Monthly Newsletter of the Alice B. Toklas Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Democratic Club
November 2007

Table of Contents

• Dates With Alice


• Co-Chairs' Report: GOTV


• Alice November Endorsements


• Reese's World: Perspectives from the Editor: "There Is Still An Election, People"


• "Sexual Orientation Only" ENDA Is Bad Strategy


• We must keep the 'T' in LGBT


• What You Can Do to Support An Inclusive ENDA


• Alice Membership Form

Dates With Alice

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November Co-Chairs' Report

It's that time of year again.  Election season.  And even though everyone seems to be really quiet on this November election and already talking about 2008, we still have an incredibly important election this November 6.  

That's why we need you to be a part of that conversation and remind your friends and colleagues that they need to get out and vote November 6th, or send in those absentees as soon as possible.  There are critical issues on the ballot this November.  

Proposition A will improve and sustain our MUNI and public transportation systems here in San Francisco.   And we must stop Proposition H and its deceptive tactics at 'reform' from passing.  These two votes (Yes on A; No on H) will go further towards our City's long-term planning and infrastructure than many of the recent ballot issues combined.  

Proposition D will help continue the renaissance with our public library system.  Over the last decade we have seen a vibrant branch library system being replenished, rebuilt, reconstructed, remodeled, and rededicated for the future of our City and each individual neighborhood's benefit.   This rich tapestry of community hubs and education centers will strengthen our community and populace for generations to come.  We must turn out and support Yes on D.  Also, please remember to vote No on K.  

Beyond all the propositions on the ballot, we also have three incumbents who deserve our strong support at the ballot this November.  Mayor Gavin Newsom, District Attorney Kamala Harris, and Sheriff Michael Hennessey each have earned our Alice community's support and backing and we need to get out there and show them that with a strong campaign.  

Each of us in Alice can make a big difference by continuing the dialogue, getting out the vote among our friends and family, and encouraging the further engagement of our LGBT community in this November 6 election.  

Get out the vote for November 6th.

Rebecca Prozan and Julius Turman
Alice B. Toklas Co-Chairs

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Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club
November 2007 Endorsements

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Reese's World: Perspectives from the Editor
There Is Still An Election, People
by Reese Aaron Isbell, M.P.P.

Ok, people, this is very simple and to the point.
There is still an election this month.
I haven't seen so much complacency in an election in, um, since I was back home in Missouri for local ballot issues there.
Are we as complacent as Missouri?
We're still in San Francisco, right?
The elections department says that absentee ballots are "trickling in."
We can do better.
We must do better.
Go out and Get Out The Vote (GOTV).
Do your part.
Vote.
Get your friends to vote.
Get your colleagues to vote.
Get your neighbors to vote.
Get your family to vote.
Get Out The Vote
Do Your Part
GOTV
Alice endorsements are here and they need your support.
GOTV

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"Sexual Orientation Only" ENDA Is Bad Strategy
by Alice Board Member Susan Christian

The other day, I received an email from a good friend who is very smart, progressive and lesbian.  She wrote that she doesn't spend too much time reading about political issues, gay or not, and that my partner-who is her best friend-had explained my opposition to a "sexual orientation only" Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA):  

"I didn't understand it, I thought it totally jeopardized the attempt to protect gay and lesbian workers ... and I don't understand why it got so polarized if it doesn't jeopardize the passage of ENDA."  

There is no one "ENDA"-there is the original version of the bill which includes protection for gender identity and expression, and there is a stripped-down version which excludes gender identity/expression as well as other provisions important for the protection of lesbian and gay workers.  An ENDA which fails to provide protection for gender identity and expression not only fails to protect transgender workers, it does not fully protect individuals who are lesbian or gay.  At this stage, presentation of a non-inclusive ENDA is bad civil rights strategy that will do grievous harm to state and local legislative efforts that have been producing significant and comprehensive results.  

