 I'm Keith Gosland. I'm Ann Charles. I'm Linda Quinlan and it's Tuesday, September 25th. Welcome to All Things LGBTQ. And now we're going to hear some local headlines. Hi, and I'm going to start with some events. And the first one is on November 3rd is the Translating Identity Conference at UBM. You can go online to register for this October 1st. Montpellier Senior Center sponsored by Rainbow Umbrella is an evening with the liaisons. Come talk to us about needs, things that work well, how we can be better advocates. Saturday was Bisexuality Awareness Day, which some people knew. 40% of our community identifies being bisexual, but only 28% of those are out. What are we doing so they do or do not feel supported? Representative Diana Gonzalez is going to be taking on a new role, and we'll talk a little bit about that. Bailey Howe Library at UBM. Maybe it's time for a change in their name. We'll definitely talk about that. And during Ann's interview, look for some themes. Saturday, fire truck pull up Church Street in Burlington, teams of 12 to benefit outright Vermont. You should be seeing some lovely photographs. They raised $72,000. That is good for them. You can start doing early voting as of last Friday. Definitely, you can do it now. People who live in Montpellier, look on the ballot. There will be an initiative to allow noncitizens to vote. And this was the same issue that was recently debated by the Winooski City Council. We'll talk a little bit about their decision and what it was based on. Since the selection season, not only is there a record number of women running for public office, there's a record number of out LGBTQ candidates. We'll talk about some to watch. And then there is my, I gave you fake news. I've got to make it better. And we'll talk a little bit about two stories in particular from the last show and where I led you astray. Trivia, front page out in the mountains. They do not know the answer. October 1986, the article was about the Vermont Republican Party and an initiative they just removed from their platform. What might it have been? And if we have time, we'll talk a little bit about some bullying in red versus blue districts. It's an interesting result. Well, I would like to talk about several matters, including the fact that the Australian Senate has passed a motion to tackle conversion therapy. A Lithuanian artist has launched an LGBTQ rainbow flesh mob after an arson attack. Kenya Judge, lift span and rules lesbian film can be submitted to the Oscars. That's Rafiki that we have talked about. I have some entertainment news from China. South Korea and the LGBT community. I'd like to follow up on a story I didn't get to last time about the protest march and other matters in Korea. Belgrade Gay Pride participants call for a law on same sex marriage. Romania will hold a referendum on changes to the constitution that could effectively permanently ban gay marriage. The violent death of a well-known gay activist in the Greek capital of Athens. And the Queen's cousin, Lord either Mount Benton, marries his new husband after being given away by his ex-wife, ceremonially. The satin lapels. Yeah, I have a picture. It was very cute. Okay. Okay. And I have, first of all, and also a mistake that I made on the last show. And I got this information from our friend Gayle, who is a avid fan and watches the show all the time. A loyal viewer. Yes. So she informed me that Jenna Wolfe and Stephanie Gossk started their relationship in 2010 and gave birth to their second baby girl, not their first, as I reported in the last show. So thank you, Gayle. Colorado makes history as the first state to issue intersex birth certificates. Buffalo Catholic Charities has packed up at a left town. Well, they're going to leave town soon because apparently Buffalo has a non-discrimination law and they would have to give foster children and adoptions. So they don't want to do that. So they're leaving, they're packing up and leaving Buffalo and so down. What an embarrassment. It's just a city ordinance. It's not a state. It's a city, I think. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Abram Devine in 2018 was NCAA champion. And he's come out as gay in an interview with Swimming World Magazine. And we have a picture of him. And also we have a picture in the beginning of the CNN couple with their two children. It seems that Billie Jean King now owns part of the LA Dodgers. Really? Yes. In August the district has suspended Seve Wellendorf, the principal of Beaver County High School, the LGBT proponents of Massachusetts ballot to overturn transgender protections are running an ad that suggests the 2016 law puts women's lives at risk. Gay Rodman, writer, election in Texas, a love story. Dean Cain Slam's LGBT activist intolerance to anti-gay hate groups. An LGBT group sues the governor to stop a drag queen story hour. Janelle Ortiz was a Latinx transgender woman who was killed by the alleged serial killer two weeks ago. And I carried out by the intelligence supervisor for the U.S. Border Patrol Juan David Ortiz. This is the 21st transgender murder in 2018. Vice President Mike Pence has the honor or dishonor this weekend. He addressed the annual Values Voters Summit hosted by the Family Research Council, an anti-LGBT group. He is the first Vice President to ever do so. And Cinema Diverse at LGBT Film Festival in Palm Springs, the Long Road to Freedom, the advocates celebrate 50 years to nearly sold out audience. So that's my. And this was also the anniversary of the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. What is it? September 20th. There you go. Useless things floating. It's from Reading the Doodling Book, which we'll talk about at some point. Deanna Gonzalez, who we have interviewed several times on this show, who is a progressive legislator from Winooski, has a new job as director of leadership programs at the Equality Federation. And why