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Dear Editor:
Please include my name and that of my Life Partner, Jack Diamond, on the list of those who support the boycott of the Human Rights Campaign because of their refusal to include the transgendered in it's mission statement and in ENDA.It is rather significant that this issue should be brought up in New Orleans as Tulane Medical was one of the very first medical institutions offering the sex-change operation as it was called then, in the days following Christine Jorgensen of the late 50s and early 60s. Tulane was one of the few to offer both the medical and psychological assistance necessary for such a traumatic procedure. All too many opted for the "Tiajauna Special" and the repercussions that followed.
For many years I have always closed letters to those involved in equality in our community with two statements that seem more apropos than ever, especially when the struggle now comes from within. The struggle has not been won. The struggle has just begun.
--Roger C. NelsonDear Editor,
This is to express my gratitude to Rich Magill for writing and to you for publishing the memorial entitled "Peter" in the March 20, 1998, issue of Ambush. In so doing you provided two indispensable links in a short chain of events that led to the fulfillment of Pierre DeLancey's lifelong dream to have a positive impact upon the lives of other street kids.The story goes like this: Bonnie Jones, who lives in Baton Rouge and who has recently been elected to LAGPAC's Board of Directors, has been sending copies of Ambush to her nephew. Dr. Michael Kaiser, former Executive Director of the NO/AIDS Task Force, in order to keep him abreast of local goings on while in exile in Washington, D. C. as a top official of the HIV-AIDS Bureau. Upon reading the memorial, Mike not only conveyed his condolences to Alfred and me but-more importantly-went on to say, "One of the few areas where I have a sense of accomplishment is a new grant program that will target infected youth age 13-19. Please know that Peter's story will impact this new national program."
And so it came to pass that Peter was enabled to fulfill his lifelong dream in his dying. Sincerely,
--Stewart P. ButlerDear Rip and Marsha:
We understand that you are very concerned about the Human Rights Campaign and our relationship to the transgender community. While there is a feeling among some in New Orleans that we have either ignored or worked against the transgender community, that is far from the truth. The Human Rights Campaign is committed to working with transgender people as partners and allies in our movement. This commitment begins with me.I have enclosed a copy of the open letter that we are distributing in New Orleans that outlines our relationships, policies and actions related to transgender people.
Please take a moment to read it. Donna Red Wing, our National Field Director, is personally directing our outreach on these issues and is available to respond to any questions or concerns. Donna is an incredible leader at the Human Rights Campaign and in our movement, and I have complete trust in her abilities to work with you and the entire gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities in New Orleans as we work behalf of equality.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth Birch, Executive Director, HRC
An Open Letter to Our Friends in New Orleans:
It is with real concern that we have followed recent events in New Orleans concerning the Human Rights Campaign and our alleged exclusion of the transgender community. That misinformation has led to confusion and a call for a boycott of our New Orleans Dinner as well as biting attacks on HRC.Moreover, our work with the transgender community is substantial. We view a variety of transgender organizations and leaders as important friends and powerful allies. We have committed significant resources to that relationship. Let me share with you some of that investment:
-Arranged and funded trips for transgender leaders to come to Washington for meetings with HRC senior staff. -Committed our support to an amendment to ENDA that would add protections for the transgender community.
-Provided lobby skills and trainings to transgender activists.
-Provided significant legal services in drafting language on gender identification.
-Invited GenderPAC to join the Hate Crimes Coalition.
-Submitted testimony to US Senate Judiciary Committee on Hate Crimes urging that the bill be inclusive of transgender community.
-Set up and attended, with transgender leadership, a series of meetings with ENDA co-sponsors to begin education on transgender issues and to assess level of support.
-Hosted a brown bag lunch with Shannon Minter to discuss GID with larger community. -Assisted with a national transgender lobby day.
-Assisted in getting members of Congress to sign a letter to the Justice Department asking that it provides assistance to the transgender community on hate crimes.
-Sent staffer to International Conference on Gender Law and Employment Policy.
-Worked to develop and introduce hate crimes legislation that is transgender inclusive.
-Invited transgender activists to participate in and facilitate Training Institutes.
