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The way I heard the story is that Romney shut down the William Weld initiated Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth when they tried to expand their formal charge, and name, to include transgender youth.

I can't find a news article that verifies this explicitly, but that certainly sounds like what was happening behind the scenes.

And I interpret that as an attempt, reportedly somewhat successful, to cause fighting within the movement.

In the last paragraph of these notes I go off on a tanget about economic injustice and oppression and sex and gender injustice and oppression that I think is worthwhile.

keywords:
lgbt trans massachusetts romney
lesbian gay trans massachusetts romney governor's commission

http://queertoday.blogspot.com/2006/05/romney-abolishes-commission-on.ht...

BREAKING NEWS: Romney just abolished the nation's first Governor's Commission on Gay & Lesbian Youth established 14 years ago by Republican Governor Weld who was concerned about the attempted suicide rates of LGBT youth. What affect this will have on money, organizing, etc. is yet to be determined. We will keep you updated as more information flows in.

Attempted suicide rate by LGBT youth has risen dramatically during Romney's administration and is now up to 5 times higher than straight youth.

Perhaps this emphasizes the need for a community based LGBT youth advocacy group/coalition.

This is a sleazy shallow poltically motivated attack on LGBT Youth just days before the now ex-commission puts on Massachusetts Youth Pride.

History of the commission (started by Weld to address gay and lesbian teen suicide attempts) and more:
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/magazine/articles/2007/11/11/easy_out/
by Alison Lobron (November 11, 2007)

Boston Alliance for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Youth. BAGLY - a nonprofit best known for its annual prom - holds weekly meetings and social activities in its Copley Square headquarters, a vast, light-filled space with hardwood floors, a mini-amphitheater, and tall windows overlooking Boylston Street.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/magazine/articles/2007/11/11/easy_out/...

BAGLY recently added the words "transgender" and "bisexual" to its name. The state's commission on gay and lesbian youth tried to add the same two words to its title but was not permitted to under Mitt Romney's administration - which, in 2006, came close to revoking the commission entirely.

Meredith Nicholson, an 18-year-old student at Brookline High School who is active in the school's Gay-Straight Alliance, says one of her goals for her senior year is to amend the school's anti-harassment policy to add gender identity and expression. She says that while she believes students are rarely harassed based on sexual orientation itself, boys with feminine traits - and girls with masculine ones - still have a tough time." People often ignore trans-youth and their needs," says Nicholson.

Indeed, the sole transgender student I met reporting this article described a brutal high school career. As he spoke about harassment, physical abuse, dropping out of school, and attempted suicide, the student, who identifies as male but began high school female, sounded very similar to the gay and lesbian teens who rallied at the State House in the early 1990s for a law to protect them.

emphasis added
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/magazine/articles/2007/11/11/easy_out/...

Alison Lobron, a freelance writer in Cambridge, is a frequent contributor to the Globe Magazine.

Sex and Class: the intersection of vitally needed movements for liberty and justice

I think Lobron's article may be a too rosy picture of the state of people's openness, even in Massachusetts -- I'm horrified at the extent that "gay" is used as a generic negative, and the sports world in particular from high school to radio seems particularly hostile terrain. But it does match my expectations – that we are able, in a society where the overwhelming systematic discrimination is against the poor (by definition: you don't have much money, you don't get what you want or in too many cases need), able to make significant progress on issues where there is no class correlation: females and GBLTQI (now I'm messing up the order but Gay, Bisexual, Lesbian, Transgender, Queer/Questioning, Intersexed... etc.) are as likely to be born into rich families as poor.

(This is not true for race/ethnicity.)

That's not to trivialize this and other fights at all – they are essential, huge, difficult, and we're being pushed back by hate as we speak – but to recognize how much bigger, broader, and deeper a movement we need to the overcome economic injustice and economic-based lack of liberty that frequently underlies, or more accurately compounds, many of the injustice and restrictions on liberty of women and LGBTQ(etc...) people that feminism and what I think should be called "queer liberation" (human liberation?) fight against.