With ENDA's Senatorial revival, Human Rights Campaigns' Joe Solmonese again finds himself on the firing line. Solmonese got ripped apart last year after his organization abandoned the fight for trans inclusion in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. HRC had previously pledged not to support a non-inclusive ENDA, but went back on that deal, thus sparking an ugly civil war between activists hellbent on keeping a united front and those who felt it best to take baby steps: gays first, then trans folk.
Well, that debate rages on and this year Solmonese knows not to make promises he can't keep. Nor does he want people to think HRC's omnipotent, telling Ohio's Gay People's Chronicle that much of ENDA's future depends largely on our elected officials, including the president. Solmonese also insists that he and his HRC homies want nothing less than a fully inclusive ENDA, but maintain that incrementalism is the best way to go:
We have always been committed to the transgender-inclusive ENDA. The differences are in how best to get there.One of the ways to unify the community is around working on going forward. There were transgender people walking the halls of Congress with us two weeks ago.
What will unite [the community] most is the success of doing the work to move Congress.
Yes, but will this year play out on HRC's conciliatory terms or those of the stridently trans-inclusion United ENDA opposition? We all know the answer to that one.
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Perhaps if we, as a people, support trans-inclusive legislation, Lawrence King would have lived beyond puberty.
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
If you are unwilling to accept a gain just because it is not completely everything that you want, the alternative is usually nothing. The winning strategy is usually to take what you can get now, then go back for the rest later.
Spoiled brats who refuse ice cream because it doesn't have chocolate sprinkles, usually don't get either the ice cream or the chocolate sprinkles. Reasonable kids who accept the ice cream, and then ask for chocolate sprinkles, at least get the ice cream.
your ice cream analogy is a poor one. We as a society cannot allow discimination to be allowed to continue. The HRC promised that anything short of a fully inclusive bill was unacceptable. The lobbied transpeople for finacial support and made promises to them and then reneged on the promise. The idea that the trans community should be happy to not be covered against discrimination in a bill that was to include all is rediculous. Make promises as a group to have strength that then throw part of the group under the bus to get your own agenda taken care of just reeks…..