Let’s be Frank About Barney Frank and ENDA

Early Fall 2014, the LGBT political community seems to be getting its inclusive act together, gay Republican marriage equality donors have been pushing for an inclusive ENDA and HRC’s new president Chad Griffin makes a historic apology to the transgender community over the ENDA Debacle of 2007 speaking at the Southern Comfort Conference in September 2014, and backs his apology with HRC’s encouraging actions to accompany their words of transgender inclusion, Barney Frank comes out of his retirement to throw grease on a long burning fire that had cooled down below a simmer.

The apology:  “So I am here today, at Southern Comfort, to deliver a message,” Griffin said. “I deliver it on behalf of HRC, and I say it here in the hopes that it will eventually be heard by everyone who is willing to hear it. HRC has done wrong by the transgender community in the past, and I am here to formally apologize.”

I was pleasantly shocked when I met a new senior transgender HRC field staffer in DC this summer at NCTE’s transgender lobby days. I actually perceived that things were changing at HRC. Was this a prelude to Griffin’s words being meaningful? The trans community’s history with HRC has been like a roller coaster since I attended my first political event in the late summer of 2002, Befriending them, getting their support and later representing GRAANJ, our NJ Trans group returning their grant funds back to them for their flip-flop on transgender inclusion in 2004 … and again the events related to the Joe Solmonese flip flop of 2007. Indeed, to make matters worse yet, the HRC Transgender Town Hall meeting that winter at the NYC LGBT Center that was billed to the trans community as a vehicle to engage and heal the wounds, merely poured salt on those wounds, thanks to the now departed David Smith. This summer, I applauded HRC and the other LGBT organizations for calling out the TERFS and condemning the organizers of MichFest for their discrimation against transgender women. There was good reason to believe that the Human Rights Campaign was ready to walk the walk on full LGBT equality.

Barney Frank has been almost universally recognized as a very smart even brilliant political leader and some folks have said that had he not been gay he could have been Speaker of the House of Representatives. I’ll not comment about that, but he has impressed me with his political insight and he gave me sage advice when we were surrogates campaigning for Senator Menendez in 2006. I originally met Barney in venues related to the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston where he initially impressed me with his memory as he told me things that even I didn’t know dating back some 40 or 50 years about my family members.

As I listened to him speak at different venues in Boston, he seemed to be a reluctant to include transpeople in ENDA. In retrospect I believe that the trans community in Massachusetts lacked a political presence and a political message. In February of 2005 I attended a LGBT election post mortem at the DNC. Barney Frank came by and made a few relevant remarks before he headed back to the Hill for a voting session. As he left the podium to a standing ovation, he stopped where I was standing and whispered in my ear that, “he would not support a hate crimes bill that was not transgender inclusive.” I was nearly speechless and kind of whispered back, “thank you” and he moved on out of the room. In 2003, 2004, 2005 we were trying to get Senator Kennedy to put stronger inclusive transgender language in the Hate Crimes Bill. This was good, very good.

In the ensuing years as a Board Member of National Stonewall Democrats and as Vice Chair of Garden State Equality, and senior officer of NJ Stonewall Democrats Barney and I met many times whether in NJ, NYC, Texas or Florida. I also realized that I knew some of his cousins, both in my new LGBT life as well as my former life as a male person. I also had the feeling that his experiences with trans people, both socially and politically, seemed such that for some reason he could not give his full respect.

When I read his recent interview in the Georgia Voice, I took immediate offense to some of his remarks.

“Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin just apologized at the transgender conference Southern Comfort for not including the transgender community in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act in 2007 after former HRC President Joe Solmonese promised to do so. Do you feel you have anything to say to the transgender community about that?”

“Chad Griffin’s one of those people whose political judgment seems to be off. The fact is that HRC and I and everybody else were for an inclusive bill in 2007. The issue was we did not have the votes for an inclusive bill. It wasn’t a failure of will.”

Or was it a failure of will? A failure of leadership?  A failure of management?

