From Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rebecca-juro/even-after-all-these-years-hrc-still-doesnt-get-it_b_2989826.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices
Rebecca Juro
04/01/2013
The ongoing war between the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and the trans community is not only longstanding but quite damaging for both sides. And yes, before you ask, it most certainly is fair to call it a war, albeit a war that’s being fought with press releases, money, media access and political influence rather than bombs and bullets.
The vast majority of today’s LGBT activists and allies are supportive of an LGBT civil rights agenda that not only includes but actually works to support the interests of all LGBT people and doesn’t focus almost all its resources exclusively on a single issue that directly affects only a comparatively small minority (those who already are or wish to become married) but on issues of key importance to a far greater number of LGBT Americans, such as basic civil rights protections in employment, housing and access to public spaces.
Increasingly, these activists, particularly those who are younger and have come into activism through more modern and forward-thinking organizations, consider trans support, inclusion and issues unquestionably intrinsic parts of the agenda that they want to pursue. As recently as just a decade ago, you’d be hard-pressed to find a lot of progressive civil rights organizations that considered trans inclusion and our rights important and something that they supported as a part of their larger mission, even if not a direct focus, but now it’s much harder to find those that don’t.
Despite all the changes in the public perception and inclusion of trans people, not only in the progressive and LGBT activist communities but in modern American culture, one organization seems intent on steadfastly resisting any evolution in their agenda or the way they do things, no matter how strongly the winds of change are blowing in the opposite direction. That organization is HRC.
This war started long before my time, but I’ve played some small part in it in terms of the media surrounding it. In 2004 I broke the story of HRC publicly claiming to be supportive of a trans-inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) while a staffer for then-Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) told trans lobbyists that trans inclusion in ENDA would be much easier to achieve if HRC were onboard with it. The important point here is that HRC was telling one story publicly while those who were actual witnesses to what was happening at ground level were telling a very different one.
In 2007 HRC stood virtually alone among LGBT civil rights organizations in refusing to oppose a non-inclusive version of ENDA, even though it was well-known at the time that President Bush intended to veto the bill if it ever made it to his desk.
Continue reading at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rebecca-juro/even-after-all-these-years-hrc-still-doesnt-get-it_b_2989826.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices
