Becky’s Blog

For once, this post has nothing to do with being transgender, LGBT rights, or anything related to those topics, or at least it didn’t used to.

In 1980, I was 18 years old and living in Manhattan. That summer, I worked as a messenger for an insurance brokerage on Madison Avenue. My job was to collect insurance binders from the main office, run them downtown to the offices of major corporate insurance companies and obtain signatures, and then return the signed documents to the brokerage at the end of my daily runs.

My first stop of the day was always the World Trade Center. I’d arrive at the major hub subway station directly underneath the Twin Towers and head upstairs to where some of the offices I needed to visit were. I knew those buildings well, and I knew the folks who worked in them. I remember the first time I visited one of those offices on the 86th floor. As I was admitted past the receptionist and into the main area where the insurance writers worked to get my signatures, I was transfixed by the panorama of Manhattan revealed by the floor-to-ceiling windows which gave one the sense of being on a platform floating high above the city. I was hardly the only one who got that sensation, apparently, when one of the insurance writers walking by who noticed me staring out the windows that first day told me “Don’t worry, you get used to it after a while.”.

He was right. I did get used to it. Those offices and those amazing views of the city became commonplace for me after a while, as I learned all the shortcuts and people to talk to get me quickly to the places I needed to go to accomplish my daily tasks there. There were the receptionists who recognized me and would just wave me in rather than make me wait like others to be invited inside. There were the security guards and police officers who’d allow me the use of restricted stairwells and side doors to easily move from office to office and floor to floor. There were the ticket-takers at the observation deck who’d let me slip in without paying so I could eat my lunch comfortably looking out across the massive vista spread out before me. So many people who I knew by only a smile and a wave as we all went about our daily duties. I never thought, even for a moment, that the World Trade Center was anything more than a really cool place to spend part of my working day, or that all of those people I saw for just moments each day were transitory, that someday it and they could all be gone, just like that.

I know many people reading this have never lived in and around New York City and probably never even saw the World Trade Center in person while it existed. While not suggesting for a moment that one had to be a physical witness to this place in order to appreciate its loss, I nonetheless also believe that for those who did, for those who lived and worked in the area and especially for those of us who knew that place intimately, even for just a while, the tragedy of 9/11 carries an even greater sense of loss.

I remember when the Towers were completed and opened in the early 70’s when I was just a child. It was always the very first feature of the Manhattan skyline that would come into view as you approached New York City by car from the south. As I grew into adulthood, it became a defining symbol of what New York was, surpassing the Empire State Building as the single most easily identified feature of the Manhattan skyline. When I moved back to New Jersey, it was still always there, even if I barely noticed it after a while, whenever I went into the city or passed by on my way elsewhere. It wasn’t something I thought about or gave any more real consideration to more than any other landmark one might see. It just wasn’t something you really paid attention to as a local, until one day those tall, shining towers just weren’t there anymore.

I remember the day it happened like it was yesterday. I was sleeping when the phone rang. It was my mother, calling from work, telling me to get up and turn on the television. I did, saw the smoke streaming from the first tower, and just seconds later, I watched the second plane hit as it happened on live TV. It’s an image that will be burned into my mind forever. Like the rest of America, I spent that afternoon glued to my television but even after all those hours of witnessing that horror on the small screen, it didn’t seem quite real. At the time it happened, it felt like I was watching a spectacular Hollywood action movie. The reality of what had happened, the lives lost, the damage, all of it, didn’t seem to be reality despite all the evidence to the contrary.

It wasn’t until a week later, when my mother and went to visit my grandmother in Brooklyn and we drove down the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway with a full view of downtown Manhattan, that it really sunk in. When I looked across the East River, where those towers had always completely dominated the landscape because of their close proximity, about as close as you can come to the site from the Brooklyn side without actually entering Manhattan, their absence was jarring. Buildings that had always been blocked from view from that angle were now clearly in view, parts of the sky which had always been blocked by the towers rising into the sky were visible. At first it seemed almost surreal, and then it seemed more real than I could have imagined.

A part of New York City, the place I was born and came of age in, the city I fell in love with and was not only my home but the place where I felt most at home and welcome as someone who was different than most as a punk rocker in black leather and bad attitude, was gone. More than simply part of the skyline, more than simply a place I had worked when I was younger, it felt like a significant part of my youth and my memory of that time had been stolen from me.

It’s still as true for me to today as it was then. Even now as I approach Manhattan I can’t help but notice that skyline and what’s missing from it. And when I notice, I remember. I remember everything, not only about what the magnitude of the loss of those buildings and those people represent to me personally and to all of us as a nation, but also how fleeting life can be, and how something that I once thought simply a part of what my reality was, a symbol that defined a place I love, can so quickly and completely be taken away from me, and from all of us.

And when I remember, it still hurts.

Dear Joe,

I’ve heard you’re going to be posting on the Bilerico Project again, so I’m writing this in the hopes that you’ll read it and respond.

First and foremost, before you read any further, let me say this: I’m not about to bash you again. I’ve done plenty of that, and while we can argue as to whether it’s deserved or not, that’s not the purpose of this letter. No, I’m putting all that aside for the moment because I want you to hear from me, one of your loudest and most vocal detractors, why I go after you and HRC as often and as enthusiastically as I do, why so many of us are furious with you and why we make that fury known on the blogs with such volume and venom.

I think it’ll help to illustrate the point I want to make here if I tell you a little about myself that you probably don’t know. In that vein, here’s a tidbit you might find hard to believe but is nonetheless absolutely true. I first came out trans and began living as a woman in 1997, and a couple of years after that I attended my very first Pride event in Philadelphia. While at the street festival that day, I bought my very first LGBT-identifying thing to wear, an HRC t-shirt. I kid you not. This was a very huge deal for me, having hidden my true gender identity all of my life and by then was well into a six-year stretch of unemployment precipitated by my own stupid mistake of telling my last boss of my impending transition. I was well-liked and on a short list of candidates for promotion, but less than two weeks later I was out of a job, just like that. No reasons given, no disciplinary issues, just coming into work one day to hear “You’re fired. Pick up your check Friday.”.

I was terrified of public ridicule and exposure before I worked up the courage to go to Philly for Pride and present myself openly as an out Queer-identified transwoman for the very first time in my life. That HRC t-shirt I bought that day was a rite of passage for me, a public declaration of my identity and my pride in myself, and I wore it with pride…for a while.

After a while, though, it wasn’t so easy to muster that pride anymore. Month after month and year after year went by with no job interview making it past the first five or ten minutes, and with some even asking me to leave immediately when I appeared for my interview. In every case, I was told, either by the demeanor of the person I interviewed with or directly, in so many words, “We don’t hire people like YOU!”.

