As a trans person and member of the GLBT community, I am deeply concerned about gender identity inclusion as part of ENDA. As a society we have a moral obligation to include all marginalized people in non-discrimination legislation. All queer people have so much in common. We are marginalized because we are different. We are different because of genetic variations. Just think of how easy it is for ignorant people to say one might choose an "alternative lifestyle", like choosing to be a vegetarian or a farmer. In the case of a trans person who may not pass well the idea of choice does not seem at all reasonable. How could someone choose to be something so unusual? Queer people need to stick together in order to achieve equality and fairness in our society. I know of many people who have come to a better acceptance of the queer community by knowing me. My place in the world and in the queer community is helping advance all of us. Would you deny me just to better yourself? We need to leave behind the "Screw you Jack, I've got mine" mentality and think of the bigger picture.

The advantage of posting on Salon rather than Americablog is that the members of both the LGB and straight communities get to see the ignorance and hate up close and personal. As is often the case, these bloggers remain anonymous. I really can't blame them; it's been the way of haters throughout history.

First we have the Anon who is typical of the fundamentalist Christian mindset, and he sounds just like one of the guys on our Vigilance blog for teachthefacts.org in Montgomery County, MD. We are entertained by:

"This "MTF" is a MAN with a man's chromosomes. HE was already born with the right parts! Slapping some lipstick and a dress on, cutting off his balls, even plastic surgery does NOT CHANGE THE MEDICAL FACT THAT HE'S A MAN."

Mr Anon, you know nothing of medicine and science, and you are only making yourself into a public bigot. I suggest you join Focus on the Family.

The other Anon, RN Anon, is a sadder case. Given her nursing training she should have learned recently, if she didn't know it 25 years ago, that being transsexual is a congenital variation. I'm so glad she's tolerant of "alternative lifestyle" choices, but my being is not a lifestyle, nor is it an alternative. Your ethics need an upgrade, and you also need to consider that when the treatment for a condition has a 98-99% success rate, you might want to take a new look at your prejudices. You can start with Zoe Brain's posts with references earlier today on this blog.

"Mr Anon, you know nothing of medicine and science, and you are only making yourself into a public bigot. I suggest you join Focus on the Family."

So I'm a public bigot by asking HOW is thinking you are a woman in a man's body (or vice versa) different than thinking you are Napoleon? For pointing out that even today they are generally considered pretty equivalent by psychiatrists? For asking these questions and NEVER getting a good answer except "well, it's NOT!"?

There is a very large body of evidence that shows homosexuality in nature, between twins separated at birth, etc. Sorry but I've never heard of a transgendered penguin.

And I hold myself anonymous for MY protection. From all these negative responses, I have reason to fear people who fear my questions and only lash out without providing anything substantive.

And as for my bona fides, I'm a liberal, gay, blue-state, Democrat-voting 33 year old man. I DO have a brain and can be convinced by a logical argument for how gender dysphoria is not a mental illness. I have yet to hear one, either on here or on any pro-T website.

Anon, You made your bigotry evident with your comments. You could have said many different things, but you chose to compare us to Napoleon, which to me is no different than Rick Santorum correlating gay sex to bestiality.

But this is not the point. There have been multiple posts here on the biological basis of transsexualism. You can check out the scientific literature, the medical literature, the WPATH (World Profressional Association for Transgender Health) and a host of websites. Are there still some older Freudians psychiatrists around? Sure, and a bunch of them work over at NARTH, trying to convert gay people. And some even think of homosexuality as an illness -- still.

The Standards of Care have been in place for over 25 years, and the literature shows a 98.5-99% success rate with transition. Check out Pfafflin, 1992. The surgical techniques keep getting better and more varied, the culture more accepting. 98+% for any surgical procedure is phenomenal; that people would feel their transition in a hostile society is successful in spite of all the difficulties involved is even more remarkable. Yet you reduce yourself to simple comments about chromosomes, about which you know very little, and talk about smearing lipstick on a man, which is insulting in I don't know how many ways.

I spend my life working for improvements in the lives of the entire LGBT community. I would not sacrifice any of my friends for the sake of the rest. I work on all legislative levels, from county government to Capitol Hill. And I've been studying sex and gender for 40 years.

And with all that, as a politician I consider myself a pragmatist and I will not telegraph my intentions for what I will or will not support until it becomes necessary. John is proud of the trans woman who said she would support an LGB bill. Well, John, sorry, I'm not giving Barney and the Dems a pass on this, and easy way out. They need to do their best to get us all protected. That what we elected them to do.

Dear Anonymous,

you wrote: "I find [gender reassignment surgery] to be a reckless abandonment of medical principles. 25 years later, I still believe that."

Have you spoken with or read accounts of both pre and post op trans people, or was your judgment formed solely on principle? After 25 years, how can you still discount the reaction of those who have undergone the procedure? While some trans people have no desire for surgery, in my experience those who have undergone it are unanimously thankful for it. Does their experience count for nothing? What to you may seem mutilation is to them a miracle, making them whole, ending a nightmare. Simply saying that they are all insane, as some have done in these pages, is insufficient. It only raises the question of who gets to say what's insane. Within certain limits, one person's madness is another's normalcy. Homosexuality was defined as a mental illness until, if I remember correctly, a gay male psychiatrist pushed through a revision of the DSM. Thank goodness he did; would today's greater acceptance have been possible had he waited for unreconstructed Freudians to loosen their grasp? I think not.

I really am interested in your answer, and while I obviously disagree with your stance, which would have left me in pre-op agony, I do thank you for stating it simply and in non-inflammatory language.

There is so much focus on reassignment surgery in these pages by those with no desire to undergo it. At least in my case, the surgery was almost a footnote. It was necessary for safety, documentation, and relationships, but much less traumatic, life-altering, and dangerous than changing my daily life. The surgery did nothing to change my sense of myself, and if I hadn't passed based on my voice and appearance, reassignment surgery would have done nothing to help.

I wonder if a good deal of the animosity towards trans people on these pages isn't inspired by resentment of being "dragged down" by trans folks who don't pass. Within the trans "community" (an oxymoron) there is an often equally bitter divide between those who can assimilate and those who can't, and it is similarly unproductive. So much has changed even in the last five years. The Internet has empowered trans people to take control of their destinies at ever younger ages. People are transitioning young enough now that the physical characteristics which once made assimilation so difficult for so many can be avoided.

And yet.... When I was recovering from my surgery, I met an older transitioner. If her appearance didn't raise eyebrows, her voice certainly did. Frankly, I found her very difficult to be around. But was she sane? Did she have a right to do what she had done, to live as she wanted to? And who was I to have an opinion? Why was it any of my business to say what she should or shouldn't do? It's a terrible thing, passing judgment on other people and presuming to speak for them, and we do it without pausing to see what might have been beyond our ken.

This thread certainly has been an education for me. The articulate and passionate defense of trans inclusion in ENDA is just as striking as the passionate opposition to it. Maybe it was too soon to add the T to ENDA, and maybe it was too soon to bring up ENDA at all. Maybe it would have been better to keep that powder dry until after the 2008 election. But it's in motion now, so those with a say have to decide what they value enough to take a stand on, what kind of people they want to be, and what kind of victory they can be at peace with. I hope they reflect on the difference between withdrawing a right and not including it in the first place.