GenderPAC - History

History

GenderPAC was founded in 1995 by Riki Wilchins as an association of existing transgender organizations, in response to a lack of inclusion of transgender and gender-variant issues by national gay and lesbian organizations, and grew quickly. Its areas of activism included incidents of discrimination against trans and gender-variant people, as well as youth and issues of workplace fairness.

In 1996, the group began holding National Gender Lobby Days, during which activists would meet with members of Congress to discuss discrimination and violence. One part of these events was a Congressional Diversity Pledge, which asked Members of Congress to affirm that their own office would not discriminate against employees because of their "gender identity or expression." Signers included Jan Schakowsky, Jerrold Nadler, and Carolyn Maloney. Eventually almost 200 Members signed the Pledge, including two dozen Republicans and over a dozen Senators.

In 1997, GenderPAC produced The First National Study on Transviolence, a large research project on violence against transgender and gender-variant people. It was cited in the political struggle for hate crime protections for trans people.

GenderPAC was a member of the Hate Crimes Coalition that effected in 1999 the introduction of the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, eventually passed in 2009. When the organization was founded, passing a trans-inclusive version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) was a priority. After GenderPAC visited Congressional offices in preparation for a Lobby Days event, with an HRC lobbyist along, allegations were offered by some transgender activists that Human Rights Campaign might have persuaded GenderPAC to shift its support to hate crime laws, saying that this would be more politically efficacious. However, GenderPAC fervently denied this, and no actual evidence for the allegations was ever provided.

The organization formally organized in 1999, with a new board of directors comprising individuals instead of groups, and received tax-exempt status as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

GenderPAC held the first National Conference on Gender in 2001, coinciding with the sixth annual Gender Lobby Days; one speaker was NOW president Patricia Ireland. The June 2001 issue of Time named Wilchins one of 100 national innovators.

In 2006 with Global Rights, GenderPAC researched and published "50 Under 30: Masculinity and the War on America’s Youth". The first human rights report on fatal violence against gender-variant youth, "50 Under 30" documented an epidemic of violence that had claimed the lives of more than 50 young people aged 30 and under from 1996 to 2006. 82% were black or latina/o, and virtually all were male-to-female transsexuals. Most were attacked by assailants within 5 to 10 years of their own age.

In 2008, with 17 new murders in just two years, the report was updated and reissued as "70 Under 30" help from the NYC Gay & Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, which eventually took over the project and integrated it into its annual hate crimes report. Over 100 national and local groups endorsed the findings of "50 Under 30," which was also adopted by members of the Hate Crimes Coalition on Capitol Hill, and provided by HRC to members of sub-committee that marked up the Mathew Shepherd Hate Crimes Act. The report was used by the House Hate Crimes Subcommittee, the federal-level activist Hate Crimes Coalition, the International Association of Police Chiefs, and the NYC Anti-Violence Project.

On May 28, 2009, GenderPAC closed its doors and shut down its website, citing the number of other organizations now doing the work that it was originally created for. Its GenderYOUTH network and resources were transferred to Choice USA.