MIDDLEBURY — As hundreds of people gathered May 12 for the grand opening of the world’s first Reproductive Justice Mini Golf course, they were met with a scene full of juxtaposition.
Colorful golf balls, a popcorn machine and painted T-rex dinosaurs gleamed with the signature camp of roadside Americana. But another layer revealed a more nuanced landscape.
Behind one T-rex, at a hole titled “Care Work,” players were required to hold a baby doll while putting their golf ball through a makeshift kitchen. At another hole, a skeleton dangled at the end of a hospital corridor. Beyond that, one hole resembled a prison.
“The story of incarceration is one of violence: forced separation from children, being shackled while giving birth, loss of parental rights, forced sterilization, criminalization of Black mothers, immigrant detention, complete rejection of bodily autonomy,” read the sign at hole 10. “You are about to enter a replica of a 6’ x 9’ solitary confinement cell, where many of these forms of state violence play out.”
According to project manager Carly Thomsen, the course — which she said is the first of its kind — was designed as a feminist tool for learning about reproductive justice and the systems that deny it.
For many of its creators, the kitschy aesthetic of the course paired with the injustice it depicts created a game that feels — especially in the context of recent anti-transgender legislation and the overturning of Roe v. Wade — even more accurately and eerily “American” than regular miniature golf.
Each of the course’s 11 holes focuses on a different topic related to reproductive justice, according to Thomsen, an assistant professor of gender, sexuality and feminist studies at Middlebury College.
Thomsen said that since many of the theoretical ideas that contextualize reproductive justice are only accessible through dense academic text, the mini golf course aims to translate some of the field’s core arguments into a more accessible model.
On Friday, as players traversed the hand-built greens, putting balls through landscapes built to replicate sites where reproductive issues play out — a hospital, a kitchen, a courthouse, a classroom, a bar — they were confronted with manifestations of feminist ideas that were grounded in physicality.
Rayn Bumstead, director of design for the mini golf course, said the project’s approach encourages players to think about the architectures and geographies of reproductive justice.
“The places where reproductive injustices occur are all around us, which means that possibilities for resistance are also all around us,” Bumstead said in a press release.
At the sixth hole, for instance, players approached two doors, one of which led to an abortion clinic while another concealed a crisis pregnancy center, which offered an infinitely more difficult putting trajectory. With the two doors designed to be practically indistinguishable, this hole articulated the impact of crisis pregnancy centers, which aim to discourage people from getting abortions.
Isa Pérez-Martín, a student and research assistant who got involved with public feminism organizing last year, said she built the sixth hole to “express the idea of chance. Like, you often don’t really know what you’re getting yourself into with crisis pregnancy centers. … (They) sound like they’re gonna help you but not really.”
At the 10th hole, players were met with the same question that incarcerated people in Tennessee, for example, have been asked: “Do you consent to be sterilized (in exchange for a reduced prison sentence)?”
At this hole, if players putt through the tunnel marking the answer “yes,” their ball could soar through the prison cell replica without a hitch. If players answered “no,” they were met with obstacles that made leaving the prison cell much more difficult.
After contemplating that choice, players were led to a rendering of a visitation booth. There, one could pick up a makeshift landline to hear stories recorded by Lily Shannon, a student in Thomsen’s class, and Susan Stanfill, Shannon’s mother, both of whom were affected by Stanfill’s incarceration when Shannon was 10 years old.
“Reproductive justice also has to do with motherhood in general,” Shannon told VTDigger. “One of the reasons we shared this was my hope that people would be less judgmental and stigmatizing toward mothers who are incarcerated.”
Maureen Hill, a parent who took her three children to the opening, stood outside of the prison hole while her kids took their shots through the cell. On their way to the event, Hill said she reminded her kids that it was OK to ask questions about what they would see.
“I think what’s cool is that for kids, developmentally, they’re going to understand some things, and other things, they might not be quite ready to chat about,” Hill said. “That’s fine. They’ll ask the questions that they want to know the answers to.”
Sponsored by the Center for Public Feminism, the project began as the brainchild of Thomsen, who has used game-making to teach feminist and queer theory for years. It was brought to life through extensive collaboration with art studio technician Colin Boyd, Bumstead, students, and other partners at and beyond the college.
The physical golf course, which occupies half of Middlebury College’s Kenyon Arena, was designed and built primarily by nine Middlebury students enrolled in “Feminist Building,” a class taught by Thomsen and Boyd.
Over the course of a semester, students in that class dedicated hours of labor to imagining, planning and hammering together the full-sized mini golf holes, while students in another class — Thomsen’s “Politics of Reproduction” — generated educational content and art to contextualize each hole.
Collaboration extended all the way to Denver, Colorado, where two Metropolitan State University students designed one of the holes, which was then built in Middlebury by participants in the Trailblazers program through Vermont Works for Women, an economic justice and career training nonprofit. Students in gender studies classes at Providence College and Hamilton College also produced art for the course.
“I think a really great part of this whole project is how many different stakeholders, individuals and partners really came out to want to be a part of it,” said Rhoni Basden, director of Vermont Works for Women.
As the course came to life on that opening Friday, it looked, as one child called out while running past the “Care Work” hole, like a tiny version of the world.
“We set up the golf course to feel like you’re moving through a community or a town,” Thomsen said. “These are all sites where reproductive injustices play out. They’re also, that means, sites where reproductive justice activism could transpire.”
The mini golf course is free to attend and will be open to the public from 4 to 7 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays through July 15.