The International Foundation for Gender Education

The Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC) initiated a post card campaign this past PRIDE Week in Boston protesting the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). MTPC is opposed to HRC?s support of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), because it fails to include transgender people. 1,000 pink post cards were filled out at The Dyke March Friday night, and at the Pride Parade Saturday, which will be mailed directly to HRC?s Executive Director Cheryl Jacques.?We would have more signatures, but we simply ran out of cards? said MTPC public relations director, Ms Holly Ryan. ?Our organization believes that HRC?s lobbying and educational efforts around the issues of gender identity and gender expression have been incomplete for far too long?.

In March 2001, HRC?s Board Of Directors voted to include the bisexual and transgender communities in it?s mission statement. However, HRC, the nations largest GLBT advocacy organization has not informed Federal Legislators that it would only support a bill which includes gender identity and gender expression. This non-inclusive strategy is divisive and hurtful, and distinguishes HRC from twelve other major national GBLT organizations. HRC?s willingness to support a non-inclusive ENDA has made them a gatekeeper, effectively blocking inclusion of the transgender community.

The Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition is the statewide organization that worked to pass a Boston ordinance prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender identity and gender expression. MTPC had to explain to city councilors that gender identity and gender expression were not already covered by the sexual orientation protection passed eighteen years earlier. Had the transgender community not been left behind for eighteen years, countless people might not have lost their jobs, been denied safe living environments, and been discriminated against in other ways. This history must not be repeated on a national scale.

MTPC is asking the HRC not to support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act until it includes gender identity and gender expression just as The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and twelve other national GLBT organizations will not support ENDA until it includes gender identity and gender expression. We further ask that HRC educate and lobby legislators on the importance of including gender identity and gender expression in ENDA and other legislation.

The post card campaign was preceded by a letter to Cheryl Jacques and the HRC Board Of Directors announcing an education campaign, ?Human Rights For Who?? detailing HRC?s history of supporting non-inclusive legislation, and asking them to include gender identity and gender expression. Without HRC?s commitment to inclusive legislation, all Americans who challenge gender stereotypes will remain vulnerable to discrimination. Thus, non-inclusive legislation ends up excluding those it is designed to protect.

For further information on these issues, please contact : Holly Ryan at MTPC, P.O. Box 1897, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130. By FAX at : 617-244-1133.
By E-Mail at : hryan@masstpc.org or by telephone at 857-231-6429.