HRC and Its Foes Due to Meet at the Stonewall

Tuesday, November 20 is the National Transgender Day of Remembrance that honors victims of anti-trans hate crimes. This year it also happens to be the day that friends of the Human Rights Campaign are planning a networking event at the historic Stonewall Bar in the West Village. That confluence of dates has prompted Jon Winkleman, a longtime Democratic activist who is on the board of directors of the National Stonewall Democrats, to call for a protest at the bar against HRC for its role in the passage of a version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that does not provide protections based on gender identity and expression. HRC was opposed in its strategy on the measure by more than 300 national and state LGBT organizations which urged Congress to reject anything but a fully inclusive ENDA. Winkleman is particularly angered HRC intends to penalize in its legislative scorecard the seven Democrats, including five from New York City, who voted against ENDA to protest the lack of trans protections. In an email widely circulated, he also offered a particularly harsh interpretation of the role the group played: “Now we know that HRC had been quietly lobbying Congress and pushing for them to pass the Lesbian and Gay only and asking them to kill the inclusive ENDA and not support the Baldwin Amendment to restore Transgender protection.”HRC was on record supporting the Baldwin amendment, though it was withdrawn after being debated last week when out lesbian Democrat Tammy Baldwin acknowledged she did not have the votes to pass it. Winkleman is demanding that HRC give the seven Democratic ENDA dissenters full credit for the right vote on the bill, set goals of 10 percent trans representation on its national board and all its regional steering committees, and fire executive director Joe Solmonese. From GayCityNews