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Thursday, 18 October 2007 12:06
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 William Butte
Exclude Transgendered
By William Butte
Would it surprise you to know that the latest FBI stats, from 2004, show there were more hate crimes in the U.S. against gays, lesbians, and bisexual or transgendered people than toward Jews and Muslims combined? Or that only hate crimes motivated by anti-black racism were more numerous?
If that doesn’t surprise you, then you probably aren’t surprised that the GLBT community gets little protection from employment discrimination. Just 20 states plus D.C. prohibit employment discrimination due to sexual orientation, and only 13 states include gender identity in this legal protection.
With this hodge-podge of state protection, the GLBT community has waited for years for congressional passage of legislation to expand federal law to include us within hate crimes laws and employment discrimination protection.
Yet that seems to be too large a political bite to chew for even our current Democratic-led Congress: It had the votes recently to pass a GLBT-inclusive hate crimes bill but not to pass a GLBT-inclusive employment non-discrimination bill.
The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act (LLEHCPA) and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) were both amended this year to include the transgendered, so both pieces of legislation became GLBT-inclusive.
But there are not enough members on both sides of the congressional aisle who will vote for ENDA that is transgender-inclusive.
A bipartisan Congress had no problem adding sexual orientation, gender identity, gender and disability to current federal hate crimes laws that cover victimization due to race, color, religion and national origin.
Likewise, a GLBT-inclusive ENDA would offer federal protection against employment discrimination due to sexual orientation and gender identity. This is similar to the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VII, that prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sex, pregnancy and national origin; however, ENDA exempts religious organizations and has a special provision for employer dress codes. (And both exempt private employers with fewer than 15 employees.)
But one co-sponsor, Rep. Chris Shays, R-Conn., says about 20 of his Republican colleagues will only support ENDA for gays, lesbians and bisexuals. And at least 30 House Democrats apparently agree, according to a “whip” count by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.
So, ironically, on the same day the Democratic-led Senate, with bipartisan approval, voted to expand hate crimes laws that included the transgendered, Frank presented members of the Democratic-led House with a revised version of ENDA so they could gain bipartisan approval to expand employment non-discrimination laws to protect gays, lesbians and bisexuals while excluding the transgendered – who are the least protected against employment discrimination.
Given that President Bush has threatened to vote both pieces of legislation, Democrats shouldn’t trade principle for political expediency by trying to split the GLBT community into acceptable and unacceptable groups.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, pushing for the revised version of ENDA, said, “I would die if we didn’t have any bill.”
Too bad she and other House Democrats haven’t considered how many transgendered folks too fearful without employment protection to report they’re being victimized by hate crimes may die.
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