The House of Representatives passed a non-inclusive version of ENDA today. This is shameful in itself. There were three amendments that could have been debated today under the rules for debate passed by the Rules Committee on Monday, including the Baldwin amendment to restore gender identity protections. (In general, every bill that is considered by the House in Committee of the Whole has to have special rules approved by the Rules Committee for the bill to be considered by COW)

Congresswoman Baldwin amendment was introduced and was approved by voice vote. Congressman George Miller, who chairs the Labor Committee and controlled the debate for the Democrats, demanded a recorded vote (which would have been awesome to see by name who really supports full equality). At that point, the Chair, Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher, postponed further proceeding on whether or not to adopt the amendment, as she had done for the previous two amendments. 11 minutes later, the Baldwin amendment was unceremoniously withdrawn. The other two amendments were subsequently approved by recorded vote.

The bill passed the Committee of the Whole House by a vote of 235-184 at 6:35 PM Eastern. What I find perhaps most disappointing is the roll call vote. Congressman Grijalva, who just two weeks ago told me he would vote against the final bill if it did not include gender identity protections, voted with the majority. Congresswoman Giffords did not vote, and I actually prefer that action to the Congressman going back on his word.

In responding to the vast majority of the LGBT community who opposed the non-inclusive bill, Congressman Barney Frank had this to say:

"When people who are opposed to the basic bill and opposed to the amendment, lament the chance not to vote on an amendment which would undermine the bill, people should understand where we are. I filed the bill that included people who are transgendered. Earlier this year, I was very proud when this House passed a Hate Crimes bill that included transgender... The question we have is this: if we do not have the votes to go forward with as much as we would like to do, do we then abandon any effort, and do we allow those who are opposed to any progress at all in the anti-discrimination fight in this area to use a particular group as a way to prevent progress?"

Allow me to respond.

Ahem.

I fully understand "where we are", Congressman. Don't you dare patronize me. A spineless majority unwilling to stand up and do the right thing for a marginalized group instead looks out for the least threatening segment of that marginalized group. If you don't have the votes to go forward with an inclusive bill (I'd like to see your actual whip count, because I don't believe you lacked the votes you needed for a majority), you don't go forward at all. You don't throw the most vulnerable among us under the bus so you can get yours. This is not abandoning any effort. You offer a false dichotomy. There are plenty of other efforts to pursue on the path to full equality for all. Shame on you for oversimplifying and for being so damn selfish that you forget that you never would have received the privilege of running for Congress were it not for the seismic shift in public perception of LGBT Americans that was initiated by transgender individuals at Stonewall. Sylvia Rivera is spinning in her grave tonight. Standing together for our entire community, in solidarity, would have done a lot more in the name of progress than today's shameful vote.

The battle now moves to the Senate, where Ted Kennedy will introduce a version there. It's still not clear whether Senator Kennedy will introduce a similarly milquetoast bill, or one that actually gets the job done by protecting gender variant individuals.

Write to Congressman Frank and tell him he should be ashamed for sacrificing an entire segment of HIS community and for promoting a false dichotomy of progress.

Write to Congressman Grijalva and tell him you're disappointed in his decision to go back on his word to vote against a non-inclusive bill.

Write to Congresswoman Giffords and thank her for not voting for a bad bill.

Write to Senator Kennedy and urge him to introduce a version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that includes protections for gender identity and expression.

Labels: civil rights, ENDA, House of Representatives, human rights, LGBT, social justice

One quick correction: SONDA was signed into law in New York in 2002, not 2001. My bad. I was still part of a statewide coalition that lobbied hard for passage of that law, even though it didn't cover transgender individuals. I wasn't outspoken about my concerns then, a fact I regret to this day.

The coalition was led by the Empire State Pride Agenda, which in 2002 was headed by Matt Foreman. Foreman was a divisive leader back then, insisting that ESPA advocate for an incremental approach. He cut our transgender brothers and sisters out of the SONDA process so he and his fellow queers in khakis could get ahead. I remember sitting in awe in front of my work computer one day, staring at an e-mail he sent to the ESPA list talking about how cutting gender identity protections out of SONDA was no big deal because at least the gays would get rights (that's a very rough paraphrase, but the gist of how his e-mail came across).

I'm pleased to say that Foreman has since learned the error of his ways and, as Executive Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force has openly discussed his change of heart. His mea culpa completely rehabilitated my perception of him. And I've never been more proud to support the Task Force.

This makes HRC's betrayal of our community all the more nauseating. What other principles would those spineless weasels be willing to sacrifice? I can't even find the words for the bile I feel for those Judases right now. If Matt-fucking-Foreman can come to realize that we all deserve equality and justice, why can't they?

