Lobby Effort Gets High Marks

More good news.

Today went as did yesterday. Lots of face to face destruction of stereotypes. Lots of face to face education on the desperate situation for most transgenders in the workplace. Lots of learning and lots of changed minds. We had five teams and as best as I can tell at this time all assigned visits were made and no red flags were raised about tg inclusion. Again, lots of restatement that whatever bill the Jeffords and Kennedy send (tg inclsive or exclusive ) will go with those folks. And many folks who voted no last time who were interested in what we were saying and doing.

Now for some sober news. Do not confuse sober for bad.

We went to the House side to meet with Barney Frank. Barney was very firm that his political calculation was that the language that we were proposing would NOT fly in the House and would NOT be introduced by his office. Simply ain't no way, period, end of story.

Before some of you take off my head as the messager, please realize that this was in his opening statements. I did not kill or give up the work of a lot of other people. Please do not blame me for what we walked into.

From that point, he began to ask a lot of other questions about language on the bill. He stated that what he wanted to consider the last ENDA with just enough to cover the tg community. He made no promises. He asked about what has been done in other jurisdictions. Following our responses to his questions, he was very interested in the Minnesota statute. My guess is that the House version will be last year's ENDA with sexual orientation only but with the definitions of sexual orientation to include a definition that is tg inclusive as in the Minnesota statute. My guess and 50 cents will buy you a cup of coffee.

So, before some of you try to flame me, please realise that I am only reporting. I made no committments or promises for the entire community. I did not speak for the entire community. But my guess is -- from the types of questions that he asked -- that the language may end up the same in the Senate.

My opinion is that such will cover us and that such language is tg-inclusion.

Many of us who did not fly out this afternoon and who were not just exhausted from the work went for dinner at the greek place next door (great food at reasonable prices). The excitement level was high. I expect these folks to never be the same again as to their confidence level in reaching out to elected officials. There were NO, NONE, NARY, NADA, ZILCH, ZIP, ZERO, NAY, NOT ONE SINGLE hitch on the event. NONE at all. It was indeed a good piece of work for the 4th national tg event, scheduled in May, to build upon.