-Invited transgender leaders to present at our March Board meeting.
-And, we continue dialogue with transgender leadership and activists around the country.We are proud of our work with, and our relationship to, the transgender community. We continue to explore, and are always open to, even more significant connections and contributions. In May, our legislative and legal departments will co-host a round table with GenderPAC and the National Center for Lesbian Rights to discuss the Supreme Court's recent decision in 'Oncale' and possible implications for the transgender community. We have asked our Board of Directors' Diversity and Strategic Planning Committees to prospect inclusive language and programming as we plan for HRC's filture. The Field Department has begun to expand its outreach to the transgender community and includes trans-inclusion in its benchmarks.
The totality of our work with the transgender community, the reality and the substance of that work, will, we hope, factor into community perceptions about HRC. As I said at our December Town Hall Meeting at the Vieux Carre MCC, and in discussions around the city of New Orleans, I am always available to discuss our work and our vision, a vision that is inclusive. My direct line is 202.216.1541 and my e-mail address is donna.red.wing@hrc.org.
The Human Rights Campaign is committed to a significant and mutually beneficial relationship with the transgender community.
It is our hope that such a relationship will help inform and craft a shared vision of a world that honors and respects all people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. Sincerely,
--Donna Red Wing, National Field Director, HRCSonny & Rip-
After having a web page on your site for over a year, our business has increased by leaps and bounds, the majority coming via e-mails, due to the awesome page you created and continue to maintain so well. Already, we have added new employees, opened locations in other cities and two countries, because of the success we are experiencing through your web site.It is our opinion, that any firm seeking quick and new business, should certainly have you create their page. Had we not chosen your firm, our corporation would never have peaked in this manner.
Again, we commend your organization for its continuing support and the professional way you assist us at any time of day or night. Thank you again,
--Mike Barrington, President, Big Easy/French Quarter LodgingRe: Boycott of HRC dinner
Dear Stewart, Jim, Charlene, and Skip:
Last May, I reviewed in detail the package of information sent to me concerning your efforts to force HRC to include transgenders in its mission statement and insist upon their inclusion in ENDA.. Your proposed action against the Louisiana HRC Dinner in 1998 gave me cause for concern. I spent several days trying to formulate that concern and ultimately wrote much of the following letter, which I did not send at the time. Today, I received your invitation to join in your boycott of the upcoming dinner. I guess it's time I sent the letter.I will not support a boycott of the HRC dinner. I consider any such action ill-advised and counterproductive for the following reasons.
First, and most important, I will not support a boycott of any other group's fundraising efforts in our community when the reason for doing so is a disagreement with a strategy taken in support of its activities on our behalf. I have worked long and hard over the years to promote communications among our community's diverse groups. In doing so, I have learned several things, one of which is that communications flow when each group's position is respected. None of us agree on everything. As a result, I view your proposed action as being far more harmful to our local community's ability to work together than having the desired effect on HRC's strategy. I believe your announced boycott will hurt our local efforts to mold various interests here into a cohesive community, and I urge you to reconsider your decision.
Second, I take issue with the call to HRC to change its mission statement. If I understand your comp@t correctly, you believe that since the name behind the acronym is the "Human Rights Campaign", it should champion rights for all. I suspect that HRC, like many organizations, chose its name to keep the terrible "G" word and the terrible "I:' word out of the limelight. In so doing, however, it may have left the impression that it is to be everything to everyone.' I do not agree that organizations can be such. There is nothing wrong with having a focus and joining with other groups whose focus, while similar and simpatico, is nevertheless different. I joined HRC because its focus is on securing the rights of gays and lesbians. I did not join because I thought it was an umbrella organization for all. I expected it to join with other organizations, but I did not/do not expect it to champion every cause of every group. I expect groups to focus their energies. If it has become "politically correct" to require every community group to be "Lesbigaytrans" in its focus, them I am decidedly "politically incoffect."
