The crown jewel of the GLBT legislative agenda, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) is being stripped of protection for transgender persons. The decision by chief sponsor Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who is gay, has resulted in a groundswell of opposition from gay activists, and, late Monday, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., halted plans to bring the legislation to a vote in the House.

Pelosi’s move followed a petition presented to Congress by representatives of more than 100 prominent national and state gay and transgender rights organizations that expressed strong opposition to any version of ENDA that does not include transgender protections.

Word that Frank was considering the move swirled around Washington last week, and the Congressmember made it official with release of an extended statement on Sept. 28.

“Under the current political situation, we do not have sufficient support in the House to include in that bill explicit protection for people who are transgender. The question facing us – the LGBT community and the tens of millions of others who are active supporters of our fight against prejudice – is whether we should pass up the chance to adopt a very good bill because it has one major gap,” Frank said.

“I believe that it would be a grave error to let this opportunity to pass a sexual orientation non-discrimination bill go forward, not simply because it is one of the most important advances we’ll have made in securing civil rights for Americans in decades, but because moving forward on this bill now will also better serve the ultimate goal of including people who are transgender than simply accepting total defeat today.”

Frank recounted the history of the legislation and noted “the official Whip count” recently made by the Democratic leadership in the House. “It became very clear that while we would retain a significant majority of Democrats, we would lose enough so that a bill that included transgender protection would lose if not amended, and that an anti-transgender amendment would pass.”

What was not clear was whether that vote count was based on a “free” vote where members could vote their conscience and interests, or whether in fact the Democratic leadership was “whipping” its delegation to vote for ENDA.

Therefore, Frank announced he was moving forward with a strategy that includes two pieces of legislation. The first would include sexual orientation; the second would extend protection to transgender persons. The House would immediately vote on the first bill and would hold hearings on the second.

“Enacting legislation to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and getting a year or two’s experience with it, will be very helpful in our ultimately adding to it protection for people who are transgender. That is, if you always insist on doing all the difficult things in one bite, you will probably never be successful. Dismantling the opposition piecemeal has always worked better,” Frank argued.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi released a statement that same day endorsing Frank’s legislative tactics. “While I personally favor legislation that would include gender identity, the new ENDA legislation proposed by Congressman Frank has the best prospect for success on the House floor.”

Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., the only open lesbian in the House and an original cosponsor of the trans-inclusive bill, has not signed on as a cosponsor of the more limited version that Frank is proposing, according to a report in the Gay City News.

The National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) greeted the news with dismay in a statement released just hours after Frank’s approach became clear. It “firmly rejects this strategy and joins most other national and many state LEGT organizations in actively opposing these two new bills.”

“We believe that the original version of ENDA, which was fully inclusive of both gender identity and sexual orientation, was prematurely abandoned and should still be called for a vote.”

“It is disheartening to see that a bill, drafted over several years through a collaborative effort of LGBT advocates and allies, would be rejected without a vote and without the counsel or assent of a single one of these organizations.”

Frank took the same unilateral approach in 1993 in embracing the “compromise” known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” when the community’s national organizations had urged him to wait.

Frank’s opposition to inclusion of the gender identity provision into ENDA had stalled that effort for several years. As Houston transgender activist Phyllis Randolph Frye said in an email rallying that community, Frank “has never been a friend of transgenders.”

The list national and state organizations that signed the petition delivered to Congress calling for a transgender-inclusive ENDA includes such heavy hitters as the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the National Black Justice Coalition, and the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Alliance (GLSEN).

Lambda Legal offered the capsule evaluation of the new bill: “You can’t be fired for being lesbian or a gay man, but you can be fired if your boss thinks you fit their stereotype of one.”

Executive director Kevin Cathcart added, “Leaving out protections for transgender people is unacceptable, and passing a bill riddled with loopholes will make it harder to achieve equality on the job.” He said the new version of ENDA does not simply strip out transgender protection, “but rather has modified the old version in several additional and troubling ways.”

National Stonewall Democrats has launched an effort to “save” the original version of ENDA. The group has broken with Frank, who has been a major patron of Stonewall, and at times has been said to exercise behind the scenes control of it.

The labor group Pride at Work said, “We cannot and will not leave the least numerous and most vulnerable among us to fend for themselves. We stand together, one for all and all for one!”

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has made ENDA the centerpiece of its legislative agenda ever since it was introduced. It resisted including protection for transgender people, giving in only after extensive pressure from that community, which included having their dinners picketed.

It tried to waffle, lamenting the need for Frank’s strategy and not quite endorsing it, but also not joining those who opposed it. Some members of the board of directors reportedly have threatened to resign if the organization endorsed it.

HRC is further constrained by the fact that its big national fund-raising dinner is set for Oct. 6, where Pelosi is scheduled to receive a major award. Those opposed to the strategy have vowed to picket the dinner.

The only significant vocal opposition to ENDA has come from far-right groups such as the Family Research Council, and they are not going to be mollified by omitting transgender persons.

Support for Frank’s position came in an editorial in the Washington Post that appeared on Sept. 28, even before the Congressmember had released his extended statement. It employed language lifted from that statement indicating that the paper was given the document long before anyone else.