Getting real about ENDA: the furor over the employment non-discrimination act offers the LGBT community the chance to come of age. will we take it?

In late September the Employment Non-Discrimination Act hit a snag. With a historic yes vote within reach in Congress, we learned that the votes for an all-inclusive ENDA weren't there after all: Although members would support a federal law protecting gays and lesbians from being fired on the basis of sexual orientation, they might not be ready to extend those protections to gender identity and thus to transgender people. Accordingly, cosponsor Barney Frank decided to introduce two new ENDAs: one covering sexual orientation and a second protecting gender identity.

That was our cue for uproar. Proclaiming solidarity with our trans brothers and sisters, more than 300 queer and queer-friendly organizations joined forces to demand a trans-inclusive ENDA or no ENDA at all. By the time this article appears, Congress will have likely decided which ENDA goes forward. But whatever the achievement, it has to be seen alongside the rifts it exposed in the LGBT movement.

Commenting on the situation, John Aravosis stirred the pot with a series of bracingly non-P.C, questions on his blog. How did ENDA, in process for 30 years in the context of sexual orientation, become unacceptable without gender-identity provisions that were added fairly recently? Moreover, when did ordinary gay people (as opposed to leaders of our national organizations) ever really agree to add "T" to "LGB"?

Aravosis caught hell from all directions but didn't back down. "I respect transgendered people and sympathize with their cause, but I simply don't get how I am just as closely related to a transsexual (who is often not gay) as I am to a lesbian (who is). Is it wrong for me to simply ask why?" he wrote in an October 8 piece on Salon.com.

These questions sting, but we have to face them if we want to build a relationship that really works. Aravosis is telling the truth. Many of us under the LGBT umbrella don't see ourselves as a community at all. We're loyal to one another in principle, but do we uniformly feel that deep connection that makes one person 4 sacrifice for another? No, and it shouldn't be off-limits to say so.

It's not that we don't like each other. We don't know each other. In our own lives, lesbians and gays and bisexuals and transgenders may rarely interact. The fact that we're not garden-variety heterosexuals is all that truly connects us. And no matter how politically passionate you are, it's hard to bond over something you're not.

In denouncing the sexual-orientation only ENDA, LGBT people achieved a new unity--but one strong enough only to obstruct progress, not create it. When Barney Frank says that members of Congress need to be more educated about the trans struggle before they'll want to help, that's not a transphobic statement. That's just political common sense. And whatever our vision for a perfect piece of legislation, is it smart to give up a goal 30 years in the making only to go back to square one with no gains at all?

The P.C. way is to squelch all dissent. And that keeps us from the real debate we urgently need. Our story as one unified movement is just beginning. Educating the mainstream around ENDA gives us the chance to learn more about each other--to let ourselves ask the questions and have the fights that build a real family. Are we big enough to risk it?

ANNE STOCKWELL

EDITOR IN CHIEF