Exactly! If I lost my penis in an accident, I WOULD STILL BE MALE. Any fiddling with my bits does not make it so!

danabeyer addressed this well (and great response re: bathrooms, too!) as have Arcadia and ZoeBrain. But let me just add my two cents more….

Anon, you are one of the lucky ones, whose gender and sex “match” according to society’s conventional definitions. Which leads you to the misconception that gender-identity flows or emerges from your sexual-identity. The existence of transgender folks—and we have existed in every culture on record throughout history—indicates that this pat conclusion—gender-identity=sexual-identity—is wrong.

And by the way, have you actually had your chromosomes checked? If not, don’t go assuming that you’re 46XY. You don’t know.

Your gender-identity resides in your brain, not your dick. My gender-identity resides in my brain, too, not my cunt. If I change my genitals or my body, my gender-identity remains the same: masculine. My sex, too, remains the same: female.

I don’t know how much simpler I can make it. I wish you could let go for a moment of your perspective which arises from your privileged position and realize that sex does not equal gender, anymore than sexual-identity equals gender-identity. For any of us.

As many have pointed out, a trans-exclusive ENDA is wrong--morally and strategically--and doomed to likely veto anyway.

Zoe, nice to see you. But, honey, in a addition to being Australian, you're also straight (did you forget?), so there's another way you won't be affected.

Ah.. well... yes. I did forget. It didn't seem important, we're talking about Human Rights after all.

Well, some of us are, anyway. Others seem to think that Sexual Orientation should affect that, privileging some, denigrating others.

And I never said I was a bright Rocket Scientist.

*SIGH*

Again, this is very frustrating for me. I raise valid questions and you call me "right wing" and make it political. My goodness sometimes the asinine political correctness police drives me up the wall.

Actually, what you've been doing is making assertions about what trans people experience and trying to refute everything said in response. It doesn't appear to me that you're willing to give any ground, and would rather continue to characterize trans people as insane than acknowledge and consider any other viewpoints.

The way you're talking to us is exactly how the religious right talks to you.

Plus, your questions aren't valid. You don't understand us, and you're projecting that lack of understanding onto us.

I agree fully with John Aravosis as he maps out the reality of politics in this country. If lasting change is to take affect, then the first step is education and personal interaction among all of us. I agree that there are too many people, even among gays, lesbians and bisexuals, who do not understand the dynamics of "T" and rarely have met a man or woman who is transgender, let alone transgendered, or the differences between transvestite, transgender, transgendered and so on.

We need to begin somewhere and the current ENDA bill is an excellent beginning. We have more work to do to pass a Transgender bill. And, I for one, want that work to continue!

Thanks, John, for stepping forward to open up the discussion.

Ken Stofft

Arlington, VA

Thank you, Ken for supporting for trans inclusion and for stating your thoughts on why it should wait in simple, non-inflammatory language.

I do agree that more education and interaction would be a good thing. And media portrayals: there has yet to be the trans Ellen or Will and Grace (hello, casting directors? I'm available)

But I question the need to keep us out of ENDA as a consequence. Two assumptions are getting made: that most Americans don't understand and aren't familiar with trans issues or people; and that as a consequence, trans people and inclusion are too radical and will alienate people who would otherwise be supporters.

When I came out, only one person I knew had ever met a trans person before, but with only one or two exceptions, they were nothing but supportive. A few said openly that they didn't understand what I was doing, but they still supported my decision (and this was back in the 90s). One elderly relative said that she wished more gay people would transition so they wouldn't have to be gay. So reactions can cut both ways (just take Iran's official sanction of trans people).

One's own response to a situation can seem so natural that it's hard to imagine anyone reacting differently. But people are so various, and they rise to the occasion in surprising ways. I've had far more wonderful surprises than nasty ones over the years.

Barney repeated his factually incorrect statement yesterday that more education needs to be done, that we haven't been at it long enough. The fact is that is HIS opinion. From his perspective, as a senior white gay man who has been working for his rights since he came out in 1987, and entered Congress when he and others were actively marginalizing the trans community because we were too different, we are recent arrivals. He doesn't feel in his bones that we've been there as long as he and his brothers have. I feel no personal animus from him, and he has come on his own journey on the trans issue which I respect. He's just uncomfortable talking about gender and he wants his own before he retires. Fair enough.

My problem is with the Democrats who follow him in lock-step, since that's what they've been doing on LGBT issues for twenty years now. He doesn't know how to present us to his colleagues. He hasn't arranged any meetings for us to meet with fearful freshman, arranged any seminars on trans issues for the caucus. We've been doing the work in society, and he has not been doing the work in Congress. He tells us to do it, calls those organizations doing it "radical," and then publicly undercuts us during the time we were given to do the work.

The radical LGBT organizations he bemoans HAVE been doing that work. NCTE, NTAC, GenderPac, the Task Force and even HRC (yes) have been intensively doing that work for several years now, holding up against the weight of a hostile, hateful Republican Congress. Tammy Baldwin understands this, and has been successful in her lobbying.

America has been accepting us; just watch Oprah these days. There's a full-time character on network television played by a trans woman. There is a program in the works on Christine Daniels' transition. There was Transamerica. Surveys show Americans support protecting us from discrimination by roughly 65%.

This does not require heavy lifting in Congress -- it requires the desire to do the work, the caring to leave no one behind. And it is the absence of those feelings that lead the trans community to believe that after passage of the Barney-only bill we WILL be left behind. I hope people like Ken in Alexandria are sincere; I will hold him to it. But we all rightly fear differently.