Barney Frank: Stop the Scapegoating!

Last night, Congressman Barney Frank made a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives. It seems he got my previous letter.

In an eloquent flurry, he blamed the 300-plus LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender) groups who have signed on to leave ENDA (Employment Non-Discrimination Act) inclusive of transgender people.

Seems we've touched a nerve.

"What I am sure about this place is this: if we listen to the most dedicated, most zealous believers in purity and kill this bill that would be such a great advance in civil rights, we will be a long time in getting back to anything. People who think that if they are successful in killing this one and in attacking people and demonizing people who want to deliver, as part of a movement, this big advance that they will then be able to get more than that live in Oz, in not only a fantasy world but a nonexistent fantasy world and a dream. It simply will not happen." -- Barney Frank, last night on Capitol Hill

Congressman Frank? I am not a zealot or a fanatic. I'm a suburban lesbian housewife. I have three kids. I drive a Volvo station wagon with about 100,000 miles on it from my treks to and from grocery stores, soccer games and my kid's schools. I don't demonize people but I do have high standards of those who are suppose to be my representatives in the political process.

I have six loads of dirty laundry waiting for me in the basement. I definitely don't live in Oz.

You, however, are right about one thing. The more time you spend on Capitol Hill, the further out of touch with the community you have become. That's not an attack, Congressman, but an observation. Would it be a great advance for civil rights if only gay men were covered? Or just lesbians? Why not cut out bisexuals because half the time they are invisible, so why bother with language that might make people nervous?

Congressman Frank, I don't want to be accused of "killing" or "attacking" anyone, especially not you. You have represented me well for the last 22 years (I am aware you've served for 27, I did not live in your district then), and I am proud to pull the lever every election for you. It is hard, however, to remain civil in a discussion about leaving people behind. Who gets to choose?

"Now, the notion that you do not pass an antidiscrimination bill protecting large numbers of people until you can protect everybody, in my judgment, is flawed, morally and politically. It is flawed morally because I am here to help people in need. That's why I serve in this job." -- Barney Frank

It seems you get to choose who gets left behind. Someone commented recently that in Congress, you have to make "Sophie's Choice" every day. Whether it's immigrant children for the CHIP (Children's Health Insurance Program) plan or transgender people for ENDA. I hear your outrage at being challenged on this particular choice. But the reality for me is, I won't make that choice. That you will is a political decision, no question but I'm going to push hard on the morality of it.

In the movie, Sophie's Choice, the main character has to choose between one of her children, forced by a Nazi guard. She must choose or they both will die. Is that the choice we are facing today, Congressman? Are we facing a signed bill, passed by the Senate with President Bush's signature or nothing at all? Is that the truth?

I don't think so. In fact, you said last night that we are going to lose.

"Now, I said we're going to lose. I hope I'm wrong. After we did our count and found that we didn't have the votes, all of a sudden, the cavalry mounted up. But they're coming from a long distance. I have been pleading with people in the gay and lesbian and bisexual and transgender communities to lobby for us." Barney Frank

I'm here. I'm ready. Others are here and ready, too. But I cannot lobby for a bill that doesn't include everyone. I won't. You can call me whatever names you want to call me. You can challenge the morality of my position and tell me I live in a fantasyland. The infighting is a publicity nightmare for our community and I wish it would stop as much as you do.

But not at the cost of others. Especially when there isn't a real choice being made -- millions of people aren't being denied protections, rather thousands being blamed for being too difficult to discuss.

Can we stop the scapegoating and work together? Please? Tell me what to do. Tell me the people I need to talk to. Tell me if we need a 50 state delegation of transgender folks to come talk to representatives. Tell me positives steps I can make. I want to work with you.

I don't want to choose between you and the Transgender community. That really would be a "Sophie's Choice."

Comments

[HollywoodBill]

The Dems had better start learning to compromise. Politics is the art of the possible. It is not a suicide pact with everyone being very noble and going down on the sinking ship together, especially if some can manage to get safely off board.

Barney Frank is a seasoned politician who is really the best and only voice for the entire Gay population. Don't anyone kid themselves. Not even a Dem President in 08 along with a Dem Senate and a Dem House is going to get the Trannies onto this bill. At least not at this time. Like it or not, the country isn't ready for it yet.

The Dems have to go for the center if they want power and the ability to change things. Since this will probably be vetoed, it is more than likely a trial balloon for what can happen once there is a working majority--which the Dems are going to want to keep. Transexuals are not going to be part of that package -- at the outset anyway.

I support Barney Frank and ENDA 100%. And if not this Congress, than the next one. I'm willing to compromise and get the basics settled. All or nothing is for total losers.

[Poboy]

I disagree.

The transgendered should be pushed to the front of the line by the GLBT community, instead of being pushed to the rear.

I think that if you get at the discrimination suffered by the transgendered, you get at the discrimination suffered by the gay, lesbian and bisexual community as well.

