Congress Gets its First Transgender Staffer

by Michael Jones · 2008-12-21 06:53:00 UTC
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diego SanchezThis is going to be an historic January in Washington, DC.  In addition to all that Presidential business that'll be going on, the 111th session of Congress will kickstart into action on January 6, and on that day Congress's first transgender staff person will start his new job.  Diego Sanchez, the director of public relations and external affairs for the AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts, will begin working in Congressman Barney Frank's office as a senior adviser on LGBT rights issues, labor, veterans issues and health care.

Can anyone else see the headlines already?  "Mr. Sanchez Goes to Washington!"

(A quick google search shows that Bay Windows has beat me to that.)

This appointment is great news.  One of Diego's tasks will be to work for the passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would prevent employers from discriminating against someone in the workplace because of sexual orientation.  There's a good version of this bill, and there's a better version of this bill.  The better version not only protects sexual orientation, but gender identity, and having Diego Sanchez as the face of trans issues on Capitol Hill might do wonders for moving the trans-inclusive version of ENDA forward.

To be sure, Congressman Frank himself has rightfully earned a lot of flack from the trans-community, for walking away from a trans-inclusive version of ENDA last year.  Perhaps Diego Sanchez's appointment is both an olive branch to trans-activists, but also an admission on Frank's part that he was wrong to water down ENDA and omit transgender individuals from its protections.  That remains to be seen, but here's to another historic January first inside the Beltway.

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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