via the Bilerico Project
Guest poster - Jody Huckaby, executive director of PFLAG
When the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) received its first-ever vote in the House of Representatives and passed the Education and Labor Committee on Oct. 18, it should have been a historic - and
celebratory - moment for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. But there was a cloud hanging over the vote, with over 300 LGBT and allied groups in the United ENDA Coalition advocating for the original form of the bill introduced earlier this year- one that finally included a ban on discrimination based on gender identity. The House Democratic leadership's decision to strip those protections from the bill, leaving only sexual orientation covered, has turned what should have been a victory into an unnecessarily divisive, disappointing setback for the LGBT movement. Unfortunately, the mainstream media has characterized this primarily intra-community conflict as the protestations of a "fringe minority of transgender activists" or the "extreme left" of the LGBT population. Nothing could be further from the truth. One look at the list of organizations and the constituencies we represent makes that crystal clear.
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