[LenaDahlstrom]

What's madding about this whole thing is that Bush will veto the bill anyway, so it's strictly a symbolic vote (Bush will veto it and there's not enough votes to override), and as Rep. Tammy Baldwin (the only out lesbian in the House) said, "[I]t is a mistake to concede defeat on an issue, before our opponents even raise." The signal this whole debacle sends, is that folks like Frank are willing to throw parts of the community overboard _before_ the going gets tough. So what else is he willing to throw overboard when it does?

As far the "we'll come back for you later," it's only happened in four of the 23 states that passed sexual orientation-only protections. In New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, six years later gender/identity protections are still languishing. In Massachusetts, it's been 17 years. And it's been 18 years in Wisconsin -- the first state to pass sexual orientation protections.

Those who claim if "straight-acting" ENDA isn't passed now (ignoring the fact that it will be vetoed, which Frank himself acknowledges) it'll take 20 years to pass seem to forget there's presidential race next year, so it's only a year or two until there's enough votes in the House and the Senate -- and in all probability a Democratic president who won't veto it. As far as Frank's argument about opening up Congress critters to charges of "flip-flopping"and thus hurting ENDA's chances in a future vote, 1) by that logic he shouldn't have reintroduced ENDA, since it failed in 1996, and there's people who will vote for it now who didn't vote for then; 2) here in California, Assemblyman Mark Leno kept re-introducing California's ENDA year after year, and guess what, each year it gained a few more votes until it passed.

These are some of the reasons that nearly 300 local, state and national LGBT organizations have said they don't support a "straight-acting only" ENDA. So it's Frank who's "not dealing with reality" here.

[LenaDahlstrom]

The thing is, as Lambda Legal pointed out, without gender identity/expression protections, "You can't be fired for being lesbian, gay or bisexual but you can be fired if your boss thinks you fit their stereotype of one." (And BTW, courts have upheld the firing of a hetero woman who was deemed not feminine enough.)

Which is the National Center for Lesbian Rights said today that ENDA-lite is ""a bill no competent attorney representing the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community would ever support" and the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders said: "As GLAD knows from the calls we get on our InfoLine, the discrimination experienced by many gay men, lesbians and bisexuals is based not directly on their sexual orientation, but on their presentation — their gender identity or expression. They are "too feminine" or "too masculine" and they make employers uncomfortable — and they're fired."

The butch who was thrown out of the Caliente Cab Co. restaurant in NYC (on Pride Day no less) because a bouncer thought she was too butch to pee in the women's restroom is an example of how gender expression affects gays and lesbians without "passing privilege." BTW, it's notable that the main thrust of the lawsuit she filed is that the restaurant violated NYC's protections on gender expression. While the lawsuit also alleged violations of sexual orientation, want to bet the restaurants lawyers will argue they didn't because (and admittedly I'm assuming here) there were other lesbians in the bar. Which is, as GLAD noted, the same argument employers can and do make today.

Employment law professor Jillian Todd Weiss has a detailed look on her blog at the case law on this issue, as do GLAD, NCLR and Lambda Legal on their sites.

Bottom line, gender identity/expression protections protect everyone, not just trans people.

[Qbear]

Barry Winchell was cowardly and brutally bashed to death with baseball bats while sleeping on his cot, by two fellow soldiers , because this closeted gay man dated a transexual.
The LGBT community is intertwined with relationships of love and friendship. It's not the Democrat's business to divide OUR community.
What do Democrats think a couple comprised of a gay and transexuaL, OR lesbian and transexual deserve.... half a job, half an apartment?

[Alice A.N.]

If someone who did not spend alot of time advocating for and helping the GLBT community were speaking in Barney's stead, I might rush to condemn him and fight for an inclusive bill.

As it is - when we ask for all or nothing, we had better prepare ourselves for the nothing we shall get.

And when you or your partner loses a job because of orientation related descrimination you can always tell your kids - it was about the principle - as if that will keep a roof over their heads.

I can understand both sides of the conflict, and I do really wish that ENDA bill would be all inclusive, but when you leave Barney to face the Christianists without the commnunity's support we lose everything and gain nothing.

ENDA won't pass with the T, but now maybe it won't even pass without it, because the bigots that support the right-wing are far more loyal and when the roll call comes up representatives might find it's worth their while to pursue the loyal anti-homosexual vote than to negotiate with the 'all or nothing crowd' that can't recognise friends when they have them.

[mzmartipants]

You won't gain anything regardless. Even if this passes the house, it's not passing the Senate. Even if that miracle happened, it most certainly will be vetoed. I mean, come on! He vetoed health care for CHILDREN.