this is truly of note, the Equality Federation was founded in 1997 as an umbrella group of state-based LGBTQ advocacy organizations, and they specifically look at trying to provide advocacy, organizational development, and leadership development, which is one of the things that we have talked about on this program about how do we do outreach to our community? How do we bring people together? How do we come up with common causes and set a work progress in place? Deanna, I've got planes for you. Bailey High Library, UVM. Guy Bailey, it was named after him because of his significant donations to the library, but he was also one of the largest private fundraisers for the eugenics project here in Vermont. Was that the 40s and 50s? It was in the 20s, 30s, and 40s because it kind of mirrored what might have been happening in Germany with how do we do better breeding pedigrees, and that's pulled directly from the eugenics language, who they targeted here in Vermont, First Nation Abinacchi, French Canadian, those people of bad heredity, handicapped, or disabled, and those people with dusky complexions, and he was instrumental in passing the 1931 Sterilization Act that was enacted here in Vermont, so yeah, I think it's time to consider renaming the library. Early voting, as I said, one of the initiatives on the ballot is non-citizen voting. Winooski, they had a divided debate, and it was the city council, and they decided not to put it on the ballot, not to pursue it by a three to two vote, and some of it was based from some of the accounting. They're concerned about what the feds might do looking at what had happened to Burlington, Montpelier, and the state of Vermont when the Department of Justice was looking at pulling funds because we wouldn't play with immigration in ICE. We wouldn't report names, was this going to make them a target? And I have to just interrupt and strenuously object to that point of view. Being afraid of Donald Trump will not save us. Absolutely not. So, and then I'll come back to, we'll talk a little bit about how many LGBT candidates we got running this year, and who you might want to watch. There's three gay Republicans running in Connecticut. There is a 101 out LGBT candidates running for state legislators. We have seven of them. There we go. So what you got? I've got Australia. Again? The new Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, is a little bit of a deplorable. He's made a string of anti-LGBTQ comments. Last week he said he would not get involved in outlawing gay conversion therapy. It's just not an issue for me, and I'm not planning to get engaged in it. Luckily, there are a lot of outspoken leaders who are in support of banning gay conversion therapy. And on Tuesday, the 11th of September, when we last taped, the Senate passed a motion to tackle the rise in LGBT conversion therapy in the country. So the good people won. Lithuania. This artist has whom you see pictured before you with his flash mob. He's the blonde person named Romas Zabarouskas. He's a filmmaker. He was asked to remove the rainbow flag from his balcony. He refused, and a fire was set inside his apartment. It damaged the apartment of his neighbors and is being investigated as a possible hate crime. In response, he has teamed up with human rights advocate Tomas Ilya to launch a rainbow flash mob, raising thousands of euros overnight to buy 500 more flags and distribute them for free across Vilnius. The pair also called on others to hang rainbow flags from their own windows and balconies and share the photos. So their rainbow flags are everywhere now around, in and around Vilnius. Good for him. In Kenya, we have a little bit of marginal good news. I think I reported, in fact, I showed you a clip of the lesbian film Rafiki that means friend in Swahili. And it means friend and it was banned due to its homosexual storyline. Given its premiere at the Kahn festival, the critics lauded it and were hoping it was, you know, the filmmaker was trying to submit it for the Oscars for the best foreign film. The deadline was September 30th. The real deadline, however, was September 23rd, because the rules state it must be screened for at least seven days before the deadline in its home country. And it has been banned in its home country. Director Anur Kayahu sued Kenya and particularly the Kenya Film Classification Board and they, in April, had said it should not be shown in Kenya, anybody renting it will be imprisoned. Sodomy is a crime, but in this instance a judge has chosen to lift the ban for seven days so it can be shown and submitted to the Academy Awards. Gay themes in practice or the practice of homosexuality did not begin with Rafiki, the judge said. I'm not convinced that Kenya is such a weak society that its moral foundation will be shaken by seeing such a film. It began to be screened on the 22nd of September. As we recall from when we saw the clip in April, the plot sees best friends Kina and Zeke wish for something different than becoming good Kenyan wives. Despite the political rivalry between their families, the girls resist and support each other to pursue their dreams in a conservative society. When love blossoms between them, the two will have to choose between happiness and safety. And the filmmaker said she was pressured by Kenya to make it, to make the characters remorseful about their homosexuality. She refused. It was banned and now the ban has been lifted so that it can be in the Oscars. 