Across the country, transgender children have found themselves on the front lines of the culture wars.
Fifteen states have banned gender-affirming care for people under 18, according to the Human Rights Campaign, affecting nearly 30% of trans youth in the country. Twenty-one ban trans youth from playing on sports teams that align with their gender identity, according to the Movement Advancement Project.
Vermont, which prides itself on its LGBTQ+-friendly image, can seem like a haven from the transphobia that has gripped much of the nation. But over the past few months, it’s become clear that the state is not immune.
Last fall, a conflict over a trans athlete in a Randolph Union High School locker room sparked international coverage on conservative news outlets and a “wildfire of bigotry,” according to the student’s mother.
In February, a Quechee Christian school forfeited a girls’ basketball game rather than play against a team with a trans player. (The school was subsequently banned from school athletics.)
And earlier this month, four Republican lawmakers introduced a bill in the Vermont House that would bar trans girls and women from competing in school sports.
The short-form bill, H.513, is titled “An act relating to protecting the competitive integrity and safety of girls and women in sports” and is sponsored by Rep. Arthur Peterson, R-Clarendon, Rep. Larry Labor, R-Morgan, Rep. Terri Lynn Williams, R-Granby, and Rep. Charles Wilson, R-Lyndon.
According to its statement of purpose, the bill “proposes to prohibit individuals that were assigned the sex of male at birth” from competing in schools’ girls athletics programs.
In an interview Wednesday, Peterson said that he had introduced the bill after hearing concerns from constituents about competition and safety.
“I want to emphasize to anybody that reads your article: This is not about hating anybody,” Peterson said. “OK? This is not about denying anybody that ability to play sports. They can play sports, but on the team that their physical nature tells them they should play on.”
Asked if he was aware of any injuries caused by a trans athlete, Peterson said, “I haven’t heard of any yet.”
Peterson’s bill is all but certainly doomed. It flies in the face of current Vermont policy, under which athletes are allowed to compete on the sports team that matches their gender identities. Republican Gov. Phil Scott has also voiced opposition.
“Let them be who they are, and let them play,” he said at a press conference last week.
And Rep. Peter Conlon, D-Cornwall, the chair of the House Committee on Education, which is in possession of the bill, cast doubt on the possibility that the bill — introduced after the session’s crossover deadline — would advance.
“If the committee is interested in taking it up in January, they can certainly ask to,” he said. “However, it is contrary to many of our discrimination protections in the state. And so it is definitely not a priority.”
But even so, the bill was a surprise, said Rep. Taylor Small, P/D-Winooski, who is trans and has spoken out against the bill.
“Gosh, we often like to portray ourselves as a very progressive state, and that we are exempt from the hatred that we’re seeing across the nation,” she said Wednesday, adding, “And yet, legislation like this reminds us that that is not consistent across the state of Vermont. And it’s not consistent in this building.”
The bill is a “signal that hatred is right here,” she said. “That our political parties are not exempt from the playbooks that we’re seeing across the nation.”
— Peter D’Auria
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified the name of the bill.
IN THE KNOW
Supporters of the Senate’s child care bill, a measure that would inject a historic investment into the sector, gathered on the Statehouse steps on Wednesday for an overwhelming display of political force.
Hundreds of families, children and child care workers came to the Statehouse lawn bearing handmade signs (“It’s time to use our outside voices”) or those provided by Let’s Grow Kids, the deep-pocketed advocacy group that has championed the child care cause at the Statehouse for nearly a decade.
The group has pledged to deliver affordable access to high-quality child care for all Vermont families by 2025. And it argues that S.56, a bill passed out of the Senate late last month and now before the House, is its best bet to do so.
— Lola Duffort
Rep. Alyssa Black, D-Essex, who is the lead sponsor of H.230 — this year’s most ambitious gun reform package up for debate in Montpelier — came to Senate Judiciary on Wednesday to testify on her bill. The legislation aims to curb firearm suicides in Vermont by imposing a 72-hour waiting limit on gun purchases and imposing stricter rules on safe gun storage.
But Black didn’t come to the committee room as the bill’s sponsor, she said, or even in her capacity as a state representative. She was there as Alyssa Black, mother of Andrew Black, who died by suicide using a firearm in 2018, mere hours after he purchased it.
Black told her colleagues that, before her son died, other families who lost loved ones to suicide came to the Statehouse to advocate for tighter gun restrictions. “The doors shut in their faces and they gave up,” she said.
“I didn’t have to lose my son,” Black said. “If a bill like this passed — if those other people who came here, if they had been listened to — I wouldn’t have to lose my son. And I am going to sit here and I am not leaving this place until I make certain that there are less people like me left behind.”
The House passed H.230 last month, and the bill is now making its way through the Senate. Should it pass the upper chamber, it will head to the desk of Gov. Phil Scott, who has said repeatedly that he doesn’t believe the state needs to impose new gun restrictions after passing a sweeping gun control package in 2018.
Black said she’s in this fight for the long haul. “I can be Speaker of the House. I can be chair of Senate Judiciary. This pain will never ever go away.”
“This is what I will live with until the day I die,” she said. “And frankly, that’s going to be a great day, because that’s the day I finally get to see Andrew again.”
— Sarah Mearhoff
ON THE FIFTH FLOOR
Ahead of Gov. Phil Scott’s weekly press conference on Wednesday, reporters and members of the governor’s staff had a lighthearted conversation about music and summertime concert plans. WCAX’s Calvin Cutler, ever curious, asked the question on everyone’s mind: What kind of music does the gov dig?
Apparently, according to his spokesperson Jason Maulucci, soundtracks. As in, movie soundtracks.
Gov. Dad walked in moments later and, vigorous fact-checkers that we are, we asked him to confirm. Soundtracks? Really?
“Yeah,” he said, shrugging, bewildered at why this was so funny. Two of his “go-tos” are Braveheart and Dances With Wolves, both of which he owns on CD. Other top picks: Forrest Gump, Twister and Born on the Fourth of July. “A very Republican answer,” Maulucci said of the last fav.
For your listening pleasure, I’ve taken the liberty of compiling this selection into a playlist. Put on shuffle at your own risk.
— Sarah Mearhoff
WHAT WE’RE READING
Fox Market wins battle for historic Barre building (VTDigger)
Vermont universal school meals bill looks to boost local farm food (Community News Service)
Northeast Kingdom support group helps people mourn pet loss (WCAX)