Over the last 15 years, 13 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws that protect people against various forms of discrimination based upon both sexual orientation and gender identity/expression.  Eight states currently ban discrimination based upon sexual orientation only.  So, 13 of the 21, or 62 %, of states that prohibit sexual orientation discrimination also prohibit gender identity/expression discrimination.  Additionally, nearly 100 municipalities in the 30 states without nondiscrimination laws have their own local nondiscrimination ordinances.  According to the Transgender Law and Policy Institute, 92 of these municipalities prohibit discrimination based upon gender identity and expression.  (The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force is currently compiling an in-depth analysis that will be provided to our elected officials and communities.)  

In the face of this ongoing progress, introduction of federal legislation-by the consistently-progressive Democrat who is San Francisco's Representative as well as the first woman to be elected Speaker of the House and Representative Barney Frank, the powerful and openly-gay champion of civil rights legislation-that intentionally excludes protection for gender identity and expression would be a devastating blow to on-going efforts to advance comprehensive civil rights legislation.  It has, in fact, already begun to have that negative affect:  word has reached the National Center for Lesbian Rights that a Florida legislator preparing to introduce an anti-discrimination ordinance which included gender identity and expression removed these provisions after learning that House Democratic leadership had weakened ENDA and stripped the bill of gender identity/expression protections, reasoning that "If it's good enough for Barney Frank, it's good enough for me."  

The physician's guiding principle is to first do no harm.  This must also become a guiding principal for our political leaders and legislators.  As demonstrated by the statistics above, in the last decade a significant degree of the authority that had previously been exercised solely at the federal level has come to be shared by legislators at the state and local level.  Any new federal legislation must take account of this changed landscape and build upon the progress made by the states and localities.  

During her historic keynote address at the 1976 Democratic Convention in New York, the great Congresswoman Barbara Jordan noted that previously unimaginable social change had led to her, an African-American woman, addressing the Convention.  The Congresswoman reminded those listening that:  

"We are a party of innovation.  We do not reject our traditions, but we are willing to adapt to changing circumstances, when change we must. We are willing to suffer the discomfort of change in order to achieve a better future... And now we must look to the future. Let us heed the voice of the people and recognize their common sense.  If we do not, we not only blaspheme our political heritage, we ignore the common ties that bind all Americans."  

In response to the possibility of an ENDA that fails to protect people based upon gender identity and expression, over 300 national, state and local LGBT organizations formed a coalition to fight for a fully-inclusive ENDA.  Alice is one of these organizations.  Lambda Legal and NCLR, the lawyers who together have won every significant legal victory lesbians and gay men have achieved, are leaders in this coalition.  After analyzing the "sexual-orientation only" ENDA currently being considered, both legal organizations concluded that the bill is bad legislation.  Their in-depth analyses have been distributed to legislators and are posted on their websites.  Please read them.  

Being transgender is not the same as being lesbian or gay.  This fact, coupled with the reality that a portion of the diverse transgender community identifies as heterosexual rather than queer, begs the question of why we should consider ourselves to be one community and postpone our rights to protect people who are not lesbian or gay.  I believe that we are one community because the majority of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people have consciously come together to work as one community.  The reality is that the larger society views all of us who deviate from the heterosexual norm where biological females partner with biological males as "queers."  Moreover, there is for each of us a relationship between our sexual orientation and the ways that we feel compelled to express ourselves and our gender identities.  

So, while a sexual orientation only ENDA would prevent me from being fired (or not hired) because my partner is another woman, I could still be denied a job as a lawyer because I never wear make-up, always wear "mannish" business suits and am (apparently) a little butch.  In San Francisco, maybe this is not such an issue-but what if I lived in Tallahassee?  

At this stage in our history, anti-discrimination legislation that intentionally excludes protection based upon gender identity and expression is bad civil rights strategy that undermines progress on the ground and is not worth the moral compromise and divisiveness that it brings.