Labels: ENDA, LGBT

The U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote tomorrow on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would ban employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. While this may sound like great news, there's more to the story.

Earlier this year, HR 2015 was introduced. Also called the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, this version of ENDA also included protections based on gender identity and expression. Believing this version would never pass (think of the male bank tellers in dresses and waitresses with beards! the horror! the horror!), Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA), our longest-serving open 'mo, introduced HR 3685, which is the same bill with the tranny protections stripped.

HR 3685 is a bad bill. We should not compromise on basic human rights. The Human Rights Campaign, which likes to bill itself as the nation's leading LGBT rights organization, just endorsed the tranny-free bill. Shame on them. You should never give them money or time again. You should remove those stupid equal sign decals from your car (they look silly anyway). You should support only the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force from now on, which has taken the correct, principled stand to support only a fully-inclusive ENDA.

Look, we're all in this together and we can never throw any members of our community under the bus so that others in our community can ride that bus. Lesbian, gay and bisexual Americans owe the freedoms we've won over the past 40 years to those transgender freedom fighters who stood up and fought back against injustice when the rest of the community wouldn't. We owe our trans brothers and sisters an inclusive ENDA, and both Arizona and our community will be stronger for it. We must demonstrate to the agents of injustice that we will stand united for freedom for all of us, not just the least threatening.

The incremental approach has not worked in other states like New York, where I lived when they passed their Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act in 2001. To the best of my knowledge, they still have not extended the same protections to transgender New Yorkers more than 6 years later.

There's talk that Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin (D-WI, the House's only out lesbian member and all around-awesome legislator) will propose an amendment that will restore the gender identity protections. Congressman Grijalva has stated he will support the amendment and oppose the final bill if the amendment fails. This is the kind of strong leadership I look for.

And as a side note, both Congressman Grijalva and Congresswoman Giffords were co-sponsors of the original, inclusive ENDA, and neither has signed onto the sham replacement bill being voted on tomorrow. Good on both of them.

Labels: civil rights, ENDA, House of Representatives, LGBT

I've had this post brewing for some time, but only felt inspired to write it after watching some of the Logo/HRC debate and reading some of the coverage of it.

This starts with same-sex marriage. Those who know me or who have been faithful readers for a few years know that I don't think much of this issue. It's not a make or break issue for me in a candidate, and it's really not a very pressing issue to me in general, except in fighting back attempts to make same-sex marriage illegal because that's a dangerous slippery slope that could become a gateway to limiting other rights.

And I'm not at all saying that marriage is a basic right or a basic need. That would be silly. Basic needs are food, shelter and safety. Basic rights are those found in the Constitution and its amendments. Same-sex marriage should be legal, but it's not exactly life or death.

So this brings me to my point. Most of the Democratic candidates who participated in the Logo/HRC 'debate' said they did not support marriage equality and used the excuse that "the country just isn't ready yet" or "we're just not there yet" as justification.

Poppycock.

How can you know if you're not ready for something unless you try it and see? And why does 'the country' (code for heterosexual moderates) have to be ready for something that has absolutely no impact on their individual lives anyway?

If my yoga practice has taught me anything, it's that we are capable of doing so much that we might not have otherwise thought possible until we tried. Massachusetts has not fallen into the Atlantic, people aren't dying in the streets in Boston and Amherst and Waltham (shout out to my Brandeis reader!). How were Massachusett-ians(?) any more or less 'ready' for same-sex marriage than anyone else in this country?

It's not that 'we're not there yet' or that 'the country isn't ready'. There may be a lot of people, perhaps even a clear majority, of American voters who are still a little uncomfortable with marriage equality. But is it really fair to use their mild discomfort (and it really is mostly mild according to polling) as an easy out to restrict some rights from one group of citizens?

If you're personally uncomfortable with something, own up to it. Don't hide behind some amorphous nonsense excuse about how other people may or may not feel about the issue. And once you've done that, get over yourself. Seriously. Whatever happened to the greater good?

There were a lot of timid politicians who said that the country wasn't ready for women to vote prior to 1920, or that we just weren't there yet in 1963, a year before Congress passed and President Johnson signed sweeping Civil Rights reforms into law.

You know what? It turns out the United States populace was actually ready for those and other major advances. We just didn't know it till we tried it.

The U.S. democracy has always been a great experiment. There have been lots of rocky points along the way, especially at those times when the oppressed aggressively sought fairness and justice. But the Union endured, just as it will when some politicians with backbones finally grow a pair, pass sweeping pro-equality laws, and the country once again realizes that same-sex marriage, much like interracial marriage before it, is really no big deal.