I don’t know if you know what it’s like to be unemployed for six straight years, Joe, but I can tell you it’s not fun, and on top of that it makes you angry and bitter as hell. I was lucky in that I have family that kept a roof over my head and food in my stomach but beyond those essentials and a computer with an Internet connection, I had nothing at all, and when I say nothing, I mean nothing. No entertainment aside from that which I could get on TV and online, no offline social life whatsoever, no car, no access to public transportation, no nothing other than the small amounts of pocket cash I acquired from friends and family at birthdays and holidays. That’s it. That was my life for six long years.

I had to do something to keep myself from going insane with boredom so I started writing, which eventually evolved into political commentary as I became more educated about our community and what it really means to be a transperson socially and politically in this country. I developed community connections, first with fellow transpeople and later with gays and lesbians as well. I discovered and fell in love with LGBT-oriented radio, eventually teaming up with a fellow transwoman, Marti Abernathey, to create and host our own Internet radio show for transgender people.

Over this time, the more I learned about HRC and their positions on employment rights for transfolks and support for transpeople in general, the more disenchanted with the organization I became. Perhaps at the time I was a bit too naive to understand how an organization like HRC which says it supports the rights of transgender people could do so little to support us in reality. So I talked to people, a lot of people, those who’d been around a lot longer than I had, and the vast majority all told me essentially the same things: “Don’t trust Congress, don’t trust GenderPAC, and don’t trust the Human Rights Campaign. They’ll tell you they support us, but in reality they only care about themselves.”.

It was easy to believe these things. After all, this advice was not only given to me often as a baby transactivist, but it was clearly backed up by what we saw going on in Washington. People made accusations against HRC and Congress and these accusations were almost always proven to be correct sooner or later. After a while, I always believed the worst of HRC when I heard it because it almost inevitably proved to be true.

So, enough about myself, it’s time to get to the point here. My story is by no means unique. In fact, I’d venture to say that probably most transitioned transsexuals can tell a version of it from their own lives. Devastatingly long periods of unemployment, blatant bigotry and discrimination on and off the job, being treated like a mental defective or gutter trash when you show up for an interview, and on and on. I’d ask you to take a moment, Joe, and imagine, just for a moment, that you lived through something like this as an integral part of your coming out process. What do you think it would have done to you? How would you perceive an organization like HRC which supports and endorses enacting laws which protect others from discrimination but not yourself? How would you see your government when even those you’d expect to be among the first to support you and your equality are just as eager as the rest to enact anti-discrimination laws that leave you and those like you about unprotected while protecting everyone else?

Honestly, Joe, how would you feel if this had been your life? And if you can be honest in that assessment, then I suspect that you can also understand why so many transpeople and our allies feel the way we do, about you and about the organization you lead. I’m sure you’ve also noticed that while we call out the Democrats quite frequently for their failings, we seem to have a special level of antagonism and outright rage reserved for HRC that we don’t display toward anyone else, not the Dems and not even the right-wing hatemongers. You might think that’s unfair, but there’s a very good reason for it, and it can be boiled down to a single sentence: We expect you to know better.

Anyone who follows politics knows that politicians, no matter who they are or what political party they hail from, cannot be trusted to reliably fulfill the promises they make. Sure, we get plenty angry at Barney Frank and the rest for treating us badly, but we expect to be sold out for political gain by politicians. We don’t feel that same level of intense anger toward the politicians because we don’t really expect them to keep their promises.

It’s different for HRC though, and it’s different because HRC itself has been telling us it’s different for years now. Until very recently the Democrats never claimed to support us, but your organization proactively took on the role of speaking for us in Washington. HRC told us they represent us and fight for us. They told us they were on our side, that HRC is our voice in Washington. They promised us that HRC would not support any legislation that didn’t include all of us. But then, the very first time those commitments were tested, the very first time HRC was called upon to really stand up and act as our advocate, you guys folded like a house of cards. Again Joe, if you were one of us how would you feel about HRC and the promises the organization had made to represent your interests and support your rights?

I’ve heard that you’ve said you understand why we’re angry, but I really don’t think you do, because if you did, if you really, truly understood why we feel so betrayed by HRC and why your statement at Southern Comfort and what happened just days afterward so enraged transpeople as well as other fairminded LGBT’s and progressives, you’d be doing things differently. Once again, it’s all in those six little words: We expect you to know better.

The truth of it is, Joe, even all of that is only part of why we’re so eager to publicly rip you and HRC to shreds. The other part is not about your actions as much as it is about your behavior. Instead of seeking to open a dialog and work toward a solution that would benefit all of us, HRC has chosen to circle the wagons, cut itself off from communication with the rest of the greater community, and continue to ignore the clear will of the majority and do whatever it feels like doing, apparently with little or no regard for how it affects the rest of us. It’s not just that we don’t like what you’re doing, it’s that the way you’re doing it is arrogant as hell.

You don’t work with the community, you don’t talk to us, you offer carefully selected, ultra-clean business leaders like Diego Sanchez to Congress as representatives of who our community is, but you never really tell the rest of our story, do you? Diego is a wonderful person and an excellent example for anyone, trans or not, but does he really represent and reflect the real rank-and-file American transgender community? Given the statistics we all know so well, it’s fair to say that it’s highly likely that success stories like Diego’s are the exception not the rule and they offer Congress a completely misleading picture of what’s really going on out there. I’d bet that there are far more transpeople who go to work every day wearing a blue-collar uniform than a business suit (that is, those of us fortunate enough to have any employment at all).

It’s important to present people like Diego as examples of our best, but when you fail to also present those who represent the everyday reality most of us actually live in as transpeople you not only do a disservice to our community by portraying us inaccurately but you also send a message that the vast majority of us aren’t good enough to be recognized and heard. When you refuse to enter into a public dialog with us on these issues which are so critical to every aspect of our daily lives you send the message that HRC feels no responsibility to be accountable to the rest of the community for what it does on our behalf. Once again, it’s hardly surprising that most of us see you as arrogant and interested only in self-promotion since that’s exactly the message you’re sending us by your actions, or perhaps more specifically, your lack of action. And yes, once again, we’re as angry as we are and we see you as we do because we expect you to know better.

A few weeks ago, I wrote to Brad Luna to invite you on my radio show. I got back a polite but firm denial then, so I’m going to make you the same offer now, publicly, for all of our readers to see. Come on my show and let’s get into the issues. Let’s talk about why HRC has acted as it has, why you continue to actively support a non-inclusive ENDA in opposition to not only the will of most of the rest of the American LGBT community but also a significant number of members of Congress, including the man most likely to become our next President. When I had Hilary Rosen on my show, I asked her what she thought about your promise at Southern Comfort and she responded that you had no business making such a statement in the first place. I want to ask you about that too, and I also want to ask you about the future. What happens with ENDA next year and how will HRC fit in? What plans does HRC have to help ensure that the next ENDA to be voted on will be fully inclusive? How will things be different when Barack Obama is in the White House?

