Transgender Rights Hail Storm

There is, literally a hail storm of happenings regarding ENDA and The Matthew Shepard Bill, and how what happens to those bills on the national level could effect our efforts in Massachusetts on “House Bill #1722: An Act Relative to gender-based discrimination and hate crimes“.

Frankly, my head hurts. I don’t know whether to be mad as hell or cry or think, I and my sisters and brothers might have a much harder time getting jobs than we all thought. Having lived on welfare before, I can tell you it’s not a vacation.

Rather than tipping over a pot of coffee of blind rhetoric here at Beck’s Cafe right now, we are going to link in some of the outstanding conversations happening on the net on ENDA. The Mattehew Shepard Bill actually had good news as it passed the Senate.

ENDA conversations we’d recommend you check in on:

• Pam’s House Blend does her usual great job of coverage so check in on the conversations at her site here. Scroll down to see the coverage throughout the front page.
• A Hidden Saint over at the Daily Kos has two posts with hundreds of comments and discussion
  • Part 1 of the discussion at The Daily Kos
  • Part 2 of the discussion at The Daily Kos
• Congress Barney Frank issued this statement, STATEMENT OF BARNEY FRANK ON ENDA,
• Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin withholds name from non-transgender ENDA, see story at gaycitynews

There is some worry that with ENDA being stripped of transgender protections that support for Massachusetts HB 1722 might get weakened. That would be a bad thing. What happened in Key Largo could happen to any of us and we’d have almost no recourse.