A Vermont man who leads a national funeral industry group based in South Burlington is resigning after publishing transphobic videos online.
Josh Slocum, of Winooski, has served as executive director of the Funeral Consumers Alliance, a nonprofit industry watchdog. In late September, People’s Memorial Association, another funeral industry group, withdrew its funding from the alliance, the association said in a written statement.
“Slocum has used his considerable reach to share thoughts best described as racist, misogynist, and transphobic, among other things,” the People’s Memorial Association said in the statement. Representatives of the organization did not respond to requests for comment.
On Oct. 5, the Funeral Consumers Alliance announced on its Facebook page that it had accepted Slocum’s resignation. In that public statement, the organization also said that “the personal views and opinions of staff or volunteers, expressed outside FCA, are not FCA’s views and are not FCA’s responsibility.”
The alliance has a staff of two, according to Slocum, who said the organization educates the public on funeral planning and serves as a “consumer lobbying voice.” He has worked for the alliance for 20 years, he said.
Katherine Ortiz, chair of the alliance’s board, confirmed by email that Slocum was resigning effective Dec. 31 but declined to comment further.
In an interview, Slocum described himself as a victim of “cancellation.”
He said the statement by the People’s Memorial Association “came as a complete surprise to my board” and criticized that organization for caring more about “very partisan, very left-wing politics” than either organization’s missions.
“We no longer live in a society where we can disagree even on very strongly felt political points of view without attacking each other,” he said. “My personal politics have nothing to do with this job.”
Slocum often discusses transphobic themes on his YouTube channel and has also made sexist commentaries, including a video titled “Are women disproportionately harming society?” Slocum has posted more than 125 videos in his series since the start of 2021, many of which draw several thousand views apiece.
Many of Slocum’s recent videos have focused on Fred Sargeant, an anti-trans gay-rights activist from New Haven, who alleged that, on Sept. 18, participants in the Vermont Pride Parade in Burlington attacked him. Multiple national conservative outlets, including the National Review and The Daily Caller, picked up the story. Details of the incident remain in dispute and the Burlington Police Department has said it’s investigating.
Slocum said he took part in a subsequent protest of the annual fire truck pull hosted by Outright Vermont, an LGBTQ+ youth advocacy organization, with Sargeant. He has criticized VTDigger’s coverage of those anti-trans protests.
Slocum, who identified himself as gay, disputed that he is transphobic. He said he believes that adults may make whatever choices they like but that providing gender-affirming care to minors constitutes “child abuse.”
In a video posted in April, Slocum targeted Rep. Taylor Small, P-D Winooski, directing his viewers to “bombard” the phone lines of Vermont’s first openly transgender lawmaker. Some state Republican officials used Slocum’s attacks in their own efforts to fight a bill in the Vermont Legislature that would have allowed transgender and non-binary minors to receive certain types of gender-affirming care without parental consent. The bill did not make it out of committee.
Slocum plans to continue creating YouTube content. “I have no plans of stopping the show,” he said.
Other groups within the funeral industry denounced both Slocum and Funeral Consumers Alliance.
“We call upon the FCA Board of Directors to show, publicly and unequivocally, that they stand with the community they claim to serve — both as an organization and as individuals. This is not a ‘cancellation.’ This is accountability,” the National Home Funeral Alliance said in a statement on its Facebook page.
The Funeral Consumers Alliance said in a public statement on its website that it is working to “restructure” the organization. The company said it is a nonprofit, dedicated to “protecting a consumer’s right to choose a meaningful, dignified, affordable funeral for their loved ones, no matter race, creed, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, or political beliefs.”
Paul Heintz contributed reporting.
