The annual Southern Comfort Conference in Atlanta has been one of the nation's largest transgender gatherings. It has taken place for four days in September since 1991. I've never attended myself. One of the usual features involves inviting LGBT leaders to speak.
This year Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin gave the keynote speech...and actually apologized to the transgender community for past mistreatment by the HRC.
The full transcript is here.
I want to cut right to the chase here today. There’s an elephant in this room, and, well, it’s me.
Some of you may be wondering what I am doing here. Some of the more skeptical among you, particularly those I don’t yet know, may think I’m lost. I promise you I’m not. I’m here for a pretty simple reason. I’m here because I want to be here. And I’ll tell you why.
A few months ago, I was at the Ohio State University in Columbus for an HRC event — our Columbus annual gala, as a matter of fact.
Anyone here from Columbus might know that the Student Union at OSU is this big open building with this huge atrium that stretches all the way to the top floor, with event space on each level.
Our dinner was on the second floor. And when I arrived the HRC crowd had already turned out.
But when I looked up through the atrium to the third floor, I saw that there was a conference going on. Some of the attendees had noticed the activity below; they were clustered around the balcony, looking down at us.
It was a trans conference. The largest in Ohio. The 6th Annual TransOhio Symposium, organized by the courageous Shane Morgan. They were gathering after a string of trans women were murdered in Ohio last year. Another murder took place shortly after that conference was over.
And I’m going to tell you the honest truth: I had no idea the conference was happening before that night. And here all these committed transgender advocates and allies were—scholars, educators, everyday folks and their families there to support them. And instead of all of us working together, taking stock of all of our progress and the challenges ahead, and finding comfort in each other’s company, “they” were upstairs, and “we” were downstairs.
There that divide was, for all to see. Plain as day.
--Chad Griffin
So I am here today, at Southern Comfort, to deliver a message. I deliver it on behalf of HRC, and I say it here in the hopes that it will eventually be heard by everyone who is willing to hear it.
HRC has done wrong by the transgender community in the past, and I am here to formally apologize.
I am sorry for the times when we stood apart when we should have been standing together.
Even more than that, I am sorry for the times you have been underrepresented or unrepresented by this organization. What happens to trans people is absolutely central to the LGBT struggle. And as the nation’s largest LGBT civil rights organization, HRC has a responsibility to do that struggle justice, or else we are failing at our fundamental mission.
First things first: an inclusive ENDA. It’s an absolutely essential piece of legislation. It will change millions of lives for the better. And as an organization, HRC will continue to invest in and fight for an inclusive ENDA.
But even a broad, inclusive ENDA isn’t enough.
If you’re trans, a fully inclusive ENDA doesn’t do much good if you’re living on the street because you’ve been kicked out of your apartment…if you haven’t been able to finish school…if even getting a job interview in the first place seems light-years away.
That’s why, in the next session Congress, HRC will lead the campaign for a fully-inclusive, comprehensive, LGBT civil rights bill. A bill with non-discrimination protections that don’t stop at employment, but that finally touch every aspect of our lives—from housing, to public accommodations, to credit, to federal funding, to the education we all need to succeed and thrive.
And I’m going to keep being honest with you, this is not going to be an easy fight.
But I want to say something here today. Whenever the inevitable chant about “bathrooms” begins, they’re not just attacking you, they’re attacking me, they’re attacking us. We can’t let them win. We must hold the line. We will tell the truth. Because these are our lives, and this is the moral thing to do.
But even that’s not enough, is it? After all, it was less than two months after a Maryland coalition, including HRC, helped enact a statewide non-discrimination law that two trans women, Kandy Hall and Mia Henderson, were brutally murdered in Baltimore.
That massive disconnect … the disconnect between legal protection and lived experience … is what too many in this country don’t understand or, quite frankly, even realize. We can’t afford to just change laws.
And yes, we joined a group of national LGBT organizations in telling the Michigan Womyn’s Festival that transwomen are women too.
But we’re committed to doing more than just speaking out. It’s essential that HRC be meeting transgender people where they are, listening, and acting to create positive change. And we have an incredibly important foundation to build on.
Over 10 years, for instance, our Corporate Equality Index has helped shift trans-inclusive healthcare plans from a rarity in corporate America to a best practice that is the policy of more than 340 major companies.
Our Healthcare Equality Index has helped bring transgender competency training and patient and employee nondiscrimination policies to hospitals from the heart of the Deep South to each and every Veterans hospital in the country.
I talked a bit earlier about antitrans violence. Horrific and senseless murders that stain every state in this country and too often go unnoticed and unsolved. It’s time to call it what it is: Antitrans violence is a national crisis.
Look, this is a complicated issue that brings in race, employment, poverty and so many other factors, and none of us in this room have the solution today. But what we do know is we can never, ever accept this violence as a given. And together we have got to turn the tide.
I’m here today to declare that a core aspect of our work moving forward will be to work with you to develop a national response to the epidemic of antitrans violence in this country.
What I am here to say is what a young trans man told me in the heart of Mississippi. It was a meeting with a bunch of local LGBT people in a church community center outside Jackson. There must have been 20 folks in that room, everyone telling their stories, sharing their struggle. But his story sticks out most of all.
You see, Bryson’s a city worker. Transitioned on the job. And almost overnight, he began to face unprecedented harassment. They made him shave his dreadlocks, even though his other male colleagues wore their hair long. They even went after his wife at her place of work, so much so that she was forced off the job. He was just completely run-down, with only his family standing beside him.
I couldn’t believe it. Why did he come to that meeting in the church that day? Why risk so much to tell me his story, despite all he’d been through and was still going through? He looked me in the eye and said, “there’s always going to be hope for a change.”
My friends, please continue to hold HRC accountable. Hold me accountable.
Please be in conversation with us as we do more than we’ve ever done before.
We have come too far together not to share our progress.
We have come too far not to share the fight against the obstacles ahead.
There are a lot of people like Bryson out there hoping for a change.
And I promise you here, with my sweet Southern mom and all of you as my witness, that we won’t stop fighting until everyone in this room and everyone across this country has the equal protection, equal opportunity, and equal dignity that we all deserve as human beings.
I expect there are some people who are waiting for Chad Griffin to slip up the way Joe Solmonese did back in 2007. There are people who are expecting the worst, and some people who hold onto their grudges tight. Personally, I think this is a new day, there are new people, there is a stronger commitment to transgender people and our issues from within HRC. I think it serves us as a community to extend an olive branch to HRC, and to accept their willingness to pursue a good relationship with us.
There does seem to be considerably more hope, more respect, more opportunities, more access to health care and social services, but the fact is that we still have a long way to go. I think as younger people who are not so prejudiced about LGBT issues take over leading roles in journalism, in various businesses, even in government, we’re going to see more acceptance, but I’m not as sanguine that we’re on the downhill side of the struggle for transgender equality
--Jamison Green
There is so much excellence, so much talent, among us, that I’m really optimistic that we’re poised upon that tipping point, but we need to push it over collectively, together, and happily.
--Christina Kahrl
I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. It’s a start. I think Chad’s smart enough to know there is a divide. It started in 2007 when [Joe] Solmonese and [former U.S. Rep.] Barney Frank sold us up the river. There were a lot hurt feelings.
I think now he has to deliver. It’s just that simple. Everyone wants to believe. They [HRC] do a lot of good work. Right now everyone’s pumped up, but he has to deliver.
--Marisa Sandlin