ICHIA

The title of this post is a comment I found at MetaFilter. It's so perfect at describing the congressional haggling and backroom political smackdowns I've been privvy to in online and offline discussions about the current congressional session, that I just had to have it.

It was a comment that perfectly described Barney Frank's "thoughtful compromise" on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). That bill would have prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation AND gender identity; making it not only a crime to dismiss a worker for being a lesbian but also for firing a woman for looking like man (or vice versa).

People in the GLBT community are up in arms because, and rightly so, Barney Frank, (the second openly gay congressman to serve in this country) has gone out of his way to say that it is important for this bill to pass without transgender protection. And he has done so with the help of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights organization that had promised to make a better effort at focusing more on the issues affecting the transgender communities they purport to serve.

The unfortunate reality of this trans-exclusionary ENDA legislation is that it will not only deny equal rights to a minority within an already minority community, but it will have a larger and more punitive effect on anybody who does not conform to any definition of "heteronormalcy" their employer may want to impose. Meaning that it may bring a much welcomed loophole for employers dying to get rid of butch looking women or fey looking men in their payrolls.

The refrain from both Barney and the HRC is that leaving the "T" out of GLBT is anyhow for the greater good.

Which brings me to Hillary Clinton and her throwing of documented and legal resident children and pregnant women under the Democrats political bus.