In early 2007 when the final inclusive ENDA bill was drafted and ready to be dropped I received a phone call from a concerned DC beltway activist, Barney’s LGBT staffer had contacted her worried that he only had 29 sponsors and wanted to put the bill in with at least 60 original cosponsors. I went to work, getting our NJ Democrats on board, contacted my fellow National Stonewall Board members who I knew had good Congressional Connections … and helped by the fact that California Democrats were having their State convention that weekend, we got a bunch of Democrats to sign on so that the bill went in with 59 sponsors. Yeah, thank you!

Why is Barney Frank backing away from trans activist Jeri Hughes?

Barney continues:

“Then the question was, was something better than nothing? Was it better to pass a bill that was protective of lesbian, gay and bisexual people or pass nothing? We tried very hard.”

Tried very hard? Really, Barney?  In May of 2007, I travelled to DC for the NCTE Lobby Days to push for this inclusive ENDA. I was feeling good, everyone seemed happy and positive. At the very same time there was another group, NTAC, the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition in DC that was lobbying as well with several veteran activists. I met a former congressional staffer, an African American trans woman who had a different story. She said that there was a problem with the Congressional Black Caucus and that they would not support the inclusive bill. I said that I had not heard such and articulated my doubts about her assertion. Was I wrong! The very next day I received confirmation of a private meeting of national LGBT organizational leaders where Joe Solmonese stated that there was a problem. At the time of the meeting I was with a leader who should have been there, but who I believe in hindsight already knew that there was a problem.

I’ve been in business all my adult life. If there is a problem, you go and try to fix it — if it can be done directly and proactively, so much the better — do it! Okay, we know there is a problem, What was done… by LGBT leadership? By HRC? By Barney Frank? The answer is obvious, nothing.

Barney continues:

“The transgender community had this mistaken view that if Nancy Pelosi waved a magic wand, transgender would be included. And we were insisting to them that, look we don’t have the votes, help us lobby. Instead of trying to put pressure on the people who were against them, they thought they could just insist that we do it. We said, ‘We’re trying, but we need your help.’” 

This statement absolutely befuddles me! I have no idea to whom he was talking or on what planet … certainly not to anyone I knew! … but wait, there’s more:

“It’s also the case that in 2007, transgender made people a lot of people nervous, they didn’t know about it. Since then there’s been a lot of success in educating the public in general, politicians in particular. I don’t know what Griffin said, but he was not a factor when we were doing it. And by the way, when we were trying to get the votes to pass a bill including transgender, transgender people were not included in the anti-discrimination bills in New York, Massachusetts and Maryland. And I asked people, ‘If we haven’t got the votes in those states, why do you think it will be easier when we throw in South Carolina, Texas and Nebraska?’”

First of all I would ask, why is Barney pointing to the three states New York, Massachusetts and Maryland where trans inclusive laws had eluded success? Why did he point to the failures? Why did the legislation fail year after year? If you really want to succeed why not look to the growing list of successes. Or maybe you really don’t want to succeed? Or is it just a lack of respect?

I was a witness to the history and many events of the passage of the New York State SONDA law that excluded transpeople in 2001. The NJ situation was quite different, but it was ultimately wildly successful and the New York attempt provided a learning experience of pitfalls to avoid. In how many other  states was trans inclusive legislation successful? What about Maine, Rhode Island, Illinois, California, Minnesota, Iowa, Vermont, New Mexico, Colorado, Washington State, Oregon, etc?

I hate having to invent the wheel, so if I have a task I want to see if it was done or attempted before. You learn from successes of others as well as failures, you adapt, you personalize from a general template. It’s not rocket science! Speaking of rocket scientists, Rush Holt, perhaps the smartest person in all of Congress, called me from the floor of the House the day when Barney suddenly introduced the non-inclusive ENDA, and indicated that he saw no sense in what was happening. Rush led a number of Democrats who voted against the bad ENDA in protest .(They also got penalized by HRC in the process)

What bothers me the most in this GA Voice interview is that there is no mention of the failure of ENDA to even come up for a vote in 2010, when Democrats led in the Senate, the House and had a President who was ready and most willing to sign it. The 2007 vote was only for “show” as Bush had openly stated that he would veto the bill if it came to his desk. I believe that the failure of ENDA in 2010 must be squarely placed on its prime sponsor in the House, Barney Frank. Perhaps he is bringing up 2007 to blow smoke over the 2010 failure?

