August 5-11, 2004

cover story

Holding Out Hope

LGBT delegates took a voluntary back seat at the DNC. With a Kerry victory, they think their time will come.

by Mary F. Patel

PLEDGING ALLEGIANCE: Padilla's appearance as a DNC delegate was a watershed event as she was among the first transgender convention representatives in history. Photo By: Mike Mergen

BOSTON — An interesting thing happened on the way to the Democratic National Convention. On the weekend before the John Kerry-boosting festivities began, Pennsylvania's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) delegates met with peers from other states at the National Stonewall Democrats convention in Providence, R.I.

Among those delegates was Philadelphia's Kathleen Padilla, whose involvement was a milestone in itself. Not only was she was the first transgender delegate from Pennsylvania to attend the Democratic Convention, but she was among five people representing transgender issues at a national caucus for the first time in American history. Despite her quiet demeanor, she's been a strong advocate for transgender rights as their issues struggle for mainstream attention.

At Stonewall, LGBT delegates talked strategy. They discussed how they wanted to have full equality in the party process and how it's a national travesty that they're not on equal footing with the rest of the population. But while their issues didn't get much prime-time exposure during the convention, they're satisfied with getting their foot in the door --for the time being.

"There will be more meetings, certainly when John Kerry is elected. I would have liked to see more concrete action, but that can happen in the future," Padilla said. "This was only the first step. I feel that just being represented on a platform is symbolic."

As Kerry prepared to take center stage last week, Democrats were hushing their fellow party members' opinions, and the blocs that usually cause internal strife stifled themselves for the greater good. That strategy was about more than just displaying a unified front. To appeal to moderates, controversial parts of the "liberal agenda" were suppressed. Aside from LGBT issues, abortion and support for gay marriage were de-emphasized. In their place, Democrats spoke of "values."

"This is our time to reject the kind of politics calculated to divide race from race, group from group, region from region," Kerry said while accepting his party's nomination.

Still, people espousing ideals up and down the liberal spectrum took their rightful places at the Fleet Center. Joining Padilla were Renee Gilinger and Michael Marsico, co-chairs of Liberty City Lesbian and Gay Democratic Club in Philadelphia who taught a workshop on how to get out the gay vote in Providence.

ALL SMILES: (Clockwise from top right) Kathleen Padilla, Renee Gilinger, Abbe Fletman and Michael Marsico were among the many delegates who gathered at the Sheraton in Boston. Photo By: Mike Mergen

It's a campaign approach that Liberty City pioneered and one that's become a model program because of its success in Philadelphia at creating grass-roots campaign operations to get Democrats elected. A large nonprofit organization founded in 1994, Liberty City supports gay-friendly elected officials and candidates in both statewide and city elections and works against any official or candidate who is anti-gay. They were instrumental in helping Ed Rendell get re-elected as mayor and then into the governor's residence. The group, known for massive voter-registration drives, also backed John Street in his second term for mayor.

Padilla, Gilinger and Marsico were just three of the 168 delegates and 33 alternates within the national party who are openly LGBT. Eight LGBT delegates came from Pennsylvania. (In all, there were 4,353 delegates and 611 alternates.)

Smaller special interest groups such as these did not draw as much public attention at the Democratic Convention as they have in the past. Even so, there was an uncommon unity among Democrats, much of it driven by an incredible amount of anger at what the White House has done to the country since President George W. Bush took office.

The disputed outcome of the last election has not been forgotten, and these Democrats are fuming about the conservative agenda that Bush has pushed through despite losing the popular vote in 2000. The unity was also bolstered by polls showing that victory is a definite possibility, though by no means a lock.

These Democrats believe that if they can just keep from scaring the Middle American swing voters away, they can win the election and undo some of the damage that has been inflicted on the country.

