San Fran activists protest HRC

Out in San Francisco, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) continues to deal with the fallout from its decision last fall to break with other national LGBT organizations and support a version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) without trans-inclusive gender identity protections. A coalition of local organizations, including the activist group And Castro for All, the S.F. chapter of Pride at Work, and the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, are planning a July 12 protest outside HRC's retail store in the Castro. Protestors will hand out rainbow flag stickers and urge shoppers to substitute the rainbow for the ubiquitous HRC equal sign logo stickers.

"The rainbow flag is a symbol of our diversity, and our experience of HRC is it's not as committed to diversity as the flag is, and we want them to step up and show a different HRC," said Robert Haaland, co-chair of Pride at Work's S.F. chapter.

He said the protest is part of a larger campaign in San Francisco to demand accountability from HRC. On July 26 at HRC's San Francisco fundraising dinner activists will hold a party outside the Westin St. Francis, the site of the HRC dinner, and urge attendees to come to their party instead. Haaland said the protests were prompted not only by HRC's stance on ENDA but on their larger record on transgender issues. He said the composition of HRC's board of directors, which has had no transgender members since Donna Rose resigned last year in protest of HRC's ENDA stance, suggests that the organization is not committed to the needs of the transgender community.

"There's a lot of distrust from a lot of quarters about whether or not they're committed to an inclusive ENDA based on their record. And it isn't clear to the people on the ground in San Francisco that HRC is really committed to the transgender community based on who the leadership is," said Haaland.

Brad Luna, spokesman for HRC, said that despite the organization's backing of a non-inclusive bill in 2007 HRC is committed to the ultimate goal of passing a fully inclusive ENDA. As part of that effort HRC helped coordinate a hearing before Congress last month on transgender employment discrimination.

"[The protest is] completely built on a faulty claim, which is we don't support an inclusive bill. Not only is it wrong, but it couldn't be further from the truth," said Luna.

He said two weeks ago HRC received a warm reception at San Francisco Pride. HRC hoped to recruit 500 new members but signed up more than 700.

"There's obviously a vocal minority out there who do a good job of organizing and making a lot of noise, but you cannot discount what the Bay Area community thinks, and they're obviously supportive of our work fighting for an inclusive ENDA as well as all the other work we're doing," said Luna.
That sentiment appears far from universal in San Francisco, and the alleged vocal minority includes some major movers and shakers. Last month San Francisco supervisors Tom Ammiano and Bevan Dufty, state Sen. Carole Migden and Police Commission President Theresa Sparks all announced that they were boycotting the HRC Dinner over the organization's ENDA stance, according to the Bay Area Reporter. Earlier this year HRC was nominated for San Francisco Pride's Pink Brick award, given to people or groups that have done harm to the LGBT community over the prior year. HRC is the only LGBT group to have received the nomination since the award was created in 2002, reports the BAR. HRC lost the award to Fox News host Bill O'Reilly.