Green Mountain State Update
Guilford couple leaves $175K to LGBTQ fund
The late Alison Hannan of Guilford, Vermont, who passed away in 2019, left a total of $350,000 to the Vermont Community Foundation (VCF), designating half of it to the Foundation’s Samara Fund, which supports LGBTQ Vermonters. The gift comes from the estate Alison shared with her husband, Tom Hannan, who predeceased her in 2000. The couple had resided in Guilford since 1969.
Tom, a modernist graphic artist and jazz fan, specialized in designing LP covers, including at least one for a Miles Davis recording. Alison worked as an editor at Time Life in New York.
Specifically, the Samara portion is going to the “Our Work Is Not Done” campaign to grow the endowment and annual grant making. Samara is a community-directed fund that aims to ensure LGBTQ Vermonters are connected, healthy, appreciated, safe and empowered. They provide grants to nonprofits and scholarships to Vermont students.
“It is the foresight of people who love Vermont, like Alison and Tom, to include charitable giving in their estate plans that helps power the work of the Community Foundation,” said VCF President and CEO Dan Smith.
Bill to ban gay/trans panic defense
In early March, a bill to ban “gay” and “trans panic” as a legal defense for committing violent acts against LGBTQ people sailed through Vermont’s House judiciary committee with unanimous support and quickly passed in the House with a roll call vote of 144-1.
Cosponsoring the bill was Rep. Taylor Small of Winooski, who became the first openly transgender state legislator in Vermont earlier this year.
Small told WCAX-TV 3 that “watching all the ‘yes’ votes come in felt like a dream.”
“What we saw was that 144 of the reps in Vermont were in support of this bill and only one was against this bill. So, I think when we do a roll call vote, we get to see how people truly feel about the legislation moving forward instead of not having to speak up or not having to have an opinion on it. But we are talking about human rights and you have to have an opinion,” she said.
The American Bar Association defines the defense as “a legal strategy which asks a jury to find that a victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity is to blame for the defendant’s violent reaction, including murder.”
Fifteen states have banned it as a legal defense, including Rhode Island, Connecticut and Maine in New England, with legislation introduced in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and now Vermont.
In late April, the bill passed unanimously through the Senate judiciary committee, which sent it for a vote on the Senate floor.
‘Chic Full Gay’ tasty pop-up
Burlington pop-up “Chic Full Gay” is serving up a tasty alternative (with a better menu) to those chicken sandwiches at Chick-fil-A—the fast-food joint whose outspokenly homophobic CEO has donated millions of dollars through his fast-food company’s profits to anti-LGBT groups.
“We can’t be hating on people for dumb things like sexuality or race or gender anymore,” Chic Full Gay chef and creator Bryan Gildersleeve told SevenDaysVT.com.
So the plan is to pop up twice a month with a portion of the proceeds going to LGBTQ+ organizations. One recent pop-up, for example, raised over $1,200 for the Pride Center of Vermont. To find out where they’ll pop up next, check out the Chic Full Gay Facebook page‘s events section.
Gildersleeve is also the chef at the St. Paul Street Gastrogrub in Burlington, and he created the pop-up while the popular eatery’s been closed for renovations. Chic Full Gay’s menu includes three sandwich variations, sides, snacks and sweets.
“I had no idea it would blow up so hard,” Gildersleeve told Seven Days. “But I have a passion for chicken sandwiches—always have—and it’s taking on Chick-fil-A for being homophobic, pointing the finger.”
‘Ex-lesbian’ mom kidnapper in custody
Nearly a decade ago, Lisa Miller, then of Vermont, renounced “the homosexual lifestyle,” kidnapped the daughter she’d given birth to with her partner in a civil union and fled the state and eventually the country to avoid sharing visitation rights with her ex in Vermont, as the courts had ordered. Recently, Miller turned herself in to authorities and is awaiting trial.
Her daughter, Isabella, now 18—who her other mom, Janet Jenkins, never stopped fighting for—was still estranged from Jenkins and living in Nicaragua, where Miller had taken her, at the time Miller turned herself in.
Not a subscriber? Sign up today for a free subscription to Boston Spirit magazine, New England’s premier LGBT magazine. We will send you a copy of Boston Spirit 6 times per year and we never sell/rent our subscriber information. Click HERE to sign up!
