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URGENT
Take action~!
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Efforts are currently underway by LGBT advocacy organizations from across the country -- including the Equality Federation, of which NYAGRA is a member organization -- to persuade the leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives to retain gender identity and expression in the text of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), currently pending in Congress. For a full explanation of the ENDA issue, see: "House Dems to Strip Transgender from ENDA: http://visiblevote08.logoonline.com |
"ENDA Breakthrough"
http://visiblevote08.logoonline.com/2007/10/02/enda-breakthrough-on-transgender-inclusion/
Please note that the House leadership has *not* disposed entirely of the non-inclusive version of ENDA (H.R. 3685); rather, the Speaker has given LGBT advocacy organizations until later this month (no date is specified in the statement from the House leadership, but activists are interpreting the message as giving us two or three more weeks) to generate support for the transgender-inclusive version of ENDA (H.R. 2015).
Here's what you can do:
Go to the House website to find your member of Congress:
http://www.house.gov/
For a full list of current sponsors of the inclusive ENDA bill as well as for additional information about the campaign to keep ENDA fully, transgender-inclusive, see:
http://www.unitedenda.org/
Write your member of Congress to ask him or her to support H.R. 2015 (the version with gender identity and expression) only and not the version with only sexual orientation (H.R. 3685).
Letters from constituents sent by 'snail mail' -- are the most valuable, and hand-written letters (if they are legible, of course) from constituents are the most carefully read of all. Phone calls are also helpful, once again, especially if they come from constituents; call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask for your representative's office; e-mail is probably the least effective way to communicate with them.
Right now, members of the Senate are watching action in the House and waiting to see if the House votes for the transgender-inclusive or the non-inclusive version of ENDA, so contacting House members is of the greatest urgency. Send any responses from your members of Congress to NYAGRA at:
http://www.nyagra.com/contact/index.php
It is vitally important that members of Congress -- including members of the New York state delegation -- hear from constituents that ENDA must include gender identity and expression in order to ensure that all transgendered and gender-variant people are protected from discrimination under federal law.
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