And on that note, I'll also encourage you, my faithful reader, to try something - anything - you never thought you could do. Stepping out of your comfort zone can be a wonderfully freeing and enlightening experience.

And you don't even need to attend a yoga class with me to prove it.

Open to grace.

Labels: challenge, change, civil rights, equality, fear, history, human rights, LGBT, opening to grace, Pres-08, social justice, yoga

I no longer support Bill Richardson for President.

Despite his lengthy resume and respectable public service, the man is not fit to be President of the United States.

My faith in his candidacy faltered during an early debate, when he cited Byron White as his model Supreme Court Justice. Justice White wrote a dissent in Roe v. Wade and was joined by eventual Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

One major faux pas was perhaps excusable, but tonight Bill Richardson swallowed his foot up to the knee when he repeatedly insisted on his belief that sexual orientation is a "lifestyle choice" in the Human Rights Campaign/Logo Democratic debate.

I know it's rather anathema for me to say this on a progressive blog, but domestic issues are far more important to me than ending the Iraq war. Don't misunderstand, the war has been a perilous, unwarranted folly that I believe must be brought to a swift conclusion. It's just not the issue on which I'm going to base my vote.

Healthcare, education, jobs and civil rights are all far more important to me because they impact my everyday life. I don't have friends or family members currently serving, and I don't begrudge one bit those who do and for whom the war is the #1 issue. For them, Bill Richardson might still be a viable candidate based on his UN experience and his promise to end the war the day he is inaugurated.

But for me, if you don't get issues as simple as reproductive justice or full equality, you can never have my full support. Hell, even Giuliani is better on these issues than Richardson (well, OK, not quite).

So I hereby rescind and renounce my previous endorsement of Bill Richardson for President and move myself firmly back into the Undecided column.

John Edwards is saying many of the right things (except for an awkward performance tonight), and I was willing to give Chris Dodd a closer look until he didn't show for tonight's debate.

Rest assured I will update this space with additional thoughts or an endorsement as the process moves forward, especially now that it's looking more likely that the caucuses and primaries could start as early as this December. Yikes!

Labels: Bill Richardson, civil rights, equality, LGBT, Pres-08, Roe, social justice

So there's this little storm brewing about a former gay porn actor (I use the term "actor" loosely whenever referring to anyone in the industry) who just received an award at the Conservative Political Action Conference last weekend. Not for being a gay porn star, obviously. Those conservatives don't tend to go for that sort of thing. Unless maybe it's one of those old-timey body builder film reels.

The award had something to do with some big mean Columbia U. undergrads saying not nice things to him, a 36 year-old college junior, all because he supports the death march that is the Iraq war.

Anyway, that's the same conference where Ann Coulter called John Edwards a faggot and the Edwards campaign protested perhaps a bit too much in response. Really, it seemed like they more upset at maybe, possibly, being mistaken for gay even a little bit than they were about Coulter using a word with a history of violent crimes attached to it.

But back to the gay porn actor, Matt Sanchez, aka 'Rod Majors' (I kid you not). Blogger Joe. My. God. broke the story and made public the fact that the conservative movement's newest golden boy has a history of giving it to other lads up the bum, both on film and privately for money.

Yeah yeah, I know, he's a hypocrite for standing by Coulter and excusing her crazy desperate grabs for the last shred of an audience because nobody listens to her anymore (you should see Max Blumenthal's video from CPAC when he confronts her about all her broken engagements - I am so smitten with him). Oddly enough, Sanchez has reported that the conservatives are standing by their man. Like a pack of wild dogs, I guess they can sense his impressive endowments and know who's the alpha male.

So I did a little digging (not much, actually), and found this little tidbit from a 1998 interview for one of the porn studios that he worked for that is sure to get Sanchez permanently expelled from the conservative fold:

...
I got last-minute tickets to go see Barbra Streisand here in New York City. I was very excited and the curtain was going up in a couple of minutes so I ran to my seat...

That's right, folks, the man not only went to see a Streisand concert, but he was very excited about it. Streisand, the woman who Sanchez' hero Bernard Goldberg claims is one of "the 100 people ruining America".

That's the real story here, folks. Not that Sanchez claims to have been engaged to two woman and married a third. Not that he's apparently a well-known gay porn actor who (I believe) still serves on active duty in the Marines despite Don't Ask Don't Tell.

Nope, the real bombshell is that we have a self-described conservative Republican admitting to being a fan of the liberal lioness herself, Barbra Streisand.

