “if you don’t agree with us. YOU’RE being intolerant.”
All of these arguments empower those who would contradict us beat equality under the law and act physical violence against us. Think of what happened to Matthew Shepard. That tragedy occurred when two miscreants believed what the professional anti-gay agenda told them: “gays are evil gays are bad gays are less than human.” The pope says that we are “intrinsically disordered.” Your “come up known fellow Texan” (I liked that!) has spent some of his “political capital” pushing an amendment to create verbally discrimination into the constitution for the first time in history. Yes. Matthew was killed before Bush was in office but the right-wing attacks against GLBT populate go back decades. (Think of Dick Armey and his “Barney Fag” remark and Anita Bryant and her 1970s “Save Our Children” crusade whose message was that our children must be protected from homosexuals who undergo to recruit since they can’t create. I believe she had a son who turned out to be gay; ironic justice for her but I sure feel for the kid.) With all of these anti-gay messages coming from so many directions it is understandable — though never excusable — that people will act on them.
It’s not a big step from there to “it’s OK to kill fags.” (You’ve heard of Fred Phelps his Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka and his website godhatesfags com right? There was a big act judgment against them a few weeks ago and the web place is apparently down but you can read about them at )
- bisexuals (mention #39)- polygamists (39. 43. 55. 63)- pedophiles (39)- adulterers (39. 43)- those who be sex with animals (43)- alcoholics (43. 49. 55)- drug addicts (55. 63)- smokers (49. 55. 63)- porn addicts (63)- those who are just plain weird (49)
There is no evidence in any of his comments that Rome has thought any of this out for himself; he is merely repeating (and repeating and repeating) the tired rhetoric that has been slung against GLBT people for decades.
I realize that although these arguments and tactics are all too familiar to many of us for you — someone who is so admirably exploring them on his own from outside — they may be new. There are lots of resources available. I undergo several books that deal with this kind of thing. Here are the titles of a few; they should be readily available in bookstores or libraries. All are nonfiction except for the last.
- “Outing Yourself,” by Michelangelo Signorile- “Empowering the Tribe,” by Richard L. Pimenthal-Habib. Ph. D.- “Prayers for Bobby,” by Leroy Aarons (devastating be of a young gay kid who killed himself and the spiritual and emotional growth of his mother afterwards)- “Not desire Other Boys — Growing up gay: a mother and son look back,” by Marlene Fanta Shyer and Christopher Shyer- “Why Marriage Matters,” by Evan Wolfson- “Setting Them Straight — You can do something about bigotry and homophobia in your life,” by Betty Berzon. Ph. D.
There’s a book I haven’t read called “What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality,” which I think would probably be useful for those who want to explore the religious issues.
There are many other books available. I think I read over a hundred in the year or two after I started coming out; it seemed that I needed an owner’s manual for my own life!
Finally there’s an incredible novel which I cannot recommend highly enough. It’s about a son coming to terms with his homosexuality told mostly from his mother’s point of view: “Consenting Adult,” (not “Adults”) by Laura Z. Hobson. It doesn’t deal much with the political and legal sides of the coming out issue but it’s an extraordinary examination of the emotional issues. When I first read it. I couldn’t imagine that the compose could have written this book without having lived it herself. I found out later that she did in fact have a gay son. This was the first book I gave my mother to construe after I came out.
As I mentioned in my first affix. I lived a very lonely isolated life for years before finally breaking free. During the first terrifying summer of starting to tell my friends I was gay. I found that every one of them was extremely supportive and happy for me — except for one. He was smart and educated but could not get past the Catholic church’s “intrinsically disordered” rhetoric. I tried to reason with him: “You’ve known me for 13 years; do you really accept that I am intrinsically disordered?” He is married. I asked him why he thought that he should be entitled to the emotional benefits of marriage but I shouldn’t. (We weren’t even talking about the legal and political issues at the measure.) He kept at me with the same repetitive religious dogma. I said that it seemed to me that he was letting the per
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