Trouble Brewing at the LGBT Leadership Country Club

Bil Browning has let a cat out of the bag… about letting the cat out of the bag. He and others have known for some time about Joe Solmonese’s departure from the Human Rights Campaign, but have not reported on it because it wasn’t the right time:

Pam Spaulding of Pam’s House Blend reported that the Human Rights Campaign’s Executive Director, Joe Solmonese, would be leaving the organization late on Friday night and Washington insiders and HRC staffers are understandably upset at the timing of the report.

Solmonese’s decision to step down as the head of the nation’s largest LGBT advocacy organization at the end of his contract has been a “known secret” to many pundits and journalists for months who were waiting for the official announcement. After Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was repealed, speculation on whether or not he would remain on the job was rife, but high level sources inside the organization said he would serve out his contract. After seven years on the job, an incredibly long time for the leader of an LGBT organization, Solmonese had recently started telling close friends and colleagues of his imminent departure.

Whatever you want to call the InsidersOut Google Group (Gay Illuminati, GayInc’s Mouthpiece, LGBT country club, or the LGBT Masons), it is the place to go for “the inside scoop”. Founder Mike Rogers calls it:

”a mix of leaders in the national LGBT movement including senior staff members of state wide and national LGBT organizations, well known community bloggers, journalists, political folks, and others engaged in building alliances in and with the LGBT community”.

Michael Petrelis (who I’m a big fan of) wrote a two piece blog post here and here about a need for increased transparency of LGBT organizations. Concerning LGBT watchdogging, he said:

“It’s going to take dozens of bloggers and reporters, along with hundreds of activists and ordinary gays, demanding genuine democratic engagement with and beyond town hall forums from GLAAD and Gay Inc.

The problem with the LGBT blogs he’s looking to is that they aren’t really watchdogs, but lapdogs. In Washington D.C. trading friendly media treatment for access is as old as the day is long. The LGBT country club will decide when, where, and how you get your GLBT news. Because it’s not about transparency. It’s about membership, and never forget that membership has its privileges.

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Transadvocate contributor: Marti Abernathey (1926 Posts)

Marti Abernathey is Transadvocate.com's blog editor. She's also a podcaster, activist, and radiologic technologist in Madison, Wisconsin. She's been a part of various internet radio ventures such as TSR Live!, The T-Party, and The Radical Trannies, to name a few. As an advocate she's previously been involved with the Indiana Transgender Rights Advocacy Alliance, Rock Indiana Campaign for Equality, and the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition. She's taken vital roles as a grass roots community organizer in The Indianapolis Tax Day Protest (2003), The Indy Pride HRC Protest (2004), Transgender Day of Remembrance (2004), Indiana's Witch Hunt (2005), and the Rally At The Statehouse (the largest ever GLBT protest in Indiana - 3/2005). She was a delegate from Indiana to the Democratic National Convention and a member of Barack Obama's LGBT Steering and Policy Committee.