That plan marks an interesting transition. For the national parties, race no longer counts as a special interest, for the values of racial parity are embraced. Even the Republicans understand that a good deal of the swing voters will not accept parties that do not court racial minorities. Noted black national leaders Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and the new kid on the block, Illinois U.S. Senate candidate and keynote speaker Barack Obama, all addressed the convention. New Mexico's Gov. Bill Richardson, a Mexican-American, played a prominent role as chairman of the convention.

National LGBT activists didn't share the same wide exposure. Just four openly LGBT speakers appeared, and their speeches weren't slated for prime-time exposure.

ONWARD AND UPWARD: Gov. Rendell says the television networks had quite a bit of influence over which convention speeches reached the masses during prime time. Photo By: Mike Mergen

U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin from Wisconsin spoke on the convention floor Monday night. In her speech about the importance of affordable health care, Baldwin stressed that Kerry will guarantee benefits for all families, even domestic partners. She did not mentio5n that she is a lesbian.

Jim Stork, who is running for a congressional seat in Florida as an openly gay man, took the mic early Tuesday afternoon and made brief remarks about bringing people together, but he said nothing about being gay or anything remotely connected to gay issues.

Later in the week, Cheryl Jacques, the president and executive director of Human Rights Campaign, a national bipartisan LGBT rights group, made a speech to a half-empty convention center about equality for the LGBT community in marriage, more funding for HIV and ending violent hate crimes against gays.

"We need to work hard," Jacques said, "because there are still 36 states where it is legal to fire an employee because their employer thinks he or she is gay."

Jacques got her point across, but she spoke at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, when television coverage was limited.

The openly gay U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, who was in his home state, made a brief speech at 6:15 p.m. on the last night of the convention. He argued for the inclusion of sexual minorities in national hate-crimes legislation, the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, and acceptance of gay families and marriage as well as of gays in the military. (Last June, the Senate passed legislation that allows for enhanced ability to investigate and prosecute hate crimes motivated by actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender and disability. It did not include gender identity.)

By the time the last balloons drifted from the Fleet Center ceiling, not one openly LGBT figure had spoken during PBS' extended coverage, which ran from 8 to 11 each night. The lack of attention wasn't about stifling debate, said Rendell, a gay-friendly co-chair of the convention. He said the networks decide who is going to speak during the heavily watched time slots.

"Since they have it down to an hour," Rendell said, "they told us who they wanted in. They didn't even want Obama. He wasn't prime time and neither was [former presidential candidate the Rev. Al] Sharpton. Prime time is 10 to 11 Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday."

In a telephone interview, Frank said he thinks pointing out the timing of speakers is nitpicking. There is nothing so important to the LGBT community that is worth disrupting the convention, he averred. With 86 percent of the Democrats in the House and 96 percent of the Democrats in the Senate voting against bringing the Defense of Marriage Act to a vote, there are no differences between lesbians and gays and the party.

"The news is how closely [LGBT people] are integrated into the party," he said. "The time for pressure will come after we win."

Rendell agreed with Frank in saying all members eventually are going to get what they want. His suggestion? Don't make waves. Get Kerry elected. Work on the rest later.

"That's the feeling not only among the political gays," Rendell said, "but the leadership of the gay community."

GRAND OLE OPPONENT: Sam Irvin, a delegate from Colorado, checks out the happenings inside the Fleet Center. Photo By: Mike Mergen

Q. Todd Dickinson, a former Philadelphia attorney, attended his sixth Democratic convention, this time as a friend of the delegation. One of President Bill Clinton's openly gay administration appointees, he served as acting assistant secretary of commerce and acting commissioner of patents and trademarks. At this convention, LGBT delegates and non-delegates had more of a presence than in the past, he said.

"What you are seeing is that Democrats want to win so badly. [The LGBT activists] have made progress, and there is a unified message," Dickinson said. "The platform is more terse and focused than it has ever been, and we are prominent. Gay marriage will evolve over time."

Despite articulating specific goals at the Stonewall convention, these delegates are now willing to sit in the rumble seat for the sake of the party. They believe that, at heart, Kerry shares their values and will implement their agenda once he is elected, despite whether he says so publicly now.