1950s all over again. I'm telling you. Yes. Okay, do I eat? Yes, you have to. All right. She's on it. I know. I know. Walk out. She always is. Alexander, I think it's Carbell Ildo, 40 was chased by the Miami police after he allegedly raped and robbed a gay man. He pulled out an AK-47 and fired at police who were pursuing him. The raped man said he was pistol whipped, raped and had money and jewelry stolen. And so that was, Carpadillo was killed in the fire none of the police were. So in August, the district has suspended Steve Wellendorf, the principal of Beaver County High School. His supporters rallied, pushing for him to be reinstated. Some took it further, including Luke Baradelli, a former member of the Beaver City Council and alumni of the High School with the allegation that the suspension of Wellendorf support because he was a Christian and he didn't want the Christian student group to be in the school. The Beaver County Times, Baradelli alleged last week that there was a toxic culture in the school and that Roe had targeted people who are involved in Christian youth life, a group he said Wellendorf is associated with. During public comment on Monday's meeting, Baradelli asked the board to reinstate Wellendorf. He did not ask the board not to renew Roe's contract as he had previously announced he would do. At Monday night school board, meaning the board solicitor clarified that the suspension was not tied to intolerance but district policies. The reason was remain confidential. What happened? Why was he suspended? They said they were not going to say it was because it was a personal matter but it had nothing to do with that. Because he was alleging that this group was alleging that he was fired because he was Christian. Okay and this principle and that he supported a Christian group in the school and he was fired for I don't know what reasons but you know he's protesting the firing. This is another one of those religious freedom restorations coming after me because I'm Christian and because I support Christian values. This is really kind of creepy because the LGBT proponents of Massachusetts ballot to overturn transgender protections are running an ad that suggests a 2016 law puts women's lives at risk. In the ad there is an obvious cisgendered male entering a locker room as a woman is unbuttoning her blouse. The music in the background is threatening and there is heavy breathing. The law puts our privacy at risk. The female narrative concludes it just goes too far. A new poll in Massachusetts however shows that 73% say they favor keeping the law in place. We will have an update on this after the election in November when this is this initiative is on the ballot in Massachusetts. It doesn't really show much chance of here's another creepy story. Well can we so the law is it's on the ballot in November okay to take away the the bathroom bill and it has little choice of passage it has little seventy seventy three percent of people in Massachusetts say the law find the way it is they like to leave the law the way there's no credible evidence that supports your risk this is another really creepy thing elections in Texas it's Texas Texas I watched the debate it was pretty interesting yeah although there's a new thing about old rock is that you know he he had a DUI yeah and he says he didn't run away but there's evidence he did so there's really some issues in he ran from the scene apparently and so there's some issues there but this is a whole other thing Texas Republicans are so desperate they are insinuating some Democrats are cross-dressers with pictures the Texas GOP has recently made it clear they intend to persist in promoting the various lies that support transphobic bathroom bill and they have taken it to a higher level by claiming that some cisgender Democrats running for office are perhaps transgender the teapotty original and GOP candidate for Texas agriculture Sid Miller called a work a sweet little thing in a flower dress a work apparently was once in a punk band in which they all wore flower dresses as a spoof but they are putting this picture everywhere and the other person is Kulkarni and he's running in Texas District 22 which is now held by anti-trans crusader Peter Olson and apparently he did some performance at what is that in where they all go to the desert something burning man burning man yeah so they found a picture from that it was taken at Burning Man where he's dressed in this regalia yeah and so they're trying to say now that you know so pretty creepy stuff to be yeah anyway so locally so following that up we have 218 out LGBT candidates running across the country 13 of them are running for federal office one of whom we'll be watching in our backyard chris pappas coming out of new hampshire first house district he would be the first openly LGBTQ new hampshire resident voted to congress all right there are four open candidates running for governor oh my one might be christine holquist who was just endorsed by bernie sanders i know i saw and joe biden well that's right yeah our last broadcast joe biden stepped up and said this is who i would vote for so in the category of i didn't really mean to lead you astray texas florida they're so interchangeable it was alex jones accusing marco rubio not ted Cruz of selling out the conservative journalists and for those people who aren't quite familiar with alex jones he's the person who started the conspiracy theory that sandy hook never happened those children never existed and it was all staged plurable so and and the other story was about per tree before congress i didn't mean to say that 45 jr had pled guilty it was that one of the conversations were those people who were part of the muller investigation who were had already testified before congress and for whom the testimony in the muller investigation had showed that oh my you really did perjure yourself before congress such as the testimony from the people who have pled guilty and then the question was okay so will they prosecute this it's one of those convoluted processes where congress would need to report it to the FBI that they think perjury had occurred the FBI would need to investigate the FBI would then need to turn it over to the department of justice to determine if they were going to prosecute and oh my that would be an administrative decision the