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We must keep the 'T' in LGBT
by former Alice Co-Chair Scott Wiener

This commentary originally appeared in the Bay Area Reporter on October 18.

It's been a rough few weeks for the LGBT community. Things had been going well for us. We helped take back Congress. We continued to have a powerful voice in Sacramento. Assemblyman Mark Leno's (D-San Francisco) marriage bill sailed through the legislature. And, perhaps most significant, for the first time in American history, both houses of Congress passed an explicitly LGBT piece of legislation, the Matthew Shepard Act, a hate crimes bill that covers both sexual orientation and gender identity.

We were planning to score another big win with the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, one of the holy grails of our community. For the past few years, ENDA, like the hate crimes bill, has covered the entire LGBT community, including transgender people.

Then, out of nowhere, we were informed that we didn't have the votes to pass an ENDA that included transgender people. We were told that we should remove gender identity from the bill, take half a loaf, and try to get the other half at some unspecified point in the future. We were told that this was political reality that we needed to accept. We were told that, as gay, lesbian, and bisexual people, we should move ahead even if we did so without our transgender brothers and sisters - without the people who have stood and fought with us every step of the way in building this LGBT movement.

Well, I say no way. We, as a community, should unambiguously reject this division. If this strategy proceeds, this will be the first time in U.S. history that a piece of civil rights legislation will cover some members of a community but not others. When we banned discrimination based on race, we didn't just cover the more "popular" races. We covered all of us. And, as we ban discrimination based on sexual identity, we must make sure that we cover all of us and that we don't cleave the community in a rush to get something passed. As a gay man, it is tempting to take what I can get, when I can get it. Gay men have experienced enormous discrimination in hiring and promotion. We need federal legislation to address this problem.

But, I don't want that legislation at any cost. And, I certainly don't want it if it means excluding part of our community that, frankly, needs employment protection a heck of a lot more than many gay, lesbian, and bisexual people. Here in San Francisco - the LGBT mecca - only 25 percent of transgender people have full-time jobs, and 59 percent earn $15,333 or less per year. These abysmal statistics are in San Francisco. Imagine what the numbers are like in other parts of the country.

Against this backdrop, our community is being pitted against itself. Transgender people are being told that their presence in ENDA will drag down the whole bill. Gay, lesbian, and bisexual people are being told that the only way for them to get ahead is to separate from transgender people - a temporary separation, of sorts.

The problem with temporary separations, however, is that they often become divorces. That would be a tragedy for the LGBT community. If we yield to the "transgender people are too unpopular" argument and take them out of the bill, we will only encourage legislators around the country, at all levels, to take the easy way out and downsize LGBT legislation so that it only covers the least controversial portions of our community. We need to insist that Congress take the hard vote up front. It may cause us some pain now, but it will be well worth it in the long run.

Solidarity is never easy. It means that some people with privilege voluntarily give up that privilege until other people can have the privilege as well. It means that some of us make temporary sacrifices to benefit the entire community. This isn't new in the LGBT community. Just ask the heroic lesbians who cared for gay men dying of HIV/AIDS during a time when, frankly, gay men were the unpopular ones because of the nationwide panic over HIV transmission. Or, just ask the transgender heroes who, instead of focusing exclusively on trans rights, have dedicated themselves to fighting for the right of gay men and lesbians to marry.

This is our chance to prove that we "L's," "G's", and "B's" don't leave people behind so that we can get ahead. We have always been one community, back to Stonewall and before. We continue to be one community. Let's keep our community intact by rejecting this ill-advised effort to pass a version of ENDA that excludes our transgender brothers and sisters.

Scott Wiener is a former Alice Co-Chair, and currently is Chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party and serves on the national board of directors of the Human Rights Campaign. He disagrees with HRC's position on the current version of ENDA but believes that it is important for all voices on this issue to be at the table within HRC, given that the ENDA legislative process is likely to last for several years or more and that the current debate is not even close to over.

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What You Can Do to Support An Inclusive ENDA