Third, I believe in supporting our community institutions who are achievers, even if I disagree at times with the strategies chosen. From what I have read, HRC's presence in Washington, D.C. is a decided plus for our community. I am proud of this appearance, even though I have long disagreed with HRC's decision to focus on ENDA as a first priority and have discussed the decision with national representatives. My personal opinion, which is shared by some and disagreed with by others, is that ENDA promises far more than it can deliver. While I agree that non-discrimination laws provide the country's legal policy that the specified discrimination is wrong and make such discrimination actionable, it is precisely the taking of the action allowed that will be so dffficult for so many gays and lesbians. Mere passage of the legislation will not protect individuals from discrimination in employment.
ENDA will give its protections to those who are employed in those workplaces covered by the Act and who have the personal strength to fight court battles. Unlike those who fought these battles because of their race or their sex - obvious characteristics - those who litigate under ENDA will have to endure both litigation and the trauma of coming out publicly. Employment litigation is hard litigation. I have represented both claimants and employers in such litigation, and it is rare indeed to find a case where action taken against an employee is taken solely on the basis of prohibited discrimination. The burden of proof in most employment cases is difficult for the claimant to carry.
It is for these reasons that many of us would have preferred that HRC direct its growing clout toward securing rights that, once enacted, will be rights of status and will not force individuals to claim the benefits via public litigation. My personal choice would have been to support the "right to marry" challenge or to attack directly the traditional family paradigms that underlie the granting rationale of many of the benefits that we seek. Indeed, I direct the majority of my financial support to two national organizations (National Center for Lesbian Rights and Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund) whose missions and strategies are more closely aligned with my own than is that of HRC. I did not, however, withdraw my support from HRC because I disagreed with its strategy to focus on ENDA. I will not do so now.
So much work remains for us to do, yet your proposed boycott of HRC directs energies against ourselves. Isn't it always easier to fight the perceived enemy within than to go forward against a bigger foe? I again urge reconsideration of your position. Very truly yours,
--Regina O. MatthewsTo The Editor:
As a transgendered individual, I have been accused of being devisive in the gay and lesbian community, and told that my withdrawal of financial support for the misnamed Human Rights Campaign is disruptive of efforts to pass ENDA legislation. Quite honestly, I neither mean any harm to the gay and lesbian community nor do I want to disrupt the progress of the proposed ENDA legislation. My goal, as I am certain is the goal of many other transgenders, is to point out the inequity of the proposed ENDA legislation. Another goal is to expose the alleged "Human" Rights Campaign as a farce and their purposeful discriminatory tactics.As a transgendered person, I have been given second-class citizenship by the Human Rights Campaign. In THEIR eyes, my sisters and I are detrimental to the passage of the ENDA legislation. However, this is a capricious and specious conclusion on their part.
Rather than admit they are discriminating against transgenders, HRC tells us to bide our time, and after passage of ENDA, they will seek our inclusion. Why must transgenders wait? Can't we all, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered, join together in our common need for protection and all be included in the ENDA legislation?
During the Vietnam War, our POWs in Hanoi banded together and mutually agreed not to accept repatriation unless they all were included. Some individuals broke faith with their fellow prisoners and accepted repatriation, thus forsaking their comrades. I see a parallel in HRC's abandonment of the transgendered community. What makes HRC's adament refusal to include transgenders so distasteful is the fact that the gay and lesbian community has always solicited participation by transgenders in fundraising activities and other community events. We were acceptable then, but are pariahs when it comes to seeking protection in concert with the gay and lesbian community. Can you see the conflict and understand our pain? Can you understand why we desire to withdraw our financial support of an organization that has branded us unacceptable? Must we walk around, ringing a bell, and proclaiming "Unclean. Unclean," as was done with lepers in the past?
I have heard local HRC members state their understanding of the transgender pleas and their desire for our inclusion in both the HRC mission statement and the ENDA legislation. They state, however, that it is the national HRC office that sets the rules, and they are only following the dictates of the national office. Does this sound familiar? Wasn't this the same defense used in the Nuremburg Trials when Nazi war criminals disclaimed any responsibilities for the atrocities committed during World War II? It was vacuous then and it is vacuous today. Aren't we all, as individual human beings, responsible for our own thoughts, our own beliefs, our own actions? Methinks, perhaps, that certain folks have a convenient scapegoat in the HRC national leadership and can avoid any PERSONAL responsibility. Perhaps I ask too much of these persons. Nobody likes to be unpopular and treated as pariahs. As a transgendered person, I know that feeling only too well since HRC threw me to the wolves.