Yes, I’ll ask you tough questions and expect answers, but I don’t want you on my show to attack you, I want you on because I think we deserve some answers. If and when I really want to bash you and HRC publicly I certainly have no shortage of media venues in which to do so, but doing so on my show would serve no more useful purpose than doing so in this letter would, and as someone who has a radio show of your own I’m sure you understand my reasoning. I encourage you to follow the link above and listen to my interview with Hilary Rosen. As I would with you, I did not shy away from asking her tough questions, but always respectfully and cordially as you will hear. Furthermore, as I did with Hilary Rosen I make you the promise that my callers will not be permitted to bash you either. I have rules against that sort of thing on my show, and they will be just as strictly enforced for your appearance as they have been for any other guest I’ve ever had on my show.

So, there it is, Joe. I’ve laid it on the line. If you and HRC really want to work toward a resolution to this conflict and unite this community, the first thing that needs to happen is for us to start talking to each other, not just a few chosen people behind closed doors, but out in the open, in public, in a venue accessible to everyone. If you want to work with the community, you have to engage with the community. Closed-door meetings just aren’t going to cut it. If you really want to change hearts and minds, you have to speak where you can and will be heard by those you seek to appeal to or it’s all just shouting in the dark.

We expect you to know better, but nothing we’ve seen or heard from you as yet tells us that you do. If you want us to believe otherwise, you need to tell us why we should. I’m offering my show as a public venue to begin that process and I hope you’ll accept.  As it has been for some time now, the next move is yours, and I hope you’ll take advantage of this offer.

If you want to speak for us, you also have to speak with us. It’s my hope that now, after all that’s gone on, that you finally will.

I look forward to your response and to speaking with you.

Sincerely,

Rebecca Juro

A new study released today indicates how woefully behind the times the Democratic Congressional leadership and the Human Rights Campaign are in terms of their support for LGBT “bread and butter” issues, and most especially on workplace rights for transgender and gender variant people. Contrary to the statements of members of Congress such as Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi, and directly in opposition to the HRC polling results released last year commonly considered to be bogus at best if not intentionally tweaked to support their own position which claimed that about 60% of LGBT’s supported a non-inclusive ENDA, this survey conducted by Harris Interactive indicates that 71% of Americans believe that transgender workers should be judged on their work performance, not their gender identity. In comparison, those who feel gay and lesbian people should be accorded the same respect polled at only a mere 8% higher at 79%, effectively putting the lie once and for all to that old saw promoted by the Frank/Pelosi/Aravosis crowd that ”straight-acting only” civil rights initiatives enjoy much more support that those inclusive of transgender people.

So now with the real truth finally on the table, we’re left with reality. Since we now know that gay and lesbian rights don’t have substantially more support than transgender rights anymore as some still like to claim, we’re forced to conclude that the real motivators for the support of the Democratic Congressional leadership are the two things that the transgender community will never be able to match our lesbian and gay sisters and brothers in: voting numbers and money.

The Democrats are still looking for that easy score without having to actually work for it. We saw it in the way they couldn’t even muster the courage to actually include any of us by name in the 2008 Democratic Party Platform, and we’re seeing it right now in the way that Barney Frank and the rest of the Dem leadership are still hedging their bets by refusing to stand up and say they will fight to ensure our rights as American citizens to be protected from unjust discrimination. Simply a mention of gender identity in the platform is nice to see but is essentially worthless without a real and specific commitment to action backing it up. In a nutshell, Democratic leaders in Congress are still running away from dealing with us just like HRC does, are still trying to sell us lies about the level of support for our basic rights under the law just like HRC does, and therefore, just like HRC, cannot be trusted to follow through on our behalf fairly and honestly.

Certainly no surprises here to be sure, but this study does provide a certain statistical validity to what many of us have been saying for years, that in the end these people really don’t care about anyone or anything other than themselves, their Party, and their own money and political power, certainly not about us. As I’ve written in the past, these people have been feeding us lies for years now, but it’s only recently, when Joe Solmonese got up in front of a podium in front of a thousand transfolks and taught us why the Human Rights Campaign can never be trusted by anyone who isn’t rich, white, and politically connected, that everyone else in our community is starting to understand that nothing you hear from any of these people can be accepted as truthful without deep, intensive, and constant verification and re-verification. Even then any promises which might be made can and will not only be reneged upon the moment they become inconvenient, but they’ll eagerly fall all over themselves to back up their lies and misrepresentations with dubious statistics and misleading public statements.

The truth telling doesn’t stop there, however. This study also reveal several other interesting statistics which are at odds to varying degrees with what our “leaders” are willing to say publicly:

“Three out of four (75%) heterosexuals feel that spouses of married heterosexual employees and committed partners of gay and lesbian employees both should receive leave when they lose a spouse/partner or close family member.”

“More than two-thirds (68%) of heterosexuals feel that spouses of married heterosexual employees and committed partners of gay and lesbian employees both should receive leave rights for family and medical emergencies as outlined in FMLA.”

“(A)lmost two-thirds (64%) of heterosexuals feel that spouses of married heterosexual employees and committed partners of gay and lesbian employees both should receive untaxed health benefits under federal law.”

You certainly wouldn’t think any of this were true if you went solely by the behavior of our “friends” in Congress, that’s for sure. It’s pretty clear that many of these folks are still stuck somewhere around 1975 in terms of understanding and being tuned in to what’s really going on in modern LGBT America.

But wait…it gets even better:

“About two of three (65%) of gays and lesbians faced some sort of discrimination in the workplace.”

“Nearly half (47%) of gays and lesbian adults heard anti-gay comments on the job.”

“More than one-third (36%) of gays and lesbians say they remain closeted at work.”

“One out of five (20%) gays and lesbians report being harassed on the job by co-workers.”

Oh yeah, gays and lesbians are just soooooo more popularly accepted than we transfolks are…really.

Hopefully, this study and others like it will finally put the cap on the stream of lies we’ve been hearing from the Democrats about our basic civil rights as American citizens for decades now. If Barney and the House Dems are going to turn tail and cower under a rock again when called upon to stand up for justice for transgender people, we should make certain to publicize these statistics far and wide to illustrate that it’s not really the level of acceptance that’s causing the Dems to refuse to stand up for real American justice, it’s just that we don’t have the money and votes to purchase the same level of fairness and equal treatment from our federal government which other citizens are extended automatically.

