Fruit for Thought...

Recent debate about ENDA (the Employment Non-Discrimination Act) has gay rights activists pitted against gay rights activists who are arguing over the breadth of coverage of the protections afforded by the act.

Broadly speaking, on one hand, you have gay rights activists who believe that ENDA will only pass by a veto proof margin if the protections do NOT cover job discrimination against transgendered and transsexual people. On the other side are those who argue that the LGB's must stand in solidarity with the T's because there is strength in numbers and/or it is the right thing to do.

Some LGB activists are uncomfortable that issues regarding the T’s have been “tossed into the pot” of legislative protections for L, G and B employees. They argue that to compare the T’s with the LGB’s is like comparing apples and oranges. Both queer and fruity but otherwise, not the same.

Another rationale we’ve heard (in support of excluding the T’s from ENDA) is that the T’s do have access to rights and protections that are currently NOT available to LGB people.

For example, because the T’s are not necessarily gay or lesbian, it is true that those who have opposite sex partners can and do take advantage of rights and benefits not available to those of us in same-sex relationships. Those rights and benefits might include marriage, adoption, military service, the ability to collect government benefits, etc.

We read a post about an activist who challenged the T’s to show their solidarity with the LGB’s by refusing to take advantage of their right to marry an opposite sex partner until the LGB’s also have that right.

Still others contend that it makes political sense to pass a watered down version of ENDA now – even if its protection is limited to the LGB’s. Those who believe in this approach include Representative Barney Frank, himself a G-man, who said that the important thing to do is get the bill passed and then we can try to add the T’s later.

We (Carrie & Elisia and therefore, Rainbow Law) find the entire debate somewhat distasteful if not disgraceful!

How often have you heard us rail against other minority groups for their unwillingness or inability to empathize with our (LGB) oppression?

If every member of a minority group in America – Gay, Lesbian, Transgendered, Transsexual, Bi-Sexual, Native American, Hispanic, African American, Black, Asian, Muslim, Jew, Arab, Indian, etc. -- who has ever experienced state sanctioned discrimination would just for one second reflect on that fact that all of us have, in common, the knowledge and understanding of oppression and the denial of basic rights simply because of our religion, skin color, ethnicity, gender and/or sexual orientation.

If only we can all be courageous enough to empathize with one another on this basic, human level, NONE of us would BE in a minority group because together, WE ARE THE MAJORITY.

When we are able to rise above the our own fear of “the other,” we will understand that the only true “US AGAINST THEM” dynamic is the one that pits the HAVE-NOTS -- mostly old, very young, and/or poor, people of color, LGBTQ people, religious, ethnic and racial minorities – against the HAVES -- mostly White, male, christian, wealthy, straight, holders of political and financial power.

Together, in solidarity, we would be a MAJORITY. It is essential to the survival of the true MINORITY that we continue to fear and mistrust one another.

Otherwise, the HAVES would no longer be free to go on raping and pillaging the Earth and our collective Spirit.

When we step back and look at the BIG picture, we cannot justify excluding the T’s from a law that THEY need just as much as we do.

Especially when we are asking other (often reluctant) minority groups to support OUR struggle for legal equality.

Somewhere, someone has to stop the cycle of climbing up the citizenship ladder by stepping on the backs of the next lowest despised minority.

Whether GLB, T or the other T, we're all oppressed by the same folks for similar reasons.

To us, it's perfectly clear: we're all Queer here.