"There comes a time when you have to step back and prioritize," said Liberty City's Gilinger. "There are too many people being killed in this war. Do we want four more years of George Bush? There is too much at stake. I am a Democrat. Once John Kerry is elected, we can work with him."

Scott Safier, a Pittsburgh resident who sat on the DNC platform committee and represented LGBT issues, said he was satisfied with the platform.

"We had very specific, important planks [in the platform]," he said. "The marriage plank, which includes gay and lesbian families, more funding for HIV and full inclusion in the military.

"I had a private lunch with Nancy Pelosi, and I feel that our needs are understood. And earlier, at the LGBT caucus, Ben Affleck showed up and offered us a lot of support. But the real star [of the caucus] was Teresa Heinz Kerry. She said she would be our mother in the White House, since so many parents are not supportive of their gay and lesbian children."

On the surface, it looks like the LGBT community has a presence within the party structure, but, judging by a party platform that also made no mention of transgender issues, the party has decided it is best to leave same-sex marriage up to individual states. In other words, Kerry isn't touching that topic.

There was one paragraph pertaining to gay marriage in the 41 pages of DNC platform doctrine. It reads:

"We support full inclusion of gay and lesbian families in the life of our nation and seek equal responsibilities, benefits and protections for these families. In our country, marriage has been defined at the state level for 200 years, and we believe it should continue to be defined there. We repudiate President Bush's divisive effort to politicize the Constitution by pursuing a "Federal Marriage Amendment.' Our goal is to bring Americans together, not drive them apart."

Safier said 5 percent to 10 percent of the platform committee was gay or lesbian, but since there was no transgender representation, he said he felt compelled to be an advocate for that community. Though the transgender delegates asked that "gender identity," another term for transgender, be included in the first sentence of the paragraph, the DNC was reluctant to add it. Safier said that Jeff Soref, who heads up the DNC's LGBT causes, has indicated that he "would take a look at it."

For her part, Padilla was disappointed that they were left off, but emphasized that just educating people on the transgender community was a start.

NO TASK TOO SMALL: Down in the bowels of the convention complex, security was a high priority. Even the port-o-pots got searched at one point.

"We didn't have the votes on the platform committee," she said. "All of the transgender delegates worked hand in glove with Scott on our issues."

Padilla is familiar with discrimination.

She was a former social worker at the Department of Mental Health and Retardation in Massachusetts while she was transitioning, and she left because she was concerned about how she would be perceived later. After moving to Philadelphia in the mid-'90s, her first job was conducting investigations for a company hired by local law firms, but that company later folded. Then she found part-time work training library and public-school staff on how to utilize their technology systems. For extra income she applied for a job on Monster.com for a consulting contract with the Office of Homeland Security — based in Arlington, Va. Her responsibility was ensuring that all area school programs dealing with foreign students were in compliance with federal regulations. Padilla said she applied for this position to show how important it is to show the flag and have a presence, but in her seven-year contract, she hasn't got a lot of work.

Now, when applying for a job with private employers, she said they are impressed with her resume but in the actual interviews, she said they find reasons why they can't hire her.

"I found when people all of a sudden realized who I was, they turned cold and didn't follow up. Or they found excuses for me not to take the job." She is currently looking for work.

Padilla became an activist 20 years ago and is a founding board member of the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition, an interim managing director of the Statewide Pennsylvania Rights Coalition, serves on the board of the Mazzoni Center health clinic, is a board member of LGBT-lobbying group Outfront! and was an organizer of Transgender Week in Provincetown, Mass. After Rendell was elected as governor, Padilla served on his transition team on the Department of Public Welfare as a volunteer.

She started convention week with an active social agenda, beginning with Barney Frank's Boston Tea Party. From there, she went to a memorial honoring Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old student who was brutally beaten to death in 1998 in Wyoming because he was gay. The dinner was hosted by his mother, Judy Shepard, and highlighted issues of protecting people from hate crimes.

