Solidarity On ENDA Trans Inclusion Unravels

Some of the nation's largest civil rights groups, including the Human Rights Campaign, said Tuesday that Congress should pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act even if it does not include protections for trans-workers.

The act, known as ENDA, was to have come to a vote on Tuesday but was pushed off the agenda at the last minute. The vote now is expected either Wednesday or Thursday.

ENDA originally included all members of the LGBT community, but its sponsor, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) one of only two openly gay members of Congress, removed gender identity fearing the legislation might not get out of committee. ENDA, as currently worded, would make it illegal for employers to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation in hiring, firing, promoting or paying an employee.

On Tuesday, however, it appeared there are not the votes to pass an all inclusive version of ENDA and in an open letter to members of Congress, HRC, the NAACP, the National Education Association, the National Employment Lawyers Association, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the American Federation of State, County, Municipal Employees and a number of other groups said they would support ENDA without gender identity.

The letter says that it is "beyond dispute that transgender employees are particularly in need of those protections. They face far more pervasive and severe bias in the workplace and society as a whole." But it goes on to say: "As civil rights organizations, however, we are no strangers to painful compromise in the quest for equal protection of the law for all Americans. From the Civil Rights Act of 1957 through the almost-passed District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act of 2007, legislative progress in the area of civil and human rights has almost always been incremental in nature. With each significant step toward progress, the civil rights community has also faced difficult and sometimes even agonizing tradeoffs. We have always recognized, however, that each legislative breakthrough has paved the way for additional progress in the future.

"With respect to ENDA, we take the same view. "While we are greatly disappointed that the current version of ENDA is not fully inclusive, our sense of frustration in this case is directed at those who would clearly prefer to see no one from the gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender community protected at all."

Gay rights groups have been trying to get a version of ENDA passed since the 1970s when then NY Rep Bella Abzug introduced the first bill.

The current version is the only one to make it to a vote on the floor of the House.