Gendersaurus Rex

At 8pm today the National Center for Transgender Equality held a conference call for activists, transgender people, allies, and leaders of the movement around the country to discuss the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). As you know, from my earlier post, a transgender inclusive ENDA has been re-introduced to the House by Barney Frank – this time with 118 co-supporters of the bill (over double of when the bill was introduced last time!). The conference call had over 150 individuals on it, and began promptly at 8pm. I took notes throughout the whole thing in order to report back to you, my readers.

So here we go:

After the introductions, there was a conversation about the bill. It is the same ENDA language as before (except, obviously inclusive). There will be an official bill number by tomorrow, and you should be able to find the actual language of the bill online if you are interested in it. I assume NCTE will link it on their site at some point tomorrow or Friday.

Mara Keisling then led a conversation about the time line we can expect to see with ENDA:

• The Senate: We can expect to see the Hate Crimes Bill to be passed out of the Senate and onto the President’s desk by August 6, 2009. In terms of ENDA, we are unsure when the Senate will pass it — it all depends on how quickly the House moves.
• The House: Sometime in July there will be a floor discussion about ENDA. The exact date is not set. There WILL be a vote on ENDA by the end of the calendar year.
• The President has agreed to sign onto ENDA, which will help us immensely when we get the bill into the Senate, which will be a harder win.

Mara then turned the floor over to Mason Davis, of the Transgender Law Center, to talk about what we can all do at home (whether you are an activist, ally, friend, family member, or leader):

• Make sure your Senator and local Representative hears from you! August 6 – September 4 is recess, and your Senator and Representative will be in their home districts and available to talk to you. Call in and make an appointment NOW! That way you can meet with them in person.
• If you cannot meet with them in person, then write & call. If you are transgender, tell them how this bill affects you. Tell them how there are transgender people in their district. If you are an ally, explain how this bill affects you too because it affects your loved ones.
• NCTE will put up an action package on their website that will be available for download tomorrow. Download it for detailed suggestions on what you can do.
• If you live in a district or state that does not have particularly friendly representatives, don’t be discouraged. Win them over with cookies. Show them you can do something for them by attending one of their events that you can stand to tend. Tell them personal stories. With some patience and persistence, you can change their minds through education.

Before we moved on to the tone of these visits, we had a few words from a special guest — Chaz Bono!! He said a few words, and NCTE shared their support of him in terms of coming out of the closet. Here’s some quotes:

• “ENDA has been close to my heart for a really long time.”
• “It feels really good that this is the first thing I am getting involved in after coming out as a transgendered man.”

It was nice having Chaz on the phone!

Then it was back to Mason Davis to discuss the tone of our visits with our representatives.

• “As Diego mentioned earlier, Rep. Barney Frank is confident about ENDA’s success,” – Davis.
• We must keep a positive intent!
• Make sure that when you go talk to people about ENDA you maintain confidence that this bill will pass. Your confidence will inspire others to work on the bill.
• Remember, do not put anyone down or talk about the shortcomings of the past. By maintaining a positive outlook we will successfully convince others to join the movement of passing and inclusive ENDA within a year!

“It’s up to US to do OUR work,” – Mara Kesling

“We’re going to get this done this time, we are going to get this done,” – Diego Sanchez

Tomorrow, or Friday, NCTE will launch a national petition. We need to get as many people and organizations to sign the petition as wee can. However, the petition will not be effective without phone calls. If we can get even half the people that sign the petition to CALL, then we will win this. You have to think about it in terms of opposition – our opposition will organize people to call in against ENDA. So please, try and find ways to call in.

Then NCTE opened the floor to questions, and my dear friend Shawna pushed *1 quickly and was the fourth person to ask a question. Congrats Shawna!

There was a question about if ENDA would include a “religious exemption”. And the short answer is yes. What this means is that “any religious institution does not have to abide by ENDA” (Mara). “What [this clause] does is allow the Interfaith Coucil to get all of its members to sign on to support ENDA,” (Diego Sanchez). So, religious institutions will be exempt (churches, private religious schools, ect), but individual people will not be able to claim faith as a reason for not enforcing ENDA.

After a few more questions, the call was over.

I feel really good about it, and excited about the new ENDA. I have faith that this time things will go smoothly. I also think that Rep. Frank and HRC has “learned their lesson” so to speak, and will stand behind an inclusive ENDA for good now. Not willing to talk to congress people? Then find another way to get involved. One of the major supporters of ENDA in the state of GA is Georgia Equality – you can support their efforts by getting involved in events or initiatives they may hold. If you are unable to travel, then use the internet as a way of doing activism – cross post petitions, write blog entries, encourage people to get involved.

COMING SOON: An initiative to collect stories on why ENDA is important to present to Senators and Representatives. This will be a collaborative effort of Shawna and I. I will post an entirely separate entry about this later when we have more information on what the project will be, how to contact us, and how to get involved.

Filed under: All Posts, Cultural Analysis, Social Justice