last time this happened was john poindexter in the iran contra affair and he ended up his perjury conviction was overturned because they determined that when he testified with immunity before congress on a piece of this he influenced some of the witnesses who later testified against him and therefore he did not get a fair process and just a little side note congress doesn't investigate their own perjury cases because they're the ones creating the law it would be you know a conflict to then enforce them so what you got quick oh i got plenty i know you do well let's go to um china if we could i'd like to show you a picture of vocalist named dua lippa who's british um and her ancestry is albanian and her family is from kosovo um they left kosovo and moved to britain for a while when she was born uh she's praised her fan fans bravery she had a concert in shanghai and some of her fans were removed for waving rainbow flags they were also removed for dancing they were supposed to sit quietly in their seats apparently and um so dua lippa i have the picture of her crying when all these people started being arrested in her um and during her performance um she has said that uh well there are videos of it she said that she was horrified by the incident and spoke to her fans i will stand by you all for your love and beliefs and i am proud and grateful that you felt safe enough to show your pride at my show what you did takes a lot of bravery i always want my music to bring strength hope and unity i was horrified by what happened and i send love to all my fans involved she's 23 she's been vocal in her support for lgbt community rights and um to return to china although homosexuality is not illegal the country decriminalized it in 1997 and lgbt visibility has increased there's been creeping cultural censorship since she's in ping came to power in november 2012 in november 2017 human rights watch interviewed 17 chinese lgbt people who said they'd been pressured into undergoing conversion therapy but and a good um thing happening in the entertainment industry in china is that kinky boots is being shown we like kinky boots we did um it encourages drag queens to be themselves um it's an award-winning musical it's broken new ground in conservative china it's filled theaters in beijing shanghai and guanzhou lighting up audiences in the country where lgbt entertainment is often censored and rarely rarely gets major if any billing it reached a broader audience than usual in china because it was the first musical to offer sign language interpreters for the hearing impaired um enact the show um a deaf person um reports and subtitles here to ford only been available in the theater but now i've got access to the whole show he said they memorized the show never looked back during the performance um as we know kinky boots whose music and lyrics were written by pop singer cindy lauber wraps up its two month china tour um it is involves a drag queen who saves a shoe factory um and comes out to his father it's very uh very moving uh gay themed films struggle to make it into movie theaters in china and gay content is forbidden online and online streaming platforms oscar winning comedy by your name was uh pulled from the beijing international film film festival in march another film about a secret homosexual relationship looking for romer was heavily edited for chinese move movie theaters the game theme dance uh has been banned from the broadcast of euro vision in the kinky boots the shoe factory worker saves the business by teaming up with a drag queen named lola who wanted red thigh high stiletto boots and wore them yes um lola she was a show girl i have some pictures to show you in case i'm running out of time yes um belgrade gay pride participants call for a law on same sex marriage and i have a picture of the prime minister the lesbian prime minister ana brunabek she's in the center of the picture her partner is with her the mayor belgrade were there uh they didn't want her to come because they felt she hadn't done enough but she joined the pride festival and all went well romania will hold a referendum on changes to the constitution that could effectively uh prevent gay marriage that vote is going to be on october 7th they didn't want to happen it to happen it's a step backward but i'll report on that the gay activist in the greek capital of athens was uh i have a picture of him before he died uh he was lynched by a mob out yeah he uh fled to a jewelry store uh where he was lynched and he tried to it's kind of unclear what happened but he tried to he got a fire extinguisher extinguisher and tried to crawl out of the shop and there's um there are pictures of him being kicked and beaten to death when he got to the street somebody tried to help him when the ambulance came he died on the way to the hospital his name was zack costopolis he was 33 gay and hiv activist my final picture for you is of the queen's cousin who's marrying his new husband in fact did james choil was is his name um ivar was given away by his uh ex-wife yes lady pennie mount baton is her name and she and james choil he is on the left um ivor mount baton is on the right and pennie is in the middle this is a picture of them at the wedding ceremony 60 60 people attended including the three proud daughters how liberal wow royal news yeah well this story i found kind of interesting uh mostly because well it takes place in lafayette louisiana and christians they're uh claiming their second class citizens two angry christians yes two angry christian groups have filed suit in lafayette and the governor and the library christ severe and others filed on behalf of the warriors of christ drag queen story out when news broke that drag queens were coming to the local library the mayor said he would do whatever it would take to stop this from happening and this is the really kind of interesting part the lawsuit claims