Editor’s note: This commentary is by Sen. Becca Balint, of Brattleboro, a Democrat who represents Windham County in the Vermont Senate.
[W]hen I first settled in Vermont nearly 20 years ago, I landed in a small town in Windham County and moved into a place with my girlfriend. One day after work, as we walked to our cars, a colleague of mine pointed out that someone had taken a key or a nail and scratched the word “dyke” into the side of my car. Filled with anger and shame, I had no idea what to say. I just drove away; a few days later I spent a chunk of change to get the car door refinished.
I was reminded of this miserable “welcome” to Vermont when I listened to interviews on NPR in the days following the horrific massacre at the Orlando nightclub. Kelly McEvers interviewed writer Justin Torres who reflected on what clubs like this mean to folks in the LGBTQ community — ÂÂpeople who often feel unsettled because there is still so much anger and hatred directed at us. He told McEvers how these clubs are spaces that allow one to be transformed: “The point is that it’s a space where you are the majority.” You pass through the doors into another world: a world of safety and celebration.
Then Ari Shapiro interviewed Eddie Meltzer, who was in the nightclub that evening but left before the shooting began. He lost multiple friends in the attack, and he volunteered as a translator the next day; many of the victims had families who only spoke Spanish. Shapiro asked Meltzer if he would now be afraid to go out to clubs. He said no, he was not going to succumb to fear. Meltzer explained, “We live in a world where we get a lot of hate. We take a lot of hate. And we know how the world feels about us. And we’re strong people because we live in a world that wasn’t made for us.”
We have dealt with insults while walking down the street, called from cars or passersby. We’ve had graffiti scrawled on our lockers at school and mean notes passed about us in study hall.
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The world over, LGBTQ people know this. We have dealt with insults while walking down the street, called from cars or passersby. We’ve had graffiti scrawled on our lockers at school and mean notes passed about us in study hall. We’ve not gotten jobs because of who we areÂÂ, unrelated to qualifications for the job, ÂÂand had people complain about us at work because of our sexual orientation. Many have endured much, much more. From being shunned by family, having their kids taken away, or facing horrible physical assault. Yes, we live in a world that wasn’t made for us.
But transformation happens by stringing a lot of small, tender moments together over time. And the metamorphosis of the world into a more compassionate one for LGBTQ people is tied into a greater movement towards civility for all people.
A friend was recently attacked on social media because of his large physical size. He was publicly disparagedÂÂ, not for his ideas or his actions, ÂÂbut because a political opponent felt it was entirely appropriate to discuss his weight in snide and hurtful ways. When we allow this conduct, we are all made a little smaller, a little more empty. It is not just the recipient who suffers, although surely he does, but it is all of us who become less compassionate, less humane.
It is easy to feel helpless and disconnected after the horror of what happened in Orlando. The problems seem intractable and well beyond our control. Many of us will continue to fight homophobia and to advocate for more sensible gun laws. And that will assuage some of the feeling of helplessness. But no matter how deep our commitment to social transformation, we can all take clear, simple, courageous steps to create a kinder more generous, and just world.