Forty years ago last week, Bella Abzug introduced the Equality Act in Congress, which would have amended the Civil Rights Act to include protections from discrimination based on sexual orientation in housing, public accommodations and employment. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, which covers employment discrimination, was introduced 20 years later, in 1994.

It's now 2014, and gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people still have no national law that prevents employers, landlords, hoteliers or even restaurant owners from discriminating against us because of our sexual orientations or gender identities. It's long past time to change that, in sweeping fashion – not just one more bill.

This year, organizers used the anniversary of the Equality Act to launch a campaign calling for better protections against discrimination than ENDA would offer. Queer Nation launched a Twitter campaign, #ENDAisNOTequal, and Matt Foreman, former executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, released this statement:

It's pathetic that four decades have gone by without Congress extending basic civil rights protections to LGBT Americans. It's even more pathetic that what's left of Bella Abzug's comprehensive legislation is ENDA – a small-bore bill that is now riddled with giveaways to anti-gay forces, including a religious exemption big enough for an 18-wheeler to cruise through. It's time to pull the plug on this essentially lifeless corpse and demand full equality under the federal civil rights statutes.

National LGBT leaders need to agree that we deserve better than ENDA. This weakened legislation doesn't address discrimination in housing, public accommodations, education or federal programs. And it would only extend to us the employment protections that the majority of Americans think LGBT people already have – that's how far Congress is behind the mainstream. It's finally time to push for the broad protections that we actually need.



But ENDA holds a lot of symbolic power – transgender people have had to fight to even be included in this legislation - so it can be difficult to give up on, even in favor of something far more comprehensive.

Transgender people face the highest rate of employment discrimination of anyone under the LGBT umbrella – twice the national average. The numbers are even worse for trans women, and trans people of color face discrimination at four times the national average.

National LGBT organizations have made ENDA the carrot that is dangled in front of the trans community to prove that our issues are being prioritized – when, in fact, these organizations know that even a watered-down ENDA will not pass. House Speaker John Boehner has said that he will not even bring ENDA up for a vote, because he does not consider the legislation necessary.

I have remained silent during recent pushes for ENDA, as I haven't seen a reason to whip up the grassroots about weak legislation that won't pass. But several national organizations have sent out "action alerts" about it because there's nothing else on their legislative agenda. (They even, embarrassingly, told their mailing list members to contact Congress about ENDA during last year's government shutdown.)

Meanwhile, LGBT rights opponents have consistently, specifically targeted trans women – who face the highest rates of discrimination by all measures, not just employment – when fighting to prevent any movement on non-discrimination, be it ENDA, protections in schools, or anything else. Anti-LGBT organizations and even Fox News recently spread the "bathroom panic argument", fomenting unwarranted fear that non-discrimination laws will lead to trans women preying on cisgender women in bathrooms.

The reality is that trans women are just women, and we need places to relieve ourselves in private – a basic right almost everyone else takes for granted. And, counter to the conservative arguments, trans women are very likely to experience harassment and even violence simply for trying to use the bathroom. This pernicious fear-mongering is dangerous and frustrating to deal with, and its targeting of those most likely to face discrimination has led to trans issues being quietly eliminated from non-discrimination legislation before.

Since it is finally becoming less and less politically acceptable to throw trans women under the bus at all – and, broad or narrow, any legislation we get behind isn't going to get a fair hearing in the Republican-controlled House – I see no reason not to push for everything we can get, rather than compromising from the start.

Non-discrimination legislation is starting to gain traction at the state level, though you can still be fired for being gay in a majority of states. As with ENDA, trans people have often seen our protections "compromised" out of state-based legislation – so we can be fired for being ourselves in even more states than that – but we are starting to see pushes for more inclusive protections. We need a national strategy that includes both these state-based efforts and comprehensive protections at federal level – and, to get that, we need to, as a unified front, push for legislation that actually has teeth.