The Employee Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), introduced to protect LGBTQ employees from discrimination, was recently stripped of provisions prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender identity. The stripped down bill, which also includes an exception for religious employers, denies protection to transgendered people and introduces loopholes that would seriously limit the bill's effects.

Opponents of the new bill point out that transgendered people experience workplace discrimination at much greater rates than lesbigan, gay, and bisexual people. Furthermore, with the gender identity provisions removed from the bill, employers could claim that their actions against employees are based not on sexual orientation but on an employee's failure to act masculine or feminine enough.

With the stripped down ENDA moving quickly through Congress, activists are calling on representatives to restore the original, inclusive bill. Organizations leading the opposition to the weakened bill include the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Lambda Legal, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, the National Organization for Women, and the Transgender Law Center. Activists are also criticizing the Human Rights Campaign and other groups who have accepted the stripped down bill.

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