The Ill-Logic of ENDA

It seems as though Congress is unable to make up its collective mind as to whether or not it wants to protect transgendered employees from discrimination.

As of late, the word – albeit softly spoken – out of gay newspapers and blogs is that a new bill is being considered that would do just that. But wait, you say, hasn’t that been tried before to no avail? You would be correct.

Last April, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., co-sponsored the Employee Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, a federal bill that would protect employees from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Things didn’t go so well with ENDA, so Frank and Co. pulled a fast one and introduced another version that does not include a gender identity provision. The House approved this new and improved incarnation of ENDA only two months later in November.

Frank cited the gender identity provision as being one of the reasons the first version of ENDA was going nowhere. And now he’s introducing a new bill devoted specifically to gender identity discrimination. This has become an ideological mess.

Cases in point: the majority of ENDA's opponents do so on religious grounds – places such as Christian bookstores are not excluded from the bill. It’s probably an understatement to say that religion and politics has proven to be a potent force in America. Also, when the gender identity provision was gutted from the text of the first version of ENDA, more than hundred GLBT organizations expressed their dismay. That had to hurt Frank, one of Congress’ few out members. On the other hand, their collective disgust was rather justified considering that Frank went ahead with the non-inclusive ENDA sans the consultation of any major GLBT group.

Finally, in the apparently unlikely chance (so says Frank) a gender identity bill were moved forward, members of Congress who vote for a non-inclusive ENDA, but not for a identity-specific bill (or vice versa) would be perceived as flip-flopping. The term ‘flip-flop’ seems rather innocuous, although the term ‘hypocrite’ does not.

However, last, and probably most importantly, all of this leaves transgendered employees and those not specifically trans, but those men and women who just don’t conform to the traditional expressions of masculinity and femininity, respectively – an occurrence that sometimes overlaps sexual orientation – out in the cold, so to speak. And that’s a shame.

The initial premise of ENDA was to extend to GLBT people a fundamental right that many other people – for the most part – have enjoyed, the right not to be fired from a job because of a basic component of who they are. Surely, excluding gender identity from ENDA somewhat defeats the purpose of this admirable goal. GLBT people are included at their places of work in a country, mind you, where proactive organizations exist to convince these same people homosexuality is merely an unpleasant condition that can be suppressed and/or forgotten.

Furthermore, introducing a separate bill must look like an appealing option to Frank and Co. from the standpoint of attracting trans supporters, but the esteemed representative must recognize the absurdity in sponsoring a second non-inclusive ENDA bill (that he was convinced would remain unsupported in any case), especially when he had a perfectly good bill – the first, inclusive ENDA – to begin with.

So, this is what it comes down to: you make ENDA inclusive of gender identity or you don’t consider the bill at all. It’s foolish to do otherwise; extend non-discrimination rights to everyone – like you proclaim you want to – or don’t do it at all. We can’t afford to keep leaving people out.

To read the text of the current, non-inclusive version of ENDA, click here.