BURLINGTON — The city council unanimously approved a resolution condemning “hateful acts” against the transgender community during a meeting Monday night, following a robust period of public comment.
The resolution calls on the city to begin observing a “Trans Day of Visibility” every year on March 31. It says the city should continue tracking transphobic and other hate speech in an annual report. It also instructs the council’s ordinance committee to work with the police department and city attorney to consider amending an existing graffiti ordinance to “address continued defacement of public property, and graffiti that spreads hateful and harmful messages.”
Joe Magee, P-Ward 2, said the resolution was prompted by a number of attacks on the local trans community, none more persistent and visible than a series of stickers that have been placed in public places around the city.
Magee said that in addition to residential neighborhoods, the stickers — small white rectangles featuring short, transphobic slogans — have appeared near schools and the offices of Outright Vermont, a prominent LGBTQ+ group that supports trans rights. Last fall, Outright Vermont contended with protests at its annual firetruck pull fundraiser and at the Vermont Pride parade.
“The city hasn’t had the strongest response to it, really no response to be honest with you,” Magee said in an interview before Monday night’s meeting. More recently, Magee said, the parks and public works departments have been doing a better job of tracking and removing the stickers.
Kim Jordan, director of the SafeSpace Anti-Violence Program at the Pride Center of Vermont, said during public comment on Monday that the group was first alerted to the stickers about two years ago.
In a statement issued prior to the meeting, Mayor Miro Weinberger spoke out against the sticker campaign.
“These anti-trans stickers are aimed at making members of our community feel unwelcome or unsafe and are unacceptable, especially at a time of increasing, terrible anti-trans rhetoric, policy and violence nationally and elsewhere in Vermont,” he said.
Weinberger said at the meeting he would “enthusiastically” sign the resolution.
During public comment that ran well over an hour, 33 people spoke — the vast majority on the subject of the transphobia resolution. Of the commenters, 19 spoke in favor of the resolution and seven against.
One of those speaking in favor of the resolution was state Rep. Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, P/D-Burlington, a former city councilor herself. She said she had heard from constituents frequently about the prevalence of the stickers in her district.
“They’re everywhere and they’re persistent,” Mulvaney-Stanak said. She also acknowledged the “allyship” of members of the public who have worked to remove the stickers.
But Mulvaney-Stanak said the work “shouldn’t end with this resolution” and said she was looking at ways to strengthen hate speech laws at the state level.
A person who claimed to be one of those behind the stickering campaign, Kevin Hurley, told councilors during public comment, “We are not a hate group.”
Christopher-Aaron Felker, chair of the Burlington Republican Party, also employed the first-person plural when discussing the campaign. “We didn’t invent stickering campaigns,” he said.
Felker said many other organizations use stickers and said if the city stops one group, it must stop them all. “We are not backing down,” Felker said.
While opponents of the resolution sought to frame the issue as one of free speech, others said they felt the stickers were targeted hate speech.
“These attacks are attacks on our rights, our lives and our dignity,” said Dana Kaplan, executive director of Outright Vermont.
Public comment included both in-person and online speakers, and some of the arguments against the resolution included hate speech.
Just prior to the council’s unanimous approval, Councilor Perri Freeman, P-Central District, offered an apology, admitting some of the comments “were hard for me to hear.”
In their comments on the resolution, Freeman noted they are torn “just because these conversations get really emotional.”
“I love being trans,” Freeman said. “I love it so much.”
Freeman paused, holding back tears, then continued, saying they felt it important to make support for trans people accessible. “I want to continue to be able to make choices about my body and about my life,” Freeman said.
Councilor Ben Traverse, D-Ward 5, said, “As a cis white male, I have never experienced someone calling into question my identity or my very existence so I can’t begin to understand what it must feel like.”
Traverse also addressed concerns that the resolution might conflict with First Amendment speech protections, but he said that the First Amendment would not prohibit the council from “calling out” hate speech.
In an interview earlier on Monday, Magee said efforts to defend the trans community needed to go beyond the local level.
“I think right now it is crucial for elected leaders to stand up and say transphobia does not have a place in Burlington, doesn’t have a place in Vermont and it certainly doesn’t have a place across the country,” Magee said.