I recently returned from Creating Change, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force annual conference for LGBT activists. What an exciting and empowering conference it was! Thousands of people from all over the country were there. People who have made a difference, people who have embraced diversity in the community and who are making the world better for all.

One of the workshops was "Gender in the Congress" presented by Riki Anne Wilchins from GenderPAC and Nancy Buermeyer from the Human Rights Campaign. The topic was whether Congress is ready to discuss the dreaded transgender issue in context of employment discrimination.

For those of you who have not followed this issue, HRC is the group that wrote the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA), and has been lobbying for its passage for many years.

HRC has steadfastly refused to consider inclusion of gender variant people in the scope of ENDA.

HRC may be the largest and most powerful of the gay political groups but they are out of step with the majority of the community on this issue. Their policy of exclusion runs counter to the current of trans-inclusion that has swept through most of the major gay and lesbian human rights organizations in the United States.

So why is HRC so adamant in their position? Nancy said that Sen. Edward Kennedy and Rep. Barney Frank have too much invested in the current version to allow any changes. The fact is that HRC controls wording of the bill. It is their bill. They write it anyway they want. Kennedy and Frank didn't write ENDA, they probably don't even know that it leaves out a major portion of the gay and lesbian community who could be perceived as gender variant.

HRC believes that inclusion of "transgender" would get the bill clobbered. And once it's clobbered, it will never come back. The answer to this is so simple that I was amazed that neither Nancy nor Riki mentioned it… Don't include "transgender"! Include "gender identity or expression"! Those words slipped so easily into the Illinois Human Rights Amendment that not one legislator even noticed it. It was a non-issue.

HRC is willing to sacrifice part of the community. But that part is larger and more significant than HRC realizes. It includes all the gay men who grew up with a secret drag name, which they would later come to deny. It includes all the women who wouldn't be caught dead wearing a skirt to work. Sure, it includes transgendered people, but we are only a small portion of the gender variant population that is excluded from ENDA.

Whether or not transgender is included in ENDA, Jesse Helms will still hold up that picture of Ru Paul in Congress. The image of a man in a dress teaching your child, or working in your bank, will be brought up regardless. When asked how HRC would respond, Nancy responded that "under ENDA an employer could require gender-appropriate clothing." I think HRC will be very quick to distance themselves from us. ENDA doesn't cover those types of people… a further marginalization of gender variance.

Nancy said that we should support ENDA because, after it passes, our day will come. Notice the use of "us" and "them". Does anyone really believe that after all those years of lobbying for gay rights, HRC is going to jump right back into the fray to push a trans-inclusion amendment for "them"? How gullible do you think we are, HRC?

Miranda Stevens-Miller, Chair of It's Time Illinois welcomes your comments at MirandaSt1@aol.com