Yes, Barack Obama is a messenger of hope. The real problem is that the Democratic Congressional leadership routinely marks such messages “Return To Sender” when they concern LGBT people, and especially transgender people. If they want to prove to us that things have changed, one hearing isn’t going to do it. After promises and more promises all suddenly just disappearing without a trace the moment they become inconvenient for cowardly do-nothing Democrats, it’s no longer reasonable to take anything at all from these people simply on faith.

As always, words mean nothing here. The real proof is in the legislation itself and in the votes it receives. See that big hole in ENDA? The one Barney Frank left when he ripped hardworking, taxpaying Transgender-Americans out of it? See that other huge chunk gone? You know, the one that would have protected us from unjust bigotry committed by those who hide behind religion to discriminate against and disparage those unlike themselves? That’s the real Democratic Congressional leadership in action, the one behind all the politically correct rhetoric and positive words. It’s important to remember that we can’t believe what they tell us because if there’s anything we’ve learned over the course of this battle it’s that until a member of Congress is actually willing to back up their words with their vote it’s nothing more than yet another meaningless hot air blast from DC.

We can only hope that this new study will inspire Congress to take a serious look at how they’ve been dealing with our issues, and how utterly antiquated their thinking is on the key political issues of our lives. I’m not holding my breath, mind you, but at least we can hope that finally we can get some real support from Congress so people like me don’t have to rip them to shreds again next year for selling out us and our basic civil rights under the law for the umpteenth time.

Congress gets it. We know they get it. They know we know they get it. And now, we have the stats to back it up.

It’s time to put up or shut up, Congressional Dems, because you may get through this election relatively unscathed, but if you folks screw us over again there will be hell to pay, and this time, we’re bringing friends, lots of them, and they’re a lot more powerful and influential than we are. Progressives are furious because now everyone knows how you’ve been treating us for years and they don’t like it anymore than we do. You know the tide has turned and it’s time for you people to join much of the rest of the country and the western world in the 21st century in terms of LGBT rights. Get over your bigotry, get over your cowardice, stand up like the leaders you’re supposed to be and do what you know needs to be done. No more bullshit, no more excuses. African-Americans had far less popular support when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, but it passed because we had a President and a Congress that made it happen because they knew it was the right thing to do.

To my way of thinking, the transgender community now is like the odd smaller child who has been unmercifully bullied by old and larger children for years until finally one day he comes to school with a baseball bat and waits around the corner for those bullies to try to beat him up again. He stands and he waits, knowing that the moment those bullies try to throw that first punch again, he’s going for the home run swing to the head. He sees his tormentors coming down the street, he grips his bat tightly and waits for the punch to the gut he knows is coming…

What happens next? Well, that’s up to you folks in Congress. You want to be friends now? You want us to trust you? Why should we? We have dozens upon dozens of reasons not to believe anything you say, but what credible reason have we been given to believe you’re worthy of our trust? You’re still too scared to even mention us by name in the Party platform and somehow you think that kind of political cowardice is going gain you the trust of a minority group you’ve treated like crap now for decades? I mean, you have to be kidding, right?

Trust needs to be justified with action. Words are not enough because they never have been. If you’re ready to treat us like equals, Congress, then prove it. Don’t talk about it, do it. Since you’ve long since lost the right to expect the benefit of the doubt, it’s the only way most of us are going to take you seriously when you say you support us.

As a writer and a radio host, I know that words can and do matter. As an activist and political observer, I know that words coming from politicians mean nothing unless they’re backed up by action.

We’re behind that fence now, Congress, gripping our bat, pulling back to swing, waiting for the bullies to reach the corner…and here you come. We’re ready for you, and so are our big strong friends standing behind us, ready to jump in and hurt you like you’ve hurt us, over and over and over. The real question is: Are you ready for us?

Recently I received an email from the Stonewall Democrats. This fundraising letter lauded the newly-released draft of the 2008 Democratic Party Platform, calling it “…the most pro-LGBT proposed platform in Democratic Party history.”. The list of relevant platform planks seems to indicate that the platform is indeed exactly that, but what is inexplicable here is the easy acceptance and celebration of something we can’t as yet be sure amounts to even crumbs from the Democratic Party on the single most important issue to literally millions of LGBT American workers. Check out this little nugget:

“We will enact a comprehensive bipartisan employment non-discrimination act.”

Can someone please tell me what the heck this is supposed to mean? The Stonewall Dems describe this as “A united, comprehensive strategy on ENDA that includes both sexual orientation and gender identity.”, but I’m not as willing to trustingly read in read in that which isn’t there. Looks like the Democrats are back to playing word games again, trying to look like they’re promising us the world while in reality they’re actually offering us nothing substantial at all. “(C)omprehensive”? By who’s measure? Do they mean comprehensive in terms of what it would cover or in who it protects? What are the elements in an employment non-discrimination bill that would be required in order for it to be considered comprehensive?

And “bipartisan”? That makes me even more nervous. Just how many Republicans do they think they’re going to line up to vote in favor of an inclusive ENDA? What kind of compromises would have to be made in order to see it happen? Or maybe it’s just that transgender and gender variant inclusion isn’t required for the Democrats to introduce a bill they consider comprehensive?

In addition, I think the use of the word “comprehensive” may be telling, just in and of itself. Consider this: The Democratic Party is neither stupid nor ignorant. They know perfectly well that if they’d had the courage to use the term “fully inclusive” instead of “comprehensive” in the above statement our community would be all but dancing in the streets with joy and gratitude. The Democratic Party knows exactly what’s been going on with ENDA, HRC, and the trans community over the last year or so, and they have to know that if they had the courage to make a truly bold and affirmative statement on transgender inclusion in ENDA in the Party Platform they could easily cast themselves as the heroes of this drama and help to unite the vast majority of LGBT voters around the Democratic Party just in time for the election. Yet they have apparently not chosen to do that.

When you look at it in the right lens, this one key word sends a message to transgender and gender variant Americans directly from the Democratic Party and it’s a pretty clear one: “Transfolks, you and your issues are on the table, but there’s a limit. We’re all quite comfortable including you in a hate crimes law. After all, that’s easy to get done and it makes us look good. Thing is, many of us are still not quite so sure we want to make the effort to actually fight for you and possibly expend valuable political capital on your behalf in order to protect you from discrimination in the workplace, so we’re leaving ourselves a back door just in case we decide to chicken out again.”.

Could I be completely wrong about this? Sure I could be and I hope I am, but I don’t think that’s the case or I wouldn’t be writing this. I firmly believe that if the Democratic Party wanted us to know with a certainty that it supports protecting transgender and gender variant people from discrimination in the workplace they’d state it as a fact and in no uncertain terms. The fact that they’re resorting to vague, hard-to-define descriptors like “comprehensive” leads me to believe that the signs are not good, that a lot of these people are still running scared from justice and equal rights for all Americans. They’re not running quite as fast as they used to, mind you, but they’re still doing everything they can to keep us at arm’s length.