He's going to have to give back his (Republican) membership card AND (queer) toaster now.

Labels: LGBT, not really newsworthy, nudity, pride, Republicans, truth

As near as I can figure (or remember), I came out of the closet for the first time ten years ago today. And what a long, strange trip it's been.

I was just finishing my first semester in college, a difficult and confusing period of adjustment. I was very sheltered and isolated before I left the nest, and spent most of that semester in the dorm's TV lounge, moping around and being anti-social.

But I did manage to make a few friends. One of them, a fellow Freshman named Rose, was in a committed relationship with another woman. She was the first lesbian that I ever met up close and personal. I had never been raised to hate the queers, but I did come from a rural/suburban community, so many of my peers growing up had been.

I remember having latent feelings for some of the guys I knew back home. I just tried to dismiss it as...I don't know what, really. But it was easier to dismiss than risk getting beat up or totally ostracized. Though I was class and student body president, I still wasn't exactly what I'd call popular.

Rose changed my perspective. For the first time, I realized that queer people could be safe, healthy and happy. She was the first person I came out to, going to her room that Wednesday evening before we were to leave for winter break, and confessing that I was bisexual (an identity I would cling to for a couple more years before bringing my other foot out of the closet too). She warmly embraced me and thanked me for finally being honest with her. Like my sister when I would later tell her, Rose already knew - it seemed everybody knew.

Coming out is an incredibly freeing and healthy experience. As Ted Haggard and Michael McGreevy learned over the past few years, doing so in public after repressing your true identity for years can be both painful and destructive. Coming out is also a lifelong process. I no longer identify as bisexual or gay, but as queer. But no label could ever accurately or totally define me. And I honestly don't put a lot of thought into how I present my identity anymore. I don't worry that I'll be judged for or strive to be defined by my sexual orientation. It's just one part of who I am, one brushstroke in the bigger picture.

So how does one celebrate his homoversary? The traditional 10th anniversary gift is tin or aluminum. The modern gift is diamond jewelry. There's a joke to be made in there somewhere, but it's pre-dawn and I'm not in the mood to do that yet.

So today is my homoversary and my last day at the old job. Tomorrow is the first day at my new job, and my birthday is on Sunday. It seems I have a lot to be thankful for and a lot to celebrate this week. Please join me.

Labels: celebration, coming out, homoversary, LGBT, personal

I had a lovely time at a dinner party tonight. It was pot luck, and I made Kitchari, which is an Ayurveda cleansing dish. I used all organic ingredients, and it was well received by everyone, regardless of their doshic composition (I'm Vata Kapha).

For the past week or so, I've been getting these massive twinges of pain along the left side of my head. They'd mostly be flashes of sharp pain followed by some dull aching. Seriously, it felt as though I could dash my head against some rocks and a grown woman would spring forth from the gash in my head (yes, that's Greek myth nerdiness). Since mid-day today when I pulled myself out of my funk, the head pain hasn't come back. I really think it had something to do with the wave of depression that I saw coming on and that hit me Friday evening. Once I got over the heartache, I got over the headache. I'm not generally that prone to such somatic symptomology, but I think it's a good thing.

I've very consciously avoided commenting on the House Ethics Committee report about the Page scandal, particularly when it comes to Jim Kolbe. I know I hinted about a lot of dirt leading up to the elections last month. When I started receiving e-mails from other bloggers asking me to divulge my information, I had reservations because all I really have is rumor and innuendo. I happen to trust my sources (yes, there are multiple sources), but I am reluctant to print what I've heard without concrete evidence or a first-person account. So sorry folks, but I really don't think it would be appropriate of me to put on the interweb what I understand to be fairly well-known in at least some segments of the local queer community. As far as I know for sure, the man is a paragon of virtue who did not act appropriately when confronted with the misdeeds of one of his colleagues. Or something like that.

Yes, I know I made you read through two paragraphs of personal stuff for the anti-climactic good stuff. Cut me some slack, it's after midnight on a Saturday night and nobody else is up for me to talk to. It's the Vata in me.

I spent a few hours cleaning out most of the rest of my office today. The back seat of my car is now filled with boxes. I'm way too much of a packrat. I should work on simplifying. That goes for every aspect of my life.

Finally, my friend Miriam, who dragged me kicking and screaming onto Friendster a few years ago may succeed again in dragging me onto MySpace. I've been boycotting it because it's now owned by Rupert Murdoch and I just know he's going to find some way to use it for evil. Also, pedophile predators. On the other hand, it seems like a good way to stay in touch with friends who I don't get to see on a regular basis. Feel free to post your thoughts in the comments. I suppose my use of the site doesn't necessarily have to constitute an endorsement.