that lgbtq messaging is part of a religion called secular humanism secular humanism i know that's going to get her going for an entire other show you know it i'm strong i i know you do and um this is this love story i have a photo of hailey vitticus and leanna white and what happened was they were pioneer play uh plaintiffs in the process to change the country they were two young women who played for pepidine which as we know has some affiliation with the church of christ and um they fell in love and they're expecting a child now and um there's also a a movie coming out about them so i think we should all watch for that um they were really afraid of uh retaliation they filed suit against the school they did lose the case um but the court did say that sexual orientation was covered by title nine um and their last statement was they're now both intend to go to law school and become lawyers and fight for lgbtq causes so venue for the movie what's the name for the movie um it is called i i'll get back to you on the i have it here somewhere but we're running out of time so i should probably um it's called i think it's a they're an interracial couple oh it's called alone in the game oh so theater netflix i think it's going to be it's a documentary i would think it would probably be on netflix i'm not sure they didn't say in the article i read but um it looks to be pretty good yeah yeah we'll watch for it so and now we've got an interview yeah that and it yeah do you want to introduce it i kind of inspire it is very inspiring um it was with rachel seagull and bevelie little thunder of the peace and justice center so let's take a look hi i'm here with rachel seagull and better bevelie little thunder from the peace and justice center very pleased you're you're going to be able to join us to talk a little bit about thanks for having us what you've been up to thank you let's start if we could with a little bit about the peace and justice center what's the history uh what kind of offerings do they provide and how long have you been involved with them okay rachel cd yeah so you want me to take this and then you can fill in the gaps that i miss so the peace and justice center formed almost 40 years ago as a peace coalition that was doing anti-nuclear proliferation work and um is now a statewide membership-based nonprofit organization and the programs have changed and morphed over the years we have three main program areas that we do educational work and campaigns around they are racial justice non-violence and fair trade and then in addition to those three focus areas we also support a lot of other individuals and activist groups around the state and we do that in in many ways like most recently there was an led equality bloom activist festival just a couple days ago in burlington that vermont women's march put on and they needed insurance for the space they were using so we provided insurance for them or there was the race against racism and they had a press release they wanted to send out and so we sent it to our media contact list which is 135 people so like because we've been around long enough we have a lot of infrastructure that we can share and help uplift other people's work so a lot of what we do is acting as a resource or a hub for other people who are doing work that's aligned with what what we're about and we have a lot of volunteers and interns who we work with and it's a lot more than sort of the standard you work for us for free and we'll give you something for your resume model it's much more about actualizing these individuals we have students as young as middle school who come and spend regular hours with us learning this getting the skills and the motivation to you know be activists for life it's really it's one of the most gratifying things is seeing the the people who come through as volunteers and interns who leave with so much more passion and commitment than they came with and you've been the ed for five years yeah and you were on the city council before that i was and they overlapped for a little bit did they yeah and you decided not to pursue the political career and focus more on grassroots stuff yeah everly how long have you been involved and what you you know what's your well i'm actually on on the board oh good i've been on the board for a little over four years and for a while i did serve as a board chair and step back from that and i've been involved in in a lot of different aspects we have a working board we don't just meet once a month to rubber stamp things that rachel puts in front of us we show up for volunteering at tables we show up to help do presentations we show up to address and stamp newsletters that are going to go out we cook chili for our annual fundraiser we do it all we do it all how many board members are there and you have fixed terms or there are nine board members currently and a couple of people who are poised to join the board they're two year terms and people can be reelected and i've been a reelected obviously um could you tell us both of you how your identity affects your involvement with the peace and justice center and your leadership in the state sure i can try to do that and i think that you're talking about mostly our gender and sexual orientation in terms of those aspects of our identity so i identify as being part of the queer community i identify as queer used to call myself bisexual i'm in a long-term relationship with a man so i'm in that funny world of queerness where i pass most of the time unless i like advertise who my past relationships were with which is just kind of a weird thing to do so you know my kids know my family knows my close friends know two kids yeah it's very much a part of my identity um except for people who don't know me so it's it's a funny thing to be part of a community but be sort of have all the the benefits of not being part of it and it was a very strange