As far as leaving us off, yes…of course! We aren’t selfish. We understand political realities. But throwing us over the side simply for a hollow vote is senseless.

I don’t think Frank realized how the community has gelled over the past 3 years. Many transgender people have stood toe to toe with gays and lesbians in the fight for marriage equality. Doing this has created alliances that aren’t easily broken.

It’s one of the most beautiful things in all this bad stuff. To see such unity, at times it brings me to tears.

I fully agree–and I could have been stronger in stating how unlikely, if not impossible, it will be for ENDA, even without gender-identity and -expression protections, to become law. I’m still rather baffled by why Frank, et al. removed the gender clauses–did they really believe it would have a chance of becoming law if they threw gender overboard or did they simply want to move it through the House so they could take credit for pushing it as far as possible?

Thanks for offering your perspective–you’re the only transgender person I’ve heard say they’d leave off gender if it meant passing the bill into law. I think ultimately, it’s going to be people like yourself, who have insight into both the transgender and gay, non-transgender perspectives, who will help the LGBT community bridge the gaps in understanding we’ve seen these past few weeks (but that have been around for much longer).

“I understand that sometimes tactical expediency must trump ideals in order to achieve the long-term strategy. When that expediency requires what is seen as a betrayal of part of the community for which we are fighting, however, the picture is less clear. To me, the price of a fractured community is too much to pay, especially when it is still uncertain if even a sexual-orientation-only ENDA would become law.”

I agree with you on most of this, except the last sentence above. There is NO WAY this bill would pass the Senate. The hate crimes vote was won on one vote and that is a slam dunk issue. As the transgender person with a gay son, I don’t want to hold this legislation up. If it was a matter of us sinking passage of this bill into law, I’d say leave us off. But that isn’t the case. We have almost two years to do the kind of advocacy that’s been done in the last week and a half. If after that time gender inclusion still causes the bill to sink, I’ll be the first one to jump overboard so it will pass.

To simply throw us overboard for passage in the house, with no chance of passage into law is cruel and divisive.