What The Hell Happened In DC Today?

I had an enjoyable day at HCC-Southeast kicking Trans 101 knowledge this afternoon to a predominately Latin@ and African-American student audience and after arriving home around 4:30 PM CDT took a nap. 

When I awakened at approximately 7:30 PM CDT I discovered when I perused my Facebook postings elements of the trans community were pissed off.  Interest in my 'Why The Transgender Community Hates HRC' essay post has gone viral to the point that I obliterated my all time single day hit count record on March 26 with 39,027 hits and there is a level of anger at the Human Rights Campaign I haven't seen since former Rep. Barney Frank stripped trans people out of ENDA combined with  Joe Solmonese getting caught misspeaking lying at the 2007 Southern Comfort Conference in the ATL.

And yes, looking like I'm going to have to get busy finishing that sequel to the 2007 essay that I tentatively titled 'Why The Trans Community Loathes HRC'. 

The big unconfirmed rumor I'm hearing that is stoking the fresh wave of anger in elements of the trans community is that it is being alleged a group of transpeople at today's Washington DC Marriage Equality rally were supportively waving the trans community flag and were told by someone presumed to be an HRC staffer or someone connected with the event to stop doing so.  The person is also alleged to have said according to the rumor spreading on the Net that "Marriage Equality is not a transgender issue."

Okay, if you were or know the person the alleged incident happened to and you have video of the alleged incident to prove it happened, come out of the shadows and talk to a reporter and get it on the record.  If you have the video or pics of the alleged incident, that needs to be posted ASAP.  

If it didn't happen that way, then you're about to earn a Shut Up Fool award nomination.  As far as I'm concerned in terms of flags, this is the only flag that should have been flown at the SCOTUS rally, anyway.   

What heightens my skepticism about this incident is the graphic refers to HRC as the Human Rights COALITION.  HRC is the Human Rights CAMPAIGN.   The lack of video in an era when just about everyone and their grandmother on this planet is armed with cellphones with videotaping capability also has me in 'things that make you go hmm' mode. 

But HRC, let's be real.  While you have made some incremental progress in terms of improving your image in the community, there is still smoldering trans anger about being thrown under the ENDA bus in 2007 coupled with your long negative history of trans oppression that has many of us (TransGriot included) looking at you with side-eyed suspicion.   The perception of overemphasis on marriage equality to the exclusion of other more pressing issues on the GLBT rights menu such as ENDA, immigration reform, trans human rights, and HIV/AIDS just to name a few issues combined with leadership ranks that look like a Republican party convention haven't helped either. 

Don't even get me started talking about what the perceptions of the non-white trans and SGL community are concerning HRC and the marriage equality issue.

But as to the comment that marriage isn't a transgender issue, my response is you're kidding me, right? 

It is when trans marriages are the collateral damage from the predominately vanillacentric privileged push for same gender marriage.  

I support marriage equality and want to see DOMA die but I'm lukewarm about it.   I have to note that trans people had the ability to get married to their cis partners until the 1996 passage of DOMA and the 2003 GL full court press for gay marriage started having a deleterious effect on trans people's ability to get married.

Think I'm kidding about that?  Ask my Lone Star State homegirls Christie Lee Littleton and Nikki Araguz, Ms W in Hong Kong, Joanne Cassar in Malta or Kimah Nelson and Jason Stenson  in New York City.

I'm sure that the truth will come out about what really happened at that rally today, but note Human Rights Campaign, you still have a very long and tough road to travel before you even begin to get some positive cred back and you have zero room for errors, misspeaking, or mistakes.