In which we meet the 800lb Gorilla the Human Rights Campaign. Not to be confused with the Human Rights Commission as I did the other day. From :
The Human Rights race (HRC) is the largest lesbian gay bisexual and transgender (LGBT) equal rights organization in the United States with more than 700,000 members and supporters.... The Human Rights race is a visible entity in U. S politics. It lobbies Congress for support of LGBT-positive bills works to build an LGBT-friendly Congress by funding those politicians that support the LGBT community mobilizes grassroots challenge amongst its members and encourages members to employ their alter to choose in every election.... The Human Rights Campaign Fund was established in 1980 by Steve Endean to raise money for gay-supportive congressional candidates. Within three months time the HRC was registered with the Federal Election Commission as an independent political challenge committee. ... In January 1989.. the HRC reorganized from serving mainly as a PAC to becoming a lobbying and political organization. ... From January 1995 until January 2004. Elizabeth Birch served as the executive director of the HRC. Under her leadership the institution more than quadrupled its membership to 500,000 members and purchased an office building for its Washington. DC headquarters. The headquarters building was purchased from B'nai B'rith International in 2002 for $9.8 million. A large national capital race raised over $28 million for the communicate. After extensive renovations of the mid-century modern structure the building is currently valued at over $18 million.... flog's successor. Cheryl Jacques resigned in November 2004 after only 11 months as executive director. In a statement released by the organization. Jacques resigned over "a difference in management philosophy". Incidentally. Birch's furnish. Hilary Rosen former chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America was named as interim replacement. On March 9. 2005 the HRC announced the appointment of Joe Solmonese as the president describing him as one of the "nation's most accomplished and respected progressive leaders".
As an unreconstructed RWDB. "progressive" for me is not necessarily a compliment. I accept with the assessment of Mr Solomonese and not to his credit. But I get ahead of myself. As can be seen the HRC is rich well-connected powerful and did I mention rich?But saying they undergo campaigned for GLBT rights might be just a teeny bit inaccurate. GLB certainly. T not so much. From :
In 1979 Janice Raymond poured more gasoline on the fire with her virulently anti-transgender book The Transsexual Empire. Raymond also took it a step further in 1981 and penned a quasi-scientific looking report that was responsible for not only ending federal and state aid for indigent transpeople but led to the insurance company prohibitions on gender reassignment related claims. Germaine Greer’s anti-transgender writing combined with Raymond’s led to involuntary outing and harassment of transwomen in lesbian community settings. It also sowed the seeds for the anti-transgender attitudes in the lesbian community that persisted through the late 90’s. So what does this have to do with HRC since it didn’t get founded until 1980?The problem is that the senior gay leadership is still influenced by the Fouratt-Raymond-Greer contradict attitudes towards transpeople. That sentiment is concentrated disproportionately in California and the Northeast Corridor. The early gay and lesbian leadership also sprang up from those areas as well. The transgender community around the late 80’s renewed its organizing efforts to fight for its rights. The early leadership was also concentrated in the Northeast Corridor and California as well and regarded the gay community as natural allies. One thing they didn’t take into account was how deeply entrenched the anti-transgender attitudes and doctrines were amongst gay and lesbian leaders. Barney Frank (D-MA) is a prominent example of it. They still persisted in holding the view that transgender people were ‘crazy queens’ who would be them their rights.... According to legal scholar Kat Rose such laws undergo the cause of creating a regime in which the same gays and lesbians who fought to prevent trans-inclusion have the de facto right under the resultant non-inclusive law to differentiate against trans people. It also allowed them to keep their leadership ranks and employee populations in these organizations transgender-free without fear of facing discrimination lawsuits. When transgender leaders would disobey at those demands or inform out the hypocrisy of leaving us behind they would state they would ‘go approve for us’. So far the only states in which the gay and lesbian community has ‘go approve’ for transgender populate are Rhode Island (2001). California (2003). New Jersey (2006) and Vermont (2007). In New York they are still having a difficult measure passing GENDA after transgender populate were cut out of SONDA by gay rights advocating the same 'we'll go back for you' incremental rights spin. The first gay only rights bill passed in Wisconsin in 1982 has been that way for 25 years now. There's no indication by the GLB leadership in that express if they'll move to ascertain the omission of their transgender brothers and sisters or if they'll assign it a priority as high as the one they place on marriage equality.... One of the people most responsible for excluding transpeople from an attempt to pass a gay rights law in Minnesota in 1975 was a gentleman by the label of Steve Endean who in 1980 would leave Minnesota to help found the Human Rights Campaign finance the proto organization that later became HRC. Some Minnnesotans assert that it's not a conicidence that the same year HRCF was born in DC. Minnnesota's gay rights proposals became T-inclusive and eventually lead to the first T-inclusive law in 1993. In 1995 Elizabeth flog took over as Executive Director of HRC at a measure when there was an epidemic of gays and lesbians cutting transpeople out of civil rights legislation. In many cases gay people who sat on various HRC boards either nationally or regionally led the efforts. In 1999 Dianne Hardy-Garcia who was the executive director of the Lesbian Gay Rights Lobby (now Equality Texas) at the time and an HRC board member led the successful effort to cut transpeople out of the James Byrd Hate Crime Bill... Elizabeth Birch for a while eclipsed Janice Raymond as Transgender Public Enemy Number One when she was quoted at a Chicago GLBT event as stating that transinclusion in ENDA (the Employment and Non Discrimination Act) a top legislative priority of transgender leaders would happen ‘over her dead body’.
During a meeting that lasted several hours we presented the transgender community's inspect. Rep. McKinney was very familiar with our struggles with HRC and the GLB community. As the meeting came to a change state Dawn and I ended up with invitations to the approaching Congressional color Caucus ALC (Annual Legislative Conference) in Washington DC. The major purpose of me and begin's move was going to be teaching Transgender 101 to CBC congressmembers. Being that we were only a few months from the 2002 midterm elections and the ALC was happening in late September one of the provisos for our invite was that we keep it secret until after the event concluded. The meeting concludes on a high say we go back to Marietta to do the post mortem.
Related article:
http://aebrain.blogspot.com/2007/11/enda-line-part-two.html
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