Transgender/Gender Identity Inclusive ENDA Headed To The Floor In March?

    Hold your breath everyone. It looks like the Employment Non Discrimination Act - ENDA might be headed out of committee and into the House for a vote in March. 

The question remains if the bill will be a fully Transgender inclusive ENDA or a non-Transgender, non-gender identity watered down version. Such has been the case in the past. If history repeats itself, as it tends to do, there will be some who say something is better than nothing. A local gay lawyer said, "If it means all gay men will be protected from employment discrimination, I would be more than willing to drop gender identity from the bill."

    Of course, The Human Rights Campaign did exactly that when they supported the last attempt to have a non-Transgender, non-gender identity ENDA enacted. Who are Transgender people to believe as we go into the next thirty days that might affect the rest of our lives? 

    Do we believe the Democrats? Are they brave enough to stand behind a fully inclusive ENDA? I think not after the major upset in Massachusetts, Democrats resigning and/or retiring and the election of the ultra conservative Republican Bob McDonnell as Governor of Virginia. If it is politics as usual, the Democrats want to be reelected more than they want to do the right thing for Transgender people.

    Is this cynical or realistic? Only time will tell.

Frank Predicts March Vote For Gay Protections Bill

BY CARLOS SANTOSCOY 

PUBLISHED: FEBRUARY 22, 2010

Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank expects a bill that would make employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity illegal to reach the House floor next month.

Frank, the nation's most powerful openly gay elected official and the House sponsor of the bill, made his remarks in an interview with gay weekly DC Agenda.

A November postponement of a final committee markup on the House version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) left activists lobbying for its passage anxious over the bill's future. At the time, a spokesperson for the committee said lawmakers were working on “legal and technical” issues, but added that the markup was still expected to take place before the end of the year.

“We were very close just before we snowed out to basically come to an agreement on a bill that would get a majority vote in the Education & Labor Committee,” Frank said.

“The speaker has promised me that as soon as it passes the committee, she'll bring it up to the floor of the House [for a vote],” he added.

Frank predicted the bill would clear the committee next week and reach the House floor next month.

Passage in the Democrat-controlled House, where the bill has attracted 197 co-sponsors, is almost certain. Less certain, however, are its prospects in the Senate. Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley is the sponsor of the bill's Senate version.

The bill's included transgender protections appear to be a sticking point among committee members.

“There has always been a problem with the question of people who are transgender in situations where people are totally or partially unclothed,” Frank said.

Previously, Frank successfully sponsored a House version of ENDA that did not include transgender protections, but the effort fizzled in the Senate.

Opponents of the bill say the legislation impinges on religious freedoms.

“This bill will mean that employers will be forced to make employment decisions against their religious beliefs,” Ashley Home, federal policy analyst for the Christian-based group Focus on the Family, told Citizen Link.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE