TTPC

The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote on ENDA, sometime this month, reportedly before Thanksgiving. lease contact Tennessee’s two co-sponsors of ENDA, Representatives Stephen Cohen and Jim Cooper, to thank them for their support and to remind them to oppose any effort to strip “gender identity or expression” from the bill.

Currently, 12 states and more than 100 localities have LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination protections, covering nearly 40 percent of Americans. The State of Tennessee is not one of those states, but the Tennessee Board of Regents, University of Tennessee at Knoxville, Metro Nashville Public Schools, and earlier this year, both Shelby County and Metro Nashville, have all adopted such policies for their employees. Additionally, more than 150 Fortune 500 companies, including most recently, Federal Express, have enacted nondiscrimination policies protecting LGBT workers. Other agencies and private employers based in Tennessee do have such policies in place, but many remain unprotected.

And, according to numerous surveys, large majorities of likely voters in the U.S. support federal employment non-discrimination laws to protect LGBT people. Polling data from 2006 shows that voters are more likely to support a candidate who votes for LGBT discrimination laws than they are to vote against.

In 2007, the Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition was a key coordinater of the organizing efforts in Tennessee in support of a gender identity inclusive ENDA, which included sending transgender people to Congressional offices in Tennessee and Washington, DC, to lobby their legislators.

At home, set up a visit!

The most effective action is a visit. Since Representatives will be home over the August recess (August 3 to September 7), now is a great time to start setting up a meeting with you and other community members to visit with the Representative (or their staffs) in their home district offices during this time.

Besides, Stephen Cohen and Jim Cooper, the remaining members of the Tennessee delegation who you should contact and ask to vote to end discrimination in the workplace are:

• Phil Roe, M.D.
• John Duncan, Jr.
• Zach Wamp, candidate for Governor of Tennessee
• Lincoln Davis
• Bart Gordon
• Marsha Blackburn
• John Tanner

For help setting up visits, check out:

• The Task Force ENDA Grassroots Toolkit
• National Center for Transgender Equality’s Making Your Voice Heard
• PFLAG’s Bringing the Message Home

Let us know!

Please let us know what your Senators and Representatives tell you about their support of ENDA using our Lobby Report Form
For more information about the United ENDA Coalition and additional available resources, go to www.unitedenda.org.
Send a letter to your Congressional Representative. Below is a sample letter:

Subject: Please Support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act

Dear [your Representative's name],

Representative Barney Frank, joined by a group of bi-partisan Representatives, recently introduced the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. ENDA would extend the existing federal law prohibiting employment discrimination to protect people on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity or expression.
Please support an inclusive ENDA – the bill that protects lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Americans from losing their jobs just because of their sexual orientation or their gender identity.

Federal law already bans job discrimination based on race, gender, religion, and other categories that are essential to a person’s being. But employers in many states can still fire people because they are transgender, lesbian, gay, or bisexual.

LGBT Americans deserve and need the ability to work–just like every American. Please help by cosponsoring and supporting an inclusive ENDA in 2009.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
(your name)