Late Monday morning, Padilla attended a national LGBT caucus in the Boston Sheraton, where she discussed her wish list for Democratic leadership with Melissa Sklarz from New York, who is on the transgender committee of the caucus.

"The largest concern for us is inclusion of hate-crimes legislation and employment," Padilla said. "There is, in this country, a bias-motivated murder of a transgender person every three weeks. The Southern Poverty Law Center in Alabama, the oldest civil-rights organization, issued a report on transgender hate crimes last December, and they noted there were more transgender murders in this country last year than there were race, religion and sexual orientation murders combined."

Employment issues are also a major concern. When someone decides to change his or her sex, the first thing that person must do is dress and act that gender. Padilla said there are many prejudices among employers and there's the lingering question of at what point does a person stop being transgender?

"If an employer does a background check, they would find that a person was once another sex," she said. "It depends on each one, individually, how they want to be perceived. I would like to be perceived as a woman. But politically, I call myself transgender because it is important. You cannot effect social change if you're not out.

"There was an unemployment survey done in D.C. by the Whitman-Walker clinic that showed a 40 percent unemployment rate among transgenders. We want inclusion in the federal employment nondiscrimination legislation." Whitman-Walker is a LGBT nonprofit health center.

As the presidential campaign now kicks into overdrive, and the Republicans prepare for their powwow in New York City later this month, Padilla said she is optimistic that the DNC was a step in the right direction.

"We will work on as many fronts as we can, and at the same time, here is an opportunity to meet a lot of folks who may have never met a transgender person before in a leadership role," she said. "And those connections are important, and people can understand why these protections are important to us, and most people have an LGBT member in their family somewhere."

In Pennsylvania, there has been progress in including transgenders in legislation that protects other sexual minorities. Rendell signed an executive order that added protection for transgenders in the state's employment anti-discrimination law, but that doesn't cover private employees. To prevent discrimination among private employers in the state, a bill must pass the state House and Senate.

Rendell's predecessor, Mark Schweiker, added gender identity to the protections for people with differing sexual orientation to the state's hate-crimes law.

Locally, Mayor Street signed in 2002 an amendment in City Council introduced by Councilman Frank DiCicco that added gender identity to the Fair Practices Ordinance.

Armed with those local successes, Padilla and the other transgender delegates met with Steve Elmendorf, the openly gay deputy chair of the Kerry campaign, and Jeff Soref on Thursday afternoon for an hourlong meeting.

"It was a fairly important step for us," Padilla said.

But, like the gay and lesbian groups, these delegates are not allowing their issues to stand in the way of the main focus of the convention.

"We hope to contribute very strongly to a John Kerry victory," Padilla said. "We are not just here for ourselves, we're here to get John Kerry elected. He is the best candidate for America and on every issue I can think of.

"The transgender movement is not on the fringe. Years ago, only 6 percent of the population of this country lived in municipalities that had transgender civil rights, and now it's up to 25 percent of the population. We've done that. We've accomplished that in the last two years. The population that is covered by gay rights is only 45 percent. And all the new laws that are passing that cover sexual orientation are adding gender identity. It's not just San Francisco and New York. It's Indiana, Atlanta, Dallas, mainstream America."

Padilla said that it was a step in the right direction when Mara Keisling, a Harrisburg transgender delegate and the executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, was able to stand on the stage, behind the podium, with other minorities on Wednesday night.

The best part of her convention? The other delegate's response to her button, which read: Democratic Convention 2004 Transgender Delegate, with a combination male/female symbol in a pink triangle. The button was designed by Barbra "Babs" Casbar, a New Jersey transgender delegate.

"These buttons are in high demand, a true collector's item," said Padilla. "Everybody wanted one. In the future, these buttons will be as much a part of the Democratic party as the labor and pro-choice buttons."

Depending, of course, on what happens in November.