If the non-transgendered gay community would pass a rights bill at the expense of the Transgendered than in my view that community has lost its primary moral claim and become no different than any other special interest group.

John,

I don't mean to call you a liar in the sense of outright fabrication, but I do mean to say that it is awfully easy to claim support when nothing is at stake.

I don't know what you mean by passing all civil rights at once. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was pretty comprehensive for its time. And it actually gives us something to think about in our current discussion.

Originally, women's rights were not considered for inclusion in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The inclusion of women into Title VII was a last-second amendment by Virginia Rep. Howard Smith, who adamantly opposed the Act. By adding women into the mix, Smith hoped to derail and defeat the Act, reasoning that not even the most bleeding-heart friend of Negroes would consider equal rights for women, and the Congressional Record shows that the amendment was greeted with a round of guffaws in the House.

The vote was then carried out, without any debate, whatsoever, over the inclusion of women. But, indeed, there was a large faction of hard core conservatives that opposed equal rights for women. The Act passed despite the inclusion of women, because civil rights for Blacks was deemed too important to derail, even when women -- a serious political liability -- were included.

The prohibition against discrimination based on sex was added to Title VII at the last minute on the floor of the House of Representatives. 110 Cong. Rec. 2577-2584 (1964). The principal argument in opposition to the amendment was that "sex discrimination" was sufficiently different from other types of discrimination that it ought to receive separate legislative treatment. See id., at 2577 (statement of Rep. Celler quoting letter from United States Department of Labor); id., at 2584 (statement of Rep. Green), as recounted by Justice Rehnquist recided in Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57 (1986), the case credited with extending "hostile environment" protections against sexual harassment for all women and men.

The inclusion of "sex" (i.e., women) in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 turned out to be incredibly important, despite the fact that it was hugely unpopular among conservatives, and was intended to actually defeat the legislation. Similarly, extension of ENDA to include gender identity may be expected to provide dramatic protections to gay men and lesbians, beyond what it does for transgendered people. I will not repeat all of the excellent points made by other writers on the overlap between sexual orientation and gender expression.

Leaving gender identity and gender expression out of ENDA actually does us all a disservice, and could easily result in limiting our own rights, nevermind the rights of transgenders. Courts all over the country will cite the legislative history, where gender expression was considered and rejected by Congress, and will hold in such a way as to define ENDA very narrowly, thereby limiting the extent of our rights by reasoning in various narrow ways; i.e., that if ENDA had been intended to protect effeminate man or butch women it would have included gender expression, and the fact that gender expression was considered and deleted is evidence that Congress intended that firing a man for being "too effeminate" is separate from firing him for being gay, and is not prohibited by ENDA. There are a thousand other rationales by which activist conservative judges could (and would, imho) use the deletion of gender expression as a tool to eviscerate our protections under ENDA.

I am still quite concerned about your unsupported assumptions, upon which the entire premise of your piece rests. Again, these are the false notions (1) that keeping T in with GLB will delay civil rights for 10-20 years, (2) that ENDA will become law now if only transfolk are removed from it, and (3) that an ENDA excluding T's will actually help them obtain civil rights faster than including them in the current version of ENDA (as they already are). I think all of that is dead wrong. And you have yet to offer anything other than whimsy to support those presumptions. Please, if you have a solid factual basis for "getting yours" at the expense of your "cousins," please set it forth for us.

If dropping transgender issues from this is a stepping stone to later inclusion, why is the title of this piece "How did the T get in LGBT?"

It seems like a complete abandonment, rather than a strategic postponement.

You want to disown the cause of transgendered rights because it might improve the odds of getting rights for you personally?

How noble.

I will not hesitate to say that I identify as transgender. I am a woman but I completely identify with men, I think and act like a man, I wish the world would see me as a man. If I had it to do over again I would choose to be male. But I don't have that luxury, and I am not narcissistic or self-obsessed enough to physically mutilate myself to try to pretend to be a man.

I have lots of gay friends and I can guarantee you that I am far more "normal" than they are. I am happily celibate and not politically or socially radical in any way, thank you very much. While they are obsessed with getting themselves laid, I move on with real life. I am not "out" because I see no reason to be. Everyone who knows me well knows who I am. But I sure feel bad for people like me who might feel an inkling to share about themselves with people like you.

So frankly, if you want to pretend that transgendered people are just the side-show freaks of the otherwise totally milquetoast LGBT movement that should be ditched because conservatives hate them slightly more than they hate you, you can just shut the fuck up and rot in hell as far as I'm concerned.