Green Mountain State Update

‘Gay/trans panic’ ban signed into law

After sailing through Vermont’s House and Senate earlier this year, legislation to ban “gay or trans panic” as a legal defense for committing violent acts against LGBTQ people was signed into law by Governor Phil Scott in early May.

“With this legislation, Republicans, Democrats and Progressives alike sent a message to Vermonters, that your identity should never be an excuse for someone to cause you harm,” the governor stated just before signing it. “What this bill does is make sure a victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity can’t be used to defend or justify a criminal act, or to lower a sentence.”

 “While this effort is a step in the right direction,” he added, “we know there is still more work to do to ensure all Vermonters, regardless of identity, feel safe and protected in our state. I look forward to continuing our work together in the future.”

Rutland celebrates Pride

For the first time, the city of Rutland is celebrating Pride, and they’re doing it with a series of online and in-person events throughout the summer. So far on the calendar there are Pride story hours, drag bingo and a Rutland-to-Bennington Pride Caravan and Park Celebration, and you can find out more about these events and more coming up at rutlandpride.org/events.

The city has also unveiled Pride edition banners downtown sporting a new version of their “I Love Rutland, VT” logo—a heart filled with the colors of the Progress-Pride flag and the new slogan “All Are Welcome Here.” 

“I see a gap here, that the LGBT community was not well represented previous to now,” Jeannette Langston of the nonprofit Social Tinkering, which worked with Awesome Graphics to create the banners, told online media source VT Digger. “I think we’re doing a lot better job right now. But I wanted to work on this because we need to support all people and from all different backgrounds—they need to be seen and know that they’re supported.”

School vandalism treated as hate crime

The defacement of about a dozen chalk drawings in support of LGBTQ rights created by student volunteers at their elementary and middle school in Hinesburg, Vermont, was treated by police as a hate crime.

“Any time an LGBTQ flag or anything of that nature is vandalized, it ups it to a hate crime,” Hinesburg Police Chief Anthony Cambridge told VTDigger, which reports that clean-up costs are estimated at $1,500.

Administrators at Hinesburg Community School, where the vandalism occurred over two incidents in May, are also using the experience as a learning opportunity. VT Digger reports school officials wrote in an email to their staff that “consequences have been assigned [to the students who defaced the artwork in the first incident] and now our focus is on helping the two students learn from their actions.”

School officials believe a different group of students were involved in the second incident.

Hallquist to Jenner

Striking an equally collegial and critical tone in an open letter published in Condé Nast’s Them online magazine, Christine Hallquist of Vermont, the country’s first openly transgender gubernatorial nominee from a major party, made it clear why she believes Caitlyn Jenner is not qualified to be California’s next governor.

Jenner filed her paperwork to run as a Republican contender in April, as current Golden State Governor Gavin Newsom faces a possible recall this year or a re-election race in 2022. If Jenner were to win, she could become the country’s first-elected openly transgender governor.

Back in Vermont, Hallquist, who received 40 percent of the vote to incumbent Gov. Phil Scott’s 55 percent, didn’t prevail in her 2018 race, but reminds Jenner in her letter that “winning isn’t everything in politics.”

Writes Hallquist:

“In 2016, when Donald Trump campaigned for the presidency, I knew that he would work to reverse all the gains of the transgender community if he were elected. Bigotry, misogyny, and racism were fundamental elements of his campaign. Much to my disappointment, you initially supported his candidacy, before finally revoking that endorsement in 2018. By that point, your tepid condemnation was too little, too late, as many of the worst fears that I and so many others had when he was elected had already come to pass. …

“My hopes and dreams for my community were shattered the day he took office, but you stood by, remaining silent as he assailed the most vulnerable among us. You are doing it again by underwriting the GOP’s attacks on trans youth in endorsing bills preventing trans student athletes from playing sports in states across the country, which have driven several young people to attempt to end their lives. This is not what a governor looks like, let alone the governor of a state with America’s largest LGBTQ+ population. …

“Caitlyn, I’d really love to know this one thing: What have you done to prove that you don’t just want to protect your own wealth at the expense of others? Indeed, I suspect that’s why you’re running for governor. You’re running for yourself, not for others.”

Read the complete letter at them.us and entering “Hallquist” into the search bar.

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