Of course, I must also point out that I’m talking about the Party as a whole here, not every individual politician in the Democratic Party. Many Democrats are supporters of inclusion and an inclusive ENDA, and it’s not fair to overgeneralize.Yet at the same time, if this proposed Party Platform is indeed an accurate reflection of popular current political thinking within the Democratic Party, we may be in big trouble with ENDA ‘09.

If there’s one truth that writers, activists, and politicians all fully understand and respect it’s that words have power. The choice of a single word or phrase can speak volumes to the proper audience. Given that this is a draft and not a final version, there may be hope for a possible revision here, but I wouldn’t go as far as to say I’m expecting one. Even if we do get some sort of change, it’s probably as likely as not that it would be for another doublespeak term like “wide-reaching” or “impactfull”.

“Comprehensive”?

I don’t know about you, but the needle on my bullshit detector is in the red zone.

Semagic 1.7.3.1U - Rebecca Juro (beckygrrl) @ livejournal.comYesterday the Human Rights Campaign’s Backstory blog published the full unedited text of a letter to the editor of the Bay Area Reporter in support of HRC written by transgender activist and HRC Business Council member Meghan Stabler. Unfortunately, Backstory doesn’t allow comments (gee, I wonder why?), so I thought I’d just turn mine into a blog post.

I’ve never met or spoken to Ms. Stabler and so I would not presume to pass judgment on her or her motives, but I believe this letter gives one an insight into the way the HRC faithful see the rift between HRC and the transgender community. For example:

“We must work together for the best strategy to secure employment protections that cover our entire community.  To separate our community via a continuance of anger and in-fighting will not move our inclusive need forward. I fear that it will only add more fuel to those so-called “citizens” groups that are doing all in their power and in their coffers to hold equality back, and in some cases put back and down, ALL LGBT people.”

Right off the bat, I take issue with Meghan Stabler’s entire premise. WE did not separate our community. WE did not break our promises. WE did not endorse leaving the poorest and most victimized behind to gain advantage for the wealthier and less different-seeming segments of our community.

WE didn’t start this…but we’re sure as hell going to finish it.

“My involvement with HRC is part of my personal commitment to do all I can.  I don’t like “sides;” I never have.  I hate injustice and inequality.  Most of all I hate conflict, especially now that I see conflict within our community. In my opinion we must move forward and show cohesively that we are one community that is equal to the rest of America, at home and in the workplace.”

Again Stabler seems to be relying on this faulty premise, that the conflict is a result of the actions of the trans community rather than the actions and choices of the Human Rights Campaign leadership which precipitated those actions in the first place. Stabler is essentially labeling the trans community and our allies divisive for getting upset about the HRC leadership’s despicable behavior and speaking out against it. The closest she even comes to acknowledging that HRC has some responsibility here is when she says:

“I, too, was disappointed by the separation of Gender and Sexual Orientation from an inclusive-ENDA, and I was dismayed about how the leadership and board of HRC handled it.”

Not exactly what you’d call a strong condemnation, is it? Maybe it’s the US vs. UK English thing, but I’m “disappointed” and “dismayed” when there’s an hour wait for a table at my favorite restaurant. When I’m lied to and have my community’s interests betrayed by an organization that claims to speak for me and others like me, I feel something entirely different. For a long time, far too many in this community have been ”disappointed” and “dismayed” but not enough have been genuinely pissed off and angry enough to do something about it. Things are different now, though. For once, maybe even for the first time, the numbers are finally on our side.

I don’t say all this to attack Meghan Stabler personally. Again, I don’t know her. I have no doubt whatsoever that she is sincere in her opinions. I also think, however, that she has fully bought into the HRC leadership’s view of things and we are seeing that viewpoint clearly depicted in her letter. If I am correct here it would explain a lot about why we have yet to see an apology from these people: They really don’t believe they’ve done anything wrong. That, of course, right there is the problem, and the crux upon which this entire conflict rests:

HRC’s leadership sees their position on ENDA as smart politics, but most of the politically-conscious American LGBT community sees it as unjust, immoral, and bad behavior.

When you strip away all the politics and political posturing, it’s really no more complicated than that. It isn’t the trans community that’s being divisive here. The true voice of the greater American LGBT community is demanding transgender inclusion in an ever-increasing chorus, but it’s the Human Rights Campaign leadership that stands alone here, apart from the vast majority, endorsing legislation that offers protections only to the straight-appearing Queer elite, taking the very same position on transgender inclusion as the Log Cabin Republicans. It’s not the trans community, but rather the Human Rights Campaign leadership which has chosen to separate itself from the will and political agenda of the greater community. HRC is isolated because it chose to isolate itself. If it wishes to rejoin this movement and perhaps someday be seen as a leader again then it must move to where the rest of us are. This community has moved on, past the divisive “ivory tower” politics of HRC, to a truly progressive agenda which demands that no American’s right to be protected against discrimination ever be considered negotiable.

It all comes down to the simple reality that HRC’s leadership knows perfectly well that its position on ENDA is in direct opposition to the one held by most of our community. They simply don’t care. They are not qualified to represent us and they need to step aside and let a credible organization that truly reflects the will and the interests of the American LGBT community like NGLTF take the reins of this movement.

Of course, HRC doesn’t want to step aside, but I think as time goes on this organization will find itself with less and less of a choice in that regard. That decision has already been made by the people, and the politicians are dutifully following suit. It’s only a matter of time now before HRC finds itself disempowered in Congress, perhaps even left out of the loop on major LGBT political issues as the politicians increasingly look to our chosen leaders for guidance on where our community actually is on the important issues of the day. And y’know, I really don’t think that time is all that far off.

Karma can be such a bitch.

Semagic 1.7.3.1U - Rebecca Juro (beckygrrl) @ livejournal.comIf there’s anything you can count on the city of San Francisco for when it comes to LGBT rights and community support, it’s that even when they’re not on the very leading edge of something, they’ll still do it bigger, better, and more fabulously than anywhere else. New York, Philadelphia, and several other major cities have had protests and demonstrations against the Human Rights Campaign at their local fundraising events, but what’s waiting for HRC in San Francisco on July 26th, when they hold their next fundraising dinner in that city, is likely to make the rest look like a warmup act.

The “Left Out” protest/counter-party, organized by Pride at Work and local area organizations, will take place outside the hotel where the HRC dinner is being held and is expected to draw more attendance than the HRC event itself, featuring appearances by celebrities and political figures who are loudly and publicly shunning the HRC event.

