This week controversy broke out over a proposal to remove “gender identity” as a protected category from the ENDA. Proponents argue that removal would improve the odds of the bill passing the House and gender identity could be added after the passage. It reminds me of the arguments in the 80s about whether gay men should be identified as gay when reporting AIDS cases or whether the phrase “men having sex with men” should be used. Congressional staffers and Washington groups argued vigorously for MSM, claiming that it’d be easier to work around the homophobes and more money could be obtained for AIDS if the gay thing could be glossed over. The social scientists liked it because they argued people of color would be more easily reached than if they had to identify as gay. On the other side were activists who argued that “MSM” ignored the existence of the gay community, with its complex and non-biologically based family structure, reducing the focus to an individual and a sole behavior. The activists argued that effective intervention could not occur in isolation from people’s communities.
Well, its been over 30 years now and we’re still using MSM, got a lot of money–not enough, of course, but a lot–and we have seen a steadily increasing percentage of new infections in gay men, particularly gay men of color. Now I’m hearing the same argument for expediency to support the removal of gender identity. Transgender people are already at increased risk of HIV infection, for reasons of isolation, economic marginalization and difficulty accessing health care–familiar reasons to gay health activists. Excluding gender identity from federal protection is not going to pass the bill–no one thinks its going to get out of the Senate, but it will further fracture our community and subject a valued part of it to increased health risk. Let’s not do it again.
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