It’s hard for me not to fume a bit over the latest Congressional Scorecard from the HRC. The HRC has for a number of years claims to be an LGBT organization, but the political branch of their organization penalized seven congresspeople who voted against the final version of ENDA — the seven congresspeople who voted against ENDA because the final version of ENDA didn’t include protections for gender identity and expression.

Specifically, the HRC Congressional Scorecard for the 110th Congress has been released. In their report, Joe Solmonese explains…

Although not the vote we hoped for, the ENDA vote was historic. A strong bipartisan majority of 235 members of Congress sent a clear message that employment decisions should be based on job performance, not sexual orientation. In addition, seven members who are strong supporters of the LGBT community — Reps. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), Rush Holt (D-N.J.), Michael Michaud (D-Maine), Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.) and Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) — voted against the bill because they were disappointed that it did not include transgender protections.

And yet, the HRC still lowered the scores of the seven in their report for not supporting the final version of ENDA that didn’t include gender identity and expression. The page highlighted here (select image to enlarge) shows, as an example of the seven, how Rep. Holt was marked down for voting against the final version of ENDA. Rep. Holt’s final score is 90% instead of the 100% he should have had.

Perhaps it should seem pretty strange to all of us that the HRC, an organization that claims to be an LGBT civil rights organization, penalized seven congresspeople who showed a greater commitment to fully inclusive civil rights protections than the HRC did during the same timeframe.

Solmonese also said in the report:

A new Congress and a new president will have the opportunity to make even greater progress. The list of unfinished business is long. We need to have a president who signs the Matthew Shepard Act into law. We need to pass a fully inclusive ENDA. We need to repeal DADT. We need expanded funding in our battle against HIV/AIDS. And we need to expand benefits and protections for LGBT families.

If we pass a fully inclusive ENDA in the next Congress, I wonder if it will be in spite of the HRC instead of with the help of the HRC. The HRC’s recent record — a record which includes this current scorecard markdown of seven congresspeople in their most recent report — seems to indicate it very well could be a “in spite of” moment.

Frankly, I don’t believe that any words that Mr. Solmonese speaks have any real weight anymore, and I certainly don’t trust him or the HRC to work as equally hard on T issues as hedoes/they do for G and L issues in the next congressional session.

I’m tired of feeling angry about this. Rep. Tammy Baldwin gives me some hope, though. In an interview in the Huffington Post, she answered the question We also came very close with ENDA. Do you think it will be possible to pass The Employment Non-Discrimination Act nationally? this way:

I think the results of the November 4th election will inform the answer to that question also. We had, by my count, a very, very close to a majority who were willing to vote on an inclusive measure. We were very concerned in a lot of the sort of internal discussion, when we were advancing the Bill to the floor which revolved around what sort of response there would be to any type of mischief-making on the floor by the opponents of this legislation and, whether we could if there was an attempt to separate out gender identity and expression withstand an attempt to do that and keep the Bill intact. And, while I was not in the prevailing side of the internal debate on this, the decision was made to introduce separate bills, one protecting people from employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and the other based on gender identity and expression and to move those Bills separately.

Again, I was advocating a different course of action, but in terms of can we do it next session, I think the question will be how many more individuals will be elected to the Congress in this election who are willing to cast that vote. And, if we have a stronger majority, I think we will be able to move forward with an inclusive Bill.

One other thing, it reminds the whole question, reminds me of the Patricia Ireland quote. First, when we’re dealing with a sitting Congress, you’re trying to build majorities by changing people’s minds, but she use to say “If you can’t change their minds, change their faces.” And that’s what we do in elections. We’re hopefully going to seat a new Congress in January of next year that has greater numbers of pro-equality members.

As someone whose primary idnetity is as a “T,” this isn’t much to latch onto — but at least it’s something.