When the most popular and well-respected political leaders in the city considered to be the Queer Mecca of the US are describing the largest “LGBT” civil rights organization in the country as “human rights cowards” and promising not only not to support them or attend their functions, but also to support those who oppose the Human Rights Campaign and their agenda, you know that the tide has indeed finally turned, that treating gender-variant people as equals and as an inextricable part of the LGBT community both socially and politically is an ideal that has evolved over the last couple of decades and especially over the last few years from merely wishful thinking and the rare attempt at inclusion to now being popularly considered a basic tenet of modern Queer activism. Transgender inclusion has gone mainstream in Queer America, and is now an integral part of the cultural and political identity of this community.

Where once most of the gay men and lesbians leading this movement acted selfishly, preferring to seek advantage only for those like themselves, and the community passively supported whatever path they chose, HRC’s behavior in regards to ENDA now has enraged so many in the greater LGBT community across the board that another faction in our community has begun to assert itself for the first time, one made up of staunch progressives who believe in not only tolerance and acceptance, but also in proactive and aggressive social and political action, in concert with an unshakable belief in full inclusion and in acting inclusively.

When we step back and look at this situation with a little perspective, it seems likely that the biggest mistake HRC and the Democratic House leadership made in dealing with transgender inclusion in ENDA wasn’t made behind a podium at Southern Comfort or even when Barney and Friends stripped us from the bill. Chances are, their real mistake was that these folks made a bet and they lost, bigtime.

In 2004, Transgender-Americans were, politically speaking, a joke. I can say this because I was there, I saw and heard it firsthand. I heard representatives of the LGBT outreach team of the Kerry campaign tell me and a team of transgender activists and supporters I’d assembled to meet with the campaign to discuss how we could help Kerry become President that even though they considered us part of the team and wanted us to do all we could to help get Kerry elected, neither the campaign nor the candidate would even do as little as publicly recognize the existence of Transgender-Americans, much less subscribe to the idea that civil rights are for all of us.

We were similarly ignored in the media. Virtually all of the Queer community media of the time, both in and out of the mainstream, was almost exclusively geared toward the interests of gay men and lesbians, usually with only a passing nod at best to transgender people and the issues relevant in our lives. The protests leading up to HRC’s original promise in August of 2004 only to support inclusive federal legislation from then on garnered only a smattering of mainstream community media attention. In fact, really the only places to find reliable and up-to-date news and information on topics and issues relating to transgender and gender-variant people then was in media specifically targeted toward us.

Given these realities, it wasn’t very surprising when most of the greater LGBT community responded to the events of 2004 with little more than a collective yawn. I suspect that HRC and the House leadership were betting that going with a non-inclusive ENDA would elicit much the same response from the community in 2007 and, because upcoming elections are always a consideration in politics, 2008. They gambled on being able to just slip it by most of the community with nary a ripple of complaint from the mainstream, where HRC and the Democrats are most concerned about protecting their public images and reputations. Fortunately for transgender and gender-variant Americans, the vast majority of the LGBT community and our allies would have absolutely none of it.

In a lot of ways, politicians, at least the good ones, can be like telltales on a ship, indicating through their actions and behavior exactly where their constituency is on a given issue. The choice of many of these pols to stand with those opposing the HRC and, by extension, the Democratic House leadership, in regards to the way they’ve dealt with ENDA is a powerful and courageous statement, but also one that seems to become easier and easier for politicians to make as time goes on. This suggests that transgender and gender-variance inclusion and support are currently making quantum gains in popular and political support, probably in large part because this drama is now being played out on so large, loud, and public a stage.

The irony here is almost palpable. In a very real way, it’s HRC and the House Dems themselves who created this monster. Through their actions, by acting in a way that they apparently didn’t realize would be seen as arrogant and morally reprehensible by the vast majority of the American LGBT and progressive communities, the issue of equal rights and treatment for transgender and gender-variant people has gone from a barely-mentioned side issue in many Queer and progressive spaces to a cause célèbre in cities across this country. If you’d told me in 2004 we’d be seeing politicians forgoing HRC dinners and publicly speaking out against the organization in support of transgender rights and inclusion in 2008, I’d have thought you insane. I don’t think we could have ever accomplished all this so quickly on our own.

I also believe that the real game-changer here in the minds of many has been not simply what these people did to us in regards to ENDA, but also the blatant disrespect and arrogance exhibited by the Human Rights Campaign and their friends in Congress in doing so. I think that resonated with many LGBT’s, friends, allies, and supporters, inspiring many in this community to examine whether or not they who may have been persecuted themselves or had witnessed anti-LGBT discrimination directed at a friend or loved one, were comfortable with seeking to escape that injustice at the expense of others who are even more harshly oppressed.

Of course, this is a very good thing. Equally obvious, however, is that we currently have no idea at all if this will have any relevance whatsoever as to whether or not we’ll see an inclusive ENDA (or ENDA replacement) in the next Congress. We can speculate all we want, but the real truth is that there’s just no way to even have a clue as to what might actually happen until those votes are all counted in November. If the Dems do win in a landslide, that which was once considered possible and then impossible may suddenly become possible once again. If this past week’s hearing is any indication, there are at least some members of Congress who are actively hoping to take advantage of that potential scenario.

As more progressives come to understand the discrimination faced by transgender and gender-variant people, more decide to help and declare their support for treating us fairly. We all thought it would take years, maybe even decades longer for it to happen, but it’s not, it’s happening right now. Support for transgender rights is rapidly becoming every bit as much a mainstream issue in some quarters now as support for gay and lesbian rights is or ever has been, particularly in places where gays and lesbians are already relatively well-protected from discrimination. We may not have completely caught up yet, but we’re covering the ground between us far more quickly than anyone could ever have reasonably predicted. We’re still racing forward at breakneck speed in terms of increasing understanding and acceptance, and we’ve been consistently doing so even during times when the American political climate has been its most aggressively anti-gay in modern memory.

I’m no less cynical today about the motives of politicians and selfish political advocacy organizations than I’ve ever been, but I also acknowledge that a smart politician is one who knows when it’s time to get on the popular side of an issue, and when it’s time to stand up and speak out on what they really believe. It’s become pretty clear what most of the LGBT community, and therefore many of the politicians seeking to court the Queer vote, believe the right side of this particular issue is and they’re moving toward it faster than a superdelegate on June 4th. I believe that we can take the lack of attendance at these HRC events and last week’s Congressional hearing as signs that the politicians are not only ready to listen, but also that an ever-increasing number of them are finally ready to act.

It’s also important to remember that there’s another reason why this particular event is significant as well. San Francisco contains the home district of the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. In the past, Pelosi has been able to depend on the LGBT community to rally behind her in support of her candidacy at election time. Call it a hunch, but I don’t think that same level of LGBT community support will be forthcoming for Pelosi and her campaign this time around.

