Why don't we make it a federal law that once you are hired you can never be fired for any reason, whatsoever? You know, kind of like the Soviet Union.

Dana R.,

It's hard to respond factually to someone who calls you a liar. I'll simply say it again, I'd have no problem agreeing to a lesbian-only ENDA if it was the only way to get something passed. But first, I'd want to check with the community - actual real living breathing community members, and not just activists and organizations. As for going ahead with a male-only ENDA, no, I wouldn't do it. I consider gay and lesbian siblings, I consider trans to be our cousins.

As for civil rights law passing piecemeal, I've already written about it in my piece, and if you really are a civil rights lawyer, then you already know that never have we passed every single civil right in just one bill. It happens over a long time in a piecemeal fashion. But it does happen, and we all benefit.

And finally, I may not be a civil rights lawyer (though I do have a law degree), but I am an expert at how the legislative process works in Washington, and am a civil rights activist with a long record. And you'd better believe that Congress passing a law that makes it clear that gays are not pedophiles but actually equal members of the civil rights community, will have a ground-breaking impact on all of our rights. (There's also the small fact of ENDA protecting 25m gays and lesbians, that's not small bits either.)

JOHN

I find it interesting John gets a forum in the same place Garrison Keillor writes after calling him a "total bigoted homophobic pig" at Americablog back in March of this year. I only point that out to show how John likes to say things about issues or people before learning what they are all about.

John's opinion is certainly in the minority so far by the letter count, and being uninformed or misinformed is one of the main reasons being given by many. Others think he is just plain wrong in his judgment.

It is good to see John A. call the gender identity advocates the "far-left" of the community who care more about the few T's than the 25 million gays and lesbians (he says it here in the Letters section). "Far left" John? Whose tactics are you using now?

How do you think the story of black suffrage and woman suffrage proves your point, rather than the opposite point? (Given, I mean, that most black men didn't effectively get the right to vote until 1964, after giving in to pressure to stop fighting for universal suffrage, including suffrage for black women, back in 1868?)

Trans people must have equal rights, but if we can't pass ENDA now with them included in it then we need to pass ENDA now without them excluded from it so that we get closer to the point faster where we can get them included.

If all the givens are accurate -- namely that ENDA won't pass now with trans rights included -- than that's a perfectly sensible position that is the best way to help everybody.

John, I think you lost a lot of people by throwing in the debate over why trans people are a part of the community, which is an entirely different subject that rational adults can intelligently discuss. I think it's obvious why they are, personally, and others have eloquently expressed these obvious reasons. But you seem to have confused an awful lot of people into thinking untrue things about you and about what you've written by including that discussion here.

Trans people must have equal rights, but if we can't pass ENDA now with them included in it then we need to pass ENDA now with them excluded from it so that we get closer to the point faster where we can get them included.

Sorry about that.

I understand it's about inclusion. I get that. It just sucks that middle America now confuses me, a very masculine gay 37 year old with someone who has inverted their penis, has breasts and now wears lipstick.... and is probably straight. If they had a problem with understanding and accepting me, this really complicates things. I think it holds us back. I really do. On one hand, I could say, "I don't care if transexuals' inclusion maybe holds gays and lesbians back. It's worth it" but I can't. I don't feel one ioda of connection to the transexual community. I support them but I just don't know why the T is in LGBT.

Yes, dear friends, we are discussing something very momentous: civil rights for people who, as soon as they open their mouths, are just as vulnerable to discrimination as gays and lesbians. Period. We have a good year and a half before ENDA in any permutation is going to become a law. There won't be an override of Shrubya's guaranteed veto even with trans protections stripped out.

It will not become law until we have a Democratic President, and we all know it.

Now...in the meanwhile, the trans-activists are going to have to do some scrambling and some educating of Congressfolks.

I might, as a transwoman, have been willing to trust HRC, Barney Frank, on a stripped out ENDA it they had said from the beginning, "We cannot now pass ENDA with trans inclusion, because Frankly, the congress doesn't understand transgender people or their issues as things stand. But...we are willing to give you time to discuss yourselves, and make (us and) them understand." Why not now?

Barney Frank has the clout to get us to the door, trans activists have the guts to go through it, into the room. We're waiting.

But is this happening? Nope. Instead of an opportunity to speak for ourselves, we're accused of trans-jacking ENDA. I disagree with that, but I could expect it due to politics.

Why do we get questioning of our inclusion in the movement? That is an ignorant or even disengenous argument against inclusion in the law. Plain and simple. We've been there, babe, all along, even when we get shoved to the side because our shade of "Menace".

Further, then to have transwomen be discussed in terms of "being men who cut their dicks off to be women", etc, is a slap in the face, and I will hold anyone who says something like that as being someone who has dissed me greatly. Such a person obviously needs more education about transpeople than the congress does.

Karen St John