All right, time for some meditation and then sleep. I think I may have a busy day tomorrow.

Labels: Ayurveda, Friendster, Kolbe, LGBT, personal, Rupert Murdoch's evil empire, sex abuse

Now that the sore losers at CAP have finally conceded that their hate amendment failed, opponents of the pernicious proposition can proceed with their post-mortems. The first place to start might be looking at the exit polls, which CNN has graciously posted online. Some interesting but not very surprising results in that data.

Labels: CAP, exit polls, LGBT, movement-building, Prop 107

Cathi Herrod finally concedes that Prop 107 was defeated by the voters of Arizona. She also says she "would not change a word of the measure" and "no decision has been made whether to try again in two years".

If they try again in two years with identical wording, they'll face an identical demoralizing defeat.

I suspect they'll be playing defense two years hence to some kind of equal rights proposition put forth by the victorious grassroots crews that defeated CAP's hate amendment.

Labels: CAP, human rights, LGBT, Prop 107

I didn't get to attend Creating Change this year (and I'm OK with that). But I do receive the daily updates via e-mail. I'm reproducing the following summary of the closing plenary speech in its entirety. I couldn't agree more with Ms. Ross. All emphases mine:

Creating Change 2006 closed out today with a passionate plenary speech by Loretta Ross, national coordinator and co-founder of SisterSong Reproductive Health Collective, who called on activists to work together to build a human rights movement.

Ross chastised both the right and the left for moving conversations about sex off the radar screen and espoused the need to “talk about the human right to sexual pleasure,” saying, “What does this whole concept of sexual rights mean? I’m not sure we’ve had that conversation yet in this country.” Noting that the first rape crisis center formed in 1972, she said that, in a very short period of time, we’ve changed the whole world: “Now we’ve got to do it again, but bigger.”

Ross expressed concern that we are “indulging in the excesses of identity politics” and engaging in separate and parallel social justice movements.

She said, “When people think many different ideas and move in one direction, that’s a movement. When people think the same idea and move in the same direction, that’s a cult. So we are building a movement or are we building cults?”

Continuing, Ross said, “While we’re fighting each other in our own Oppression Olympics, the neofascists and neoliberals are kicking our asses. They’re killing us. And only a united movement for all of our human rights will save us.”

She said when we fail to embrace a human rights framework, we ultimately cannot succeed.

Ross listed the eight categories of guaranteed human rights and pointed out how political developments such as the war in Iraq and the English-only movement directly violate them, saying that widespread ignorance of our human rights serves only those who already have power over us: “As long as [the government] can treat us as the undeserving people claiming things that aren’t ours, they can defang us our struggle.”

Ross insisted that we share one struggle despite our individual causes and said, “To the extent that you allow other people’s human rights to be violated, yours will be diminished too,” elaborating that we cannot do work against homophobia in a racist way, we cannot do antiracist work in a homophobic way, and so on.

Challenging us to “do what hasn’t been done before,” Ross urged everyone to “create change by building a new movement and calling it the human rights movement of America.”

Labels: Creating Change, human rights, LGBT, movement-building

Jan Brewer is still furiously counting absentee and provisional ballots in a futile attempt to close the gap on Prop 107, but the margin actually continues to expand the more ballots they tally. Poor Cathi Herrod...couldn't get a homophobic ballot initiative passed in Arizona...there goes that federal judgeship!

As the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force convenes their annual Creating Change conference this week, I was thinking about the incredible sense of camaraderie (not to mention infrastructure) that was built over the past two years working to defeat Prop 107 AND defeat the most noxious and hateful of the Congressional Republicans.

This would have been more appropriate a week ago, but a week ago I was neck deep in event planning. The following is one of my favorite speeches in all of Shakespeare's canon (the histories always have the best speeches - my audition monologue is one of Richard II's). A little trite, perhaps, but the spirit I think perfectly reflects the week we just had. We had some major wins and some painful losses (Props 100, 102, 103 and 300 are disgusting and I'm ashamed of Arizona voters for passing them and passing them by such wide margins), but we won and lost together. We will long hereafter look back on November 7, 2006, for better or worse, with a sense of pride about what we accomplished and what we set the stage to accomplish in the future.

Take it away, King Henry:

O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart. His passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse.
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say, "To-morrow is Saint Crispian."
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say, "These wounds I had on Crispian's day."
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words,
Harry the King, Bedford, and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered,
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Labels: CAP, Creating Change, LGBT, Prop 107, Shakespeare, Task Force