One of the major reasons I don't participate in NCTE Lobby Days besides the fact I'm not welcome at them, is because of the HRC presence and the 'minders' that follow you as you go to various offices. I'd also be asking questions in their lobby trainings based on my past GenderPAC lobby day experiences that would make then very uncomfortable.
The presence of those 'minders' makes it difficult for congressional staffers to tell you what's really taking place on Capitol Hill. That's why I have sources on the Hill that I ain't revealing.
One of the lessons I took away from the GenderPAC lobby days in 1998-99 is that it's not smart politics to lobby for a bill that you DON'T have a clue what the language is or know with 100% certainty that the language doesn't do harm to you.One of the things that has me and other trans people who want effective, comprehensive legislation passed concerned is exactly why is the trans provision language being rewritten? The 2007 ENDA trans provisions language was fine.
Why is it taking so long? Why the secrecy? It also makes me queasy that a long time 'frenemy', Rep. Barney Frank, who fought our inclusion in ENDA for a decade is writing the language.
If that doesn't bother you, it should.
The congress critters know we'll go ballistic and make that 2007 explosion of trans community anger over Washington shenanigans look like a church picnic if we're either cut from ENDA again, written out of it, or the language of ENDA 2010 is NOT the inclusive language of the 2007 version, but some Frankensteinian bastardization of it.
If it isn't, then why hide that fact?
The fact it's too quiet on the Hill where ENDA is concerned only leads to building anxiety that something really shady is going on inside the Beltway. The last time I had this uncomfortable feeling was in 2007 when we got yanked out of the bill.The same bill the head of a certain trans lobbying org said that our inclusion in it was a 'slam dunk'.
It was a slam dunk alright. A slam dunk that clanged off the congressional rim and bounced off the civil rights basketball court out of bounds.
You can peruse the blog archives to learn what I thought about it then. Unfortunately it seems like nothing's changed since 2007.
So where's the ENDA rewrite language?