That is not to say that all members of the gay and lesbian community are standing idly by while HRC pursues its Machiavellian ways. Individuals such as Stewart Butler, Jim Kellogg, Charleen Schneider, Skip Ward, Toni Pizzani, et al, are extremely vocal in their quest for transgender inclusion. These wonderful individuals risk ridicule and ostracism, yet they see the injustice and unfairness and do something about it. To all these humane, caring individuals I extend my heartfelt appreciation for your efforts on my behalf.
I do not believe that individuals who are supporters of HRC truly mean to exclude transgenders. I believe they see the possibility of rights for gay and lesbian persons and want to support the organization actively involved in that struggle. I salute you for your desire to see rights extended to our community.
However, do you realize that you are supporting an organization that has purposely disenfranchised a significant segment of the community? Do you want to spend your dollars in support of a group that turns its back on those individuals who have stood by your side, fighting for your rights, supporting all your causes? I refuse to believe that you truly intend to do my sisters and me harm. My sisters and I are not your enemy. We have embraced your causes and supported you. Can you not extend us the same consideration?
What IS hurtful is to see gay and lesbian businesses include phrases such as "Proud Supporter of HRC" in their advertisements. Do they realize what a slap in the face this is to transgenders? Some of these same establishments employ transgenders. Do they not consider their employees human beings and worthy of the same rights as the establishment owner? These establishements seem to send the message "I too will use tgs when it is convenient or helpful to me....but they should not expect equality. They have their place and they need to stay in it. So come see the show and buy drinks."
Do they also forget that transgenders are customers and our dollars contribute to their businesses and profits? Do they also not realize that withdrawal of financial support can also extend to businesses that discriminate against us? The withdrawal of financial support can extend beyond HRC. I can tell you where my dollars will not be spent in the future.
You might ask just what it is the transgenders seek. We seek inclusion in the mission statement of HRC-although that is merely words on paper. We seek inclusion in the ENDA legislation and the same protections that are to be extended to the gay and lesbian community. We seek an understanding and respect for our lifestyle, and we want to walk arm in arm with our gay brothers and sisters in the continuing fight for equal rights for all gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered individuals. Are we so wrong to seek this?
--Elaine Quinn, AKA Edward Q. CastleDear Editor:
New Orleans' human rights activist Stewart Butler sent over a list of folks expressing disapproval of Human Rights Campaign Fund's spurning of cross-dressers & transsexuals. Attached was a note apologizing that my name had been omitted. Ambush Mag 2000's columnist Toni J. P. Pizanie then asked if I would go ahead and publicly lend support to the boycott with a letter. I do so gladly.HRC is suffering the losses of success. The ironic abandonment of equality and, dare I use the banned word, "liberal" goals.
Now, allowed in the White House (for black tie dinners?), HRC's conservative-conservatives take over and commune with the White House's conservatives about not upsetting the normal...er...norms...polls...press...donors?
HRC's position is not prudent compromise. It is hypocrisy. If Stonewall ghosts were to appear would it shock HRC to learn there were drag queens leading that crowd? No, of course not. They are not stupid. They are simply like the Christian who would bar Christ from the country club because he is too Jewish. Yours truly in a swamp,
--Leonard Earl JohnsonGreetings!
Presently, I am an associate member of the Gulf Gender Alliance. I keep up with the local activity there in the area by and through newsletters and correspondence.I was wondering if you might provide me with a sample issue of your publication and information on subscription rates as well. I would appreciate it if you would please.
I would also like to take time to thank all of you there who are affilliated with your publication for the support given to the transgendered people and the GGA in boycotting the HRC. Your support is so much so appreciated, thank you! I hope to hear from you in the near future.
--Edie A. Davis[Letters and Comments should be sent to Ambush Letters, 828-A Bourbon St., New Orleans, LA 70116-3137; or, E-mail to webmaster@ambushmag.com]
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