This was a huge gamble for HRC and the Dems, and so, just as correspondingly huge a loss. The Human Rights Campaign is now a community pariah, their brand and their reputation all but completely discredited in much of the community and obviously in many political circles as well, especially in the major cities where most of the Queer money is. House Democrats have been coming under relentless fire from LGBT media and activists for passing a non-inclusive ENDA. It has quite literally become cool, hip, and cutting edge in LGBT and progressive circles to support transgender rights and to speak out against HRC and those in Congress who support non-inclusive civil rights legislation. Suddenly, we’re the new Black.

I strongly suspect that part of the motivation for holding last week’s hearing in Congress was to signal to the transgender community and our allies that we haven’t been forgotten. No doubt many Congressional Democrats are well aware of the public flogging HRC has been receiving from the LGBT community over ENDA, and at least some of them have experienced a taste of it themselves. With the election looming ever closer, the Democrats would like nothing better than to unite us all as one big happy Queer nation, under Obama, with liberty and justice for…well, nobody really.

It’s not going to happen. Not this year. There’s a new Queer Agenda© in effect now, one that doesn’t compromise on fighting bigotry and discrimination in the workplace, and most especially one that reflects the will of the vast majority of politically-conscious LGBT Americans and not that of just a handful of mainly ultra-wealthy white gay men. Congress knows it, and HRC knows it too, whether they want to admit it or not. The days when you could treat transpeople like crap and not have it be seen as a reprehensible thing by most Americans are over. It seems we’ve crossed that line for the virtually all of the LGB community and probably for most of modern America, and we can thank HRC, Barney Frank, and all the rest of the Democrats who went ahead with a non-inclusive ENDA despite the community outcry not to do it for pushing progressive public opinion over the line by highlighting and modeling the kind of unjust exclusion and discrimination transgender and gender-variant people face every day.

That’s right, you heard me. We have HRC and the incrementalist Dems in Congress who voted for the crippled, non-inclusive ENDA to thank for the surging support for transgender rights in our community and probably in our country overall, at least in part. Ain’t that a kick in the ass? Stranger still is the fact that we have to thank them for modeling bad behavior, thus rallying the community to our cause in droves to organize and fight against them and their elitist agenda.

Regardless of how we got here though, we’re here. We’ve made it. Transgender and gender-variant people are a bonafide American minority now, recognized as such not only by progressive Democrats like Barack Obama, but also by the United States Congress. If there’s any true sense of actual progress made to be had from last week’s hearing, perhaps it’s that. It’s what we asked from Kerry and the Democrats in ‘04 and were basically told to piss off.

So what does it all mean in the long term? The first thing it means is that we need to do everything we can to make damned certain that Barack Obama is elected President. The second thing it means is that it’s highly likely that what we’re seeing now is damage control. Congressional Democrats are wondering how they should respond, both when they get their own HRC dinner invitation and when (if) the question of transgender inclusion is called next year. They are, to be blunt, coming to terms with the fact that they misjudged the situation so completely and fucked this up so badly that it’s a tactical blunder worthy of the Bush Administration, and they’re trying to fix it after the fact as best they can.

What I’m hoping is that this hearing was a set up for an inclusive ”reboot” of the whole ENDA legislation next year, be it a revamping of the bill itself or the introduction of a completely new piece of legislation. It would probably be the best way to put the past behind us as quickly as possible and bring the battle for transgender inclusion and its attendant political fallout to an end, or, at least a quieting, until the next battle lines are drawn.

It’s working. This is how we’ll all win together. Slowly. Steadily. Definitely. It may take a little longer and require a little more work to get there, but more people than ever before think it’s worth the effort. I’m still not yet convinced that anything has changed in any real way as far as ENDA is concerned, but at the same time, I’m more convinced than ever that the possibilities of something, maybe even a lot of things, changing for the better in the relatively near future is both real and worth fighting for.

For years we complained that no one was listening.

They’re listening now.

Let’s give ‘em an earful.

It ended about ten minutes ago as I write this, and I have to say I was, for the most part, impressed. At some points, even proud.

Opening statements made by Tammy Baldwin and Barney Frank were both powerful and moving. Despite my many previous bashings of Frank in the past, I must say that for the most part he acquitted him admiriably here. While I probably wouldn’t have made a point of mentioning how great it was that the subcomittee was even bothering to hold a hearing on transgender employment rights in the first place as Frank did, I also think he took exactly the right tack in making the point that transpeople should be entitled to the same rights as everyone else, that if those present could support someone like himself being treated as an equal then they should also be willing to do the same in the case of a transgender person. This is exactly the argument I’ve been hoping to see Barney Frank make publicly for years now, the one that we all know he’s much too smart not to know is not only compelling but has the additional advantage of being absolutely true: It’s not about rights gays or rights for transgender people, it’s about rights for all Americans.

Another surprise, to me at least, was Committee Chairman Rob Andrews. Like, Frank, Andrews voted for the non-inclusive version of ENDA when it passed in the House, but spoke eloquently during this hearing in favor of protecting transgender people from employment discrimination. Also, his questioning of Glen Lavy, Senior Council for the Alliance Defense Fund, a right wing anti-LGBT organization, was sharp, cutting to the bone of Lavy’s protests to reveal the truth, that the argument Lavy was really offering is that businesses should be allowed the right to discriminate in hiring, ostensibly based on the business owner’s religious beliefs.

It could be fairly argued that Andrews was the best speaker of the day with Barney a close second and Tammy a solid third. All three of these people voted for the non-inclusive bill, though Baldwin did so with publicly noted reservations. And now, here they are, leading the charge for fair and equal treatment of trangender persons.

What did we just see here? Did we just witness a single hearing that will now be quickly forgotten as the politicians move on to other business or the formal introduction of a sea change in the way this Congress is going to deal with LGBT civil rights issues in the future, a way more in keeping with the values of an anticipated upcoming Obama Administration? Or did we see the beginnings of something else entirely, something yet to be fully revealed? The honest answer is I don’t know, but maybe, just maybe, there’s reason to hope.

Tonight, we welcome New York transactivist Melissa Sklarz. We’ll be talking with Melissa about GENDA and much more!

Plus, news, commentary, and fun with Becky, Mike, and Rye!

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The Human Rights Campaign hopes you’re not paying attention. Barney Frank hopes you’ll look the other way. John Aravosis is crossing his fingers that you won’t draw the only logical conclusion. These folks and those who think about basic civil rights protections like they do don’t want you to know the truth, a truth that has been obvious for years now, proven accurate in every state in this country that has enacted anti-discrimination protections for their LGBT citizens except for one:

Protecting the transgendered and gender-variant from discrimination enjoys substantially more support among American voters nationwide than same-sex marriage does, or probably ever will.

