Founded by writer, activist, and current executive director Riki Ann Wilchins in 1996, GenderPAC fulfills a vital need for advocacy, both within the community and outside it, on gender-related issues. Rather than focusing on single-identity-based advocacy, GenderPAC recognizes and promotes understanding of the commonality among all types of oppression, including racism, sexism, classism, and ageism.

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Programs

Through its myriad programs--such as GenderYOUTH, Workplace Fairness, Violence Prevention, and Public Education initiatives--GenderPAC works to dispel myths about gender stereotypes.

The GenderYOUTH program, for example, strives to empower young activists so that they can create GenderROOTS college campus chapters themselves, and go on to educate others about school violence.

Via its Workplace Fairness project, GenderPAC helps to educate elected officials about gender issues, change public attitudes, and support lawsuits that may expand legal rights for people who have suffered discrimination on the basis of gender.

In terms of violence prevention, GenderPAC collaborates with a Capitol Hill-based coalition of bipartisan organizations to further public education and media awareness about gender-based violent crimes. It emphasizes to members of Congress the need for passage of the Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act (that is, the Hate Crimes Act).

Further, as part of its public education efforts, the organization has held an annual National Conference on Gender in Washington, D. C. since 2001. The conference is a gathering of over 1,000 activists throughout the country and from numerous colleges, who work together for three days on issues of gender policy, education, and strategy.

Recent Accomplishments

GenderPAC's recent accomplishments include convincing several large corporations to add gender protection clauses to their Equal Employment Opportunity policies. It has also secured commitments from several Congressmembers not to discriminate in their offices on the basis of gender.

In addition, the organization filed an amicus brief in the wrongful-death suit initiated by JoAnn Brandon, whose transgendered son Brandon was the victim of a hate-crime murder. It has also helped to publicize the gender-based murders of Willie Houston, Fred Martinez, and Gwen Araujo, among others.

Criticism from Members of the Transgender Community

GenderPAC has drawn criticism from some members of the transgender community for its broad-based definition of oppression on the basis of gender. In early 2001, several transgender activists drafted an open "letter of concern" to GenderPAC, expressing their consternation over the organization's perceived mainstreaming and disconnection from the trans community. This alleged disconnection stems from GenderPAC's refusal to employ identity politics and its failure to focus on specifically transgender issues.

Wilchins has publicly responded to these complaints, arguing that a broad spectrum of people--including, but not limited to those who identify as transgender--benefit from gender-rights activism.

For instance, GenderPAC has helped to publicize the case of a butch lesbian who does not identify as transgender but who was harassed at her workplace, and eventually fired, for looking "too masculine." Another case for which GenderPAC recently advocated involves a biological woman who was terminated from her job for not wearing makeup or a feminine hairstyle.

Wilchins sees these cases as relevant to GenderPAC's mission, because her group's efforts are a "post identity form of organizing" that emphasizes true diversity, and focuses on commonalities rather than differences.

Violence perpetrated against people thought by their attackers to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered occurs with disturbing frequency in the United States and other countries.

Hate Crimes are crimes towards persons or groups motivated by the victim's race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, and gender identity.

Not limited to activity in the traditionally conceived political sphere, identity politics refers to activism, politics, theorizing, and other similar activities based on the shared experiences of members of a specific social group, often relying on shared experiences of oppression.

Intersexuality (formerly referred to as hermaphroditism) is a congenital anomaly in which an individual's external genitalia or internal reproductive systems fall outside the norms for either male or female bodies.

"Transgender" has become an umbrella term representing a political alliance between all gender variant people who do not conform to social norms for typical men and women and who suffer political oppression as a result.

Since the late nineteenth century, transgendered people have advocated legal and social reforms that would ameliorate the kinds of oppression and discrimination they suffer.

Transgender people are becoming increasingly visible at secondary and post-secondary schools; if institutions are to be welcoming to people of all genders, issues of discrimination and equal access to facilities and health care need to be addressed.

Despite some recent progress, people who do not conform to society's gender norms continue to experience discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations, marriage and family litigation, medical care, prisons, schools, and hate crimes protection.

Although work remains to be done, the expansion of protection from workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation stands as one of the significant accomplishments of the American lesbian and gay civil rights movement.