Barney Frank has accomplished many impactful and very positive things over his long distinguished career, as a gay icon, and he did such in an environment where he was disrespected I believe because he was gay. As a transperson, I understand and recognize disrespect.

With Barack Obama taking office in January 2009, there was euphoria and real hope for ENDA’s passage. The 2008 Democratic Convention Platform was fully LGBT inclusive and although no one I knew talked about anyone’s magic wand, there was a general belief that is was very doable. The White House held its first ever Pride reception in June and in August just minutes  prior to my confirmation as the first transgender member of the Democratic National Committee, the DNC added “gender identity” to its Charter and By-Laws. By the end of October 2009, President Obama signed into law the very first federal transgender inclusive legislation, the Matthew Sheppard-James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act! We were rolling!

I met with Speaker Pelosi at a NJ event in early November 2009 and she was quite clear that the next LGBT legislative priority was ENDA and a Domestic Partnership bill. ENDA went into Committee. By the end of January Pelosi spoke to a general gathering in DC and the only LGBT legislation she mentioned was DADT repeal. When I asked her why she didn’t mention ENDA and had anything changed, she said that ENDA was still a priority. Meanwhile HRC was sending field people to reach out and educate folks about a trans inclusive ENDA in moderate Republican congressional districts. Okay, that was a good sign.

I moved on ready to engage with many other transpeople and our allies to lobby and educate about the inclusive ENDA. There were many different groups working toward the goal, some of my fellow Dallas Principles authors joined in working on it to get the public involved as well but I found no real central clearing house. No central leadership working in a concerted manner that was obvious. I had to rely on dealing with Barney Frank’s office.

In 2010 our group of NJ trans-activists who attended the NCTE Lobby Days was bolstered by a literal caravan of LGBT activists and allies organized by Garden State Equality who drove to DC met with all 15 of our Congressional Delegation. It was impressive and showed solidarity and support for the transgender community.

One of the NJ trans-activists who participated was Pam Daniels, a former high ranking staff person to Republican Governor Christie Whitman. We budgeted extra time so that we both could meet with to an old friend of hers, the former 11 term Republican Congressman Jim Kolbe. Jim had served on powerful committees and was still well connected within the Beltway. We all met on a late afternoon at a popular bistro on Dupont Circle. I was happy to see them reconnect and in a way, I think we all did. We did ask him for his help on ENDA with Republicans and blue Dog Democrats with whom he had professional relationships. He agreed, but had only one ask. He wanted Barney Frank to call him. I relayed the message to Barney’s senior LA, which I repeated several times. To my knowledge, that call was never made.

Speaking of Blue Dog Democrats, I extended a stay in DC that summer to meet with an old friend, Michael Rajner the Legislative Director of Florida State Democratic Party’s LGBT Caucus. Michael invited me to join him and speak about ENDA and transgender inclusion to some of his Florida delegation. We had some productive and very encouraging meetings including one with Congressman Allen Boyd from Florida’s panhandle. Congressman Boyd admitted that he had never met a trans person, but we connected based on shared experiences including the Vietnam era and the US Army.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, a couple of many stories  and I’m only one person, but who is kidding who?

Some people, whether they be gay or straight, have problems with transgender people because they may have insecurities about their own gender identity. I don’t know why there seems to be a problem, but there is and given Barney Frank’s power pulpit and lack of support hurts a large number of people. There are so very many people I know personally who have initially not supported trans people, got engaged, got educated, developed professional relationships and friendships and have become unwavering supporters and advocates.

I wish that Barney Frank would articulate what is his real problem with transpeople. Perhaps a serious and honest engagement in an open and neutral setting may be helpful. Right now he is not helping his legacy.

Tags: Barney Frank, ENDA, featured, politics

Category: Transgender Community News, Transgender Politics