I'm a transgender person myself, but I have a gay son. If this had a snowballs chance in hell of passing (the Senate and the President's desk), I'd push myself overboard. I would never deny my own child workplace protections (as he's already been a victim of workplace discrimination). If we educate the way we've been doing for the past two weeks, till 2009 and we still don't have enough votes for transgender inclusion, then fine. Remove us. But to throw us overboard for a win in the House only means that you'll have fractured the community severely... and for what? You'll still have no workplace protections.

[Qbear]

How would gays, lesbians, and bisexuals, be any better than Heterosexuals who oppress us, if we left our transgender friends behind to face oppression alone?

We would be come what we hate.

If cowardly Democrats and skiddish Republicans had told Barney GBT ENDA could pass but we can't get lesbians approved....there would be NO DISCUSSION we would abandon our womyn friends....NONE!

[escobar]

I don't think Rep. Frank is the one who should be targeted as enemy of the people here.
You know how the bill would read if he had his way.

[SaraWhitman]

I do NOT think Frank should be targeted. I want to work with him.

AND he cannot stand up on the floor of the house and spit this kind of venom out and not be accountable for it.

[mzmartipants]

Why does it have to be so black and white? I don't think he's enemy...he's just short sighted and wrong. If I counted everyone that I disagreed with as my enemy, I'd not have ANY friends.

[glyphstone]

Sara,
I continue to be gratified and inspired by the truly whole-hearted community support we are getting across the country, from folks like you. I know there are a lot of folks like me who have been working as long as they've been out on behalf of a united community and on behalf of all LGBT people. When I say folks like me, I refer to people who are Transgender and most likely Queer on other ways. It's great to feel the love coming back when we need it.
It's truly unfortunate that Rep. Frank, despite his former rhetoric of support is shown to have such a low respect and shallow understanding of the true integration and investment of Transfolk in our community. I don't need to reiterate the many excellent essays on the inseparable intermingling of the matters of gender identity and sexual orientation on a personal and legal basis. Lambda Legal and NCLR and Susan Stryker have done that job well.
The assumption that Transfolk are a phantasmical and exotic "them" to the very human, flesh-and-blood and needy "us" as Lesbians or Gay Men tells the true story: We have so much to do by way of visibility and normalization. This is work that has been decades in the works for Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual people and the payoff is representation and street-level acceptance at least in urban population centers.
I don’t know if you have Transgender friends or family or associates or are simply empathetically gifted.
For today, I stand basking in the support of a national community of allies and friends knowing that I have the strength, and yes, the moral basis to contribute to the sustained effort it will take to move us all forward together.
Regards,
Breanna Anderson – Ingersoll Gender Center and Seattle LGBT Center

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

P.S. I think it is the height of nobility that the 300-plus LGBT groups have not thrown the T's off the bus.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

If I get the drift... leaving some forms of descrimination unprotected is not exactly the moral high ground, even if the politically pragmatic middle ground.

On the other hand... the women's rights movement and the civil rights movement were not a single movement.

It then becomes a question of strategy, not morality, and an ugly reality.

[NCGigi]

When we join together, link arms and hearts across divides, we can move mountains. When we disdain the other, when we can't see the "us" for the "them", we are defeated.

[jstephenclark]

I support Barney Frank and agree with his assessment.

[blueraven]

*wild applause*

You hit the nail on the head so perfectly, it went into the wood in one blow. Brava. Rep. Frank is demonstrating what I can only call "gay privilege." It's a twisted thing to be able to say, but in all truth, there's a course of thinking in the white gay male community (that not all of them share by any means) that acts like they're the magnanimous ones to let the rest of us piggyback on their struggles, and it should be perfectly OK for some of us to wait while they forge ahead with every last promise and blandishment about how we'll get pulled along later trotted out for show. This bisexual woman is not content with receiving crumbs, and the transgender community deserves more than the promise of crumbs.

[sorenmeetsdylan]

Comparing Sophies Choice to this issue is a preposterous leap.

[AngryAmish]

Pssst. Sophie is fictional. Transgendered people are real.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

[Sarcasm on]

You're right.
No gays, let alone transexuals, EVER get killed simply for being who they are.

[Sarcasm off]

This politically expedient approach only tells the homophobe world that even the "acceptable" gays et al won't stand up for the transexuals.

Here comes the caste system.

[Qbear]

HRC not the most courageous LGBT organization, Donna the ONLY transgender Board member resigned a week ago over their cowardice on ENDA. They are calling for every queer to mobilize 10 friends to lobby for Trans-inclusive ENDA.

[Qbear]

I'm openly gay for 35 years, and while I like Barney frank and understand his frustration of getting close to an ENDA bill, tossing out Transgender People is DEAD WRONG.
Either the LGBT community moves forward towards equality as ONE or we wait until we have enough courageous Democrats in Congress to do it RIGHT.
Repigs want to divide the LGBT community to TAINT our victory. Especially the closeted Repigs, who are more self loathing than Ted Haggard.

Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell we KNOW you are gay and it's National Coming OUT Day.

So is Condi Rice, Patrick McHenry and David Dreier.