We saw that reality played out yet again this week in New York. The Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA), the bill that would protect transgender and gender-variant New Yorkers from discrimination in employment, housing, and public accomodations statewide, was passed by the New York State Assembly yesterday by an overwhelming vote of 103-33. Same sex-marriage was passed by this same legislative body last year by a vote of 85-61. Doing the math, we discover that a little more than 56% of the 150-member Assembly voted in favor of the bill. Comparing the numbers on GENDA, however, we see that a whopping 68% of these same legislators chose to vote in favor of protecting transgender and gender-variant New Yorkers from discrimination, about 12% higher than voted in favor of the marriage bill.

Many similar stories can be told as well. Here in my home state of New Jersey, for example, state legislators fell all over themselves to pass civil unions in order to comply with the state’s high court ruling that gay and lesbian New Jerseyans must be guaranteed the same rights as heterosexuals, but not actually grant the real equality the court intended to ensure for all state residents by legalizing same-sex marriage. Shortly thereafter, however, New Jersey’s State Senate voted unanimously, 35-0, and the state Assembly voted by an almost equally overwhelming margin, 65-10, to add protections for transgender and gender-variant citizens to the state’s existing anti-discrimination law.

Even back in 2002, over 60% polled in the conservative state of North Carolina supported protecting transgender people from employment discrimination, according to an HRC survey conducted that year, and support for these protections has only grown over that time, even as state after state passed laws and constitutional amendments preventing their states from recognizing same-sex unions. To my knowledge, while some states have chosen not to enact protections for transgender and gender-variant citizens when they were voted on, no state has ever voted to enact a law or amend their constitution to prevent such protections from being enacted in the future.

The conclusion here is inescapable to anyone really paying attention: There’s far more support in this country for protecting transgender and gender-variant Americans from discrimination than there is or ever has been for legalizing same-sex marriage.

Yet, what we see and hear coming from HRC, Barney Frank, and so many others is the opposite of what has been conclusively proven over and over to be reality, that rights for transgender and gender-variant Americans is somehow less palatable to the American public at large than the right of same-sex couples to be married.

I’m not trying to make value comparisons here. Both goals are supremely worthy, both deserve to become the law of the land as soon as is humanly possible. My issue is with the hypocrisy of those like HRC and Barney Frank especially who continue pounding the drum for same-sex marriage while at the same time advocating for the exclusion of transgender and gender-variant Americans from basic civil rights legislation, claiming that there’s not enough support for it to pass. Were they truly honest and consistant in their advocacy for LGBT equality, they’d acknowledge that it’s far more likely to be able to pass anti-discrimination laws in the near future which would protect all LGBT Americans than it is that we’ll see same-sex marriage become legalized at the federal level.

The numbers don’t lie, only those who are willing to sacrifice the truth in the pursuit of personal and political gain are doing that here. It’s time for us to focus on these realities, speak truth to power, and make sure everyone knows and understands what is true, what has always been true, that more Americans support basic anti-discrimination protections for transgender and gender-variant Americans, the goal these people refuse to fight for fairly and honestly, than support same-sex marriage, the goal they continue to advocate for with every erg of effort, energy and political clout they can possibly muster.

If these people truly believe in the kind of incrementalism they claim is the only way to advocate these issues, let’s see them bow to the reality we all know to be true because the numbers prove it to be. Let’s see them get in line and wait patiently their turn to attain their goals as they’d have us do. If they really do believe their own rhetoric, that incrementalism is the only way to achieve these goals, let’s see Barney Frank, HRC, and all the rest of the same-sex marriage advocates adhere to the political logic they try to impose upon us and willingly accept their proper place in the incrementalism line, behind us.

Just the other day, Bilerico Project Publisher Bil Browning reported that the Democratic National Committee Convention credentials committee has snubbed the Bilerico Project in favor of Towleroad, a blog mainly directed toward the interests of wealthy white gay men. Of course, this kind of behavior is nothing new for the HRC…um…I mean the DNC. Sorry, sometimes it’s so hard to tell the two apart.

To be fair, Pam’s House Blend did get the nod, and quite deservedly so. PHB has a great, diverse collection of bloggers from all segments of our community and covers a wide rage of LGBT-relevant political topics. Towleroad, to be blunt, doesn’t. Indeed, one could argue that the only two real qualifications of Towleroad to be credentialed at the DNC Convention are that the author is gay and he gets a lot of readership. Personally, I really don’t see the relevance here. The New York Mets have a lot of fans and I’m sure many of them are LGBT (I’m one of them), but that doesn’t means those who blog about the Mets deserve credentials to a political convention.

While I’ll admit to a certain amount of personal bias here given that I’m a Bilerico contributor and served as an editor at the site for several months, it’s nonetheless a position well-supported by the facts. The Bilerico Project features over 60 writers from all walks of LGBT life blogging on a dizzying array of LGBT-relevant cultural and political topics. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bill Richardson, Barney Frank and many other Democratic political leaders and hopefuls have blogged with us. We’re regularly linked and featured in a variety of community and mainstream publications. We came in second for “Best LGBT Blog” in the 2007 Weblog Awards (above even PHB, which won the title in 2005 and 2006, I might add…Towleroad wasn’t even a finalist), an absolutely astounding feat for a blog barely more than half a year old at the time of the voting.

I’m not trying to bash Towleroad, mind you. I’m not a reader, but so what? I am white, but I’m not rich gay man. I follow the blogs that speak me and people like me. Towleroad, with its 95% male readership, and 52% of its readership making more than 75K and 40% pulling six figures or more just isn’t directed at my demographic. Towleroad just doesn’t speak to me, as a working class person, as a woman, or as a transperson because it’s not inclusive of any of these groups. If this is what passes for “LGBT” in the minds of those at the DNC it’s easy to understand why we’re getting just about exactly as much benefit and support from our current Democratic-controlled Congress as we did when the GOP ran things. The words are prettier perhaps, but the elitism and exclusivity is all but identical.

Is this really the message the Democrats want to send us this year? Seems to me they’re basically say to us “Shut up and be happy we let even one of you in the door. Now piss off, politics and relevance be damned, we’ve got rich white guys to pander to.”.

What can we do? We can make our point by calling Jenni Engebretsen, Damon Jones, Natalie Wyeth at 720-362-2006. We can drop a note to the general press office. We can e-mail Aaron Myers, Director of Online Communications for the convention. And, on top of all that, we can remember this when we get those phone calls from the DNC later this year asking for our hard-earned working-class dollars. Donate to Obama, certainly. He’s earned our support though his public support of us and our rights. When the DNC comes calling with its hand out, though, let’s give them exactly what they deserve too.

Personally, I’m going to suggest the DNC go find some rich white gays to go beg money from. After all, it should be easy for them…I’m sure Rhode Island Avenue isn’t very far from their DC offices.