transition for me going from my previous relationship which was with a woman into this one and just realizing that even in burlington vermont where i live where it's you know pretty accepting a lot of the time to like walk down the street holding hands with a same-sex partner that then walking down the street holding hands with an opposite sex partner was so much easier like my level like i didn't even know i would be anxious holding her hand but then when i was holding his hand i could then i could tell that my anxiety level was lower so i'm way off topic here but just so i called myself bisexual for a long time i mostly call myself part of the queer community now and my kid has come out as non-binary and pansexual and i had never heard of pansexual is that the person who's who was in the action who was in no my daughter who was arrested with me is um a girl and my other kid is non-binary how old are they um they are 12 my daughter's 14 and my other kid is 12 and so when they came out as pan i realized like oh i'm probably pan you know like i i don't i wouldn't only i wouldn't rule out somebody who's not male or female so i mean being bisexual means like i could choose between two but really i could choose between this whole spectrum exactly so i suppose i'm i'm pan too and i have my kid to thank for that well we're all learning a lot from the youth oh yeah yeah yeah so in terms of how it impacts my leadership i mean i think sort of uh it just adds to my understanding of experiences of oppression i think having having been in same sex relationships and experiencing the the violence that can come our way and the lack of access that could come your way and less so now that you know marriage is legalized but it doesn't solve all the problems um but i think that in a lot of ways my gender informs my leadership more than my sexuality that that being female and being feminist has informed a lot of how i do decision making and how i lead the organization which is very much of a collaborative way of doing it it's very unusual for me to make a decision in a bubble and certainly not a decision that's going to really upset the rest of the staff like if there's a controversy in staff like should we do it this way or this way or this way i usually will say okay well it's going to impact so and so the most so we should do what that person thinks is best so and i think that that's more of a an egalitarian kind of feminist framework than the top-down patriarchal way of doing things Beverly do you want to say anything on this topic about how your identity informs your leadership or your activism more well i think i was born an activist you know as a as a native woman i've always had to be an activist when i came out i didn't even know the words lesbian and gay so it was totally new for me so this learning a whole new language is again learning a whole new language uh in the native community we consider ourselves two-spirit and so i've been very active in the two-spirit community and in coming on to the board for you know peace and justice center it was just another step another role not being from Vermont initially my tribe is from South Dakota North Dakota so i'm not Abenaki i felt like it was important to learn what the political atmosphere was here and to be able to plug into the areas where they might need help in promoting who they were and i of course i came in just about the time that the Abenaki were struggling to get state recognition and so i was very drawn to the board we have a we've made a decision that the board would be 50 percent people of color minimum minimum and we really strive to do that and so all voices are heard and so i felt very comfortable being in in that kind of an environment in in doing social justice work and of course the anti-racism work is something that just comes natural to me something that i've i've had to deal with all my life and we'll probably have to continue dealing with especially in Vermont especially in Vermont speaking of activism and actions you and your daughter were appeared on wcax and you were arrested recently would you mind sure telling us a little about that yeah we um we were part of a group of people that organized a protest in williston outside the ice offices on july 28th and 13 of us were arrested blocking traffic we got disorderly conduct charges uh two of those arrested were minors one of them was 16 and one of them was 14 who's my daughter and it was a very powerful experience for us i mean the and it's not about us i mean the situation is so atrocious and there's still hundreds of kids who are separated from their families and there's still you know all the people who've been re who've been deported and they there's no way to find them anymore and the kids are not going to be with their parents again and to discover that this office was in monewski williston williston that's right you know right in our midst it was appalling not that you know as citizens of the u.s we don't bear responsibility that was shocking yeah no very local it's the hotline center so if you have a tip if you think somebody's looking shady and you call and you're like check their immigration status the call wherever if you're calling from arizona the call comes in and vermont wherever you are so we had a great opportunity with the pride parade we weren't going to march in at the peace and justice center the lgbt pride parade that happened last weekend yeah a couple weekends ago in vermont um a peace and justice center member contacted us and said hey i want to help you since you're doing all this work toward the abolish ice movement and for family unification let's get a group of people together and make some signs and they ended up making these beautiful butterfly wings that you could wear that said things like um you know support trans migrants and migrant rights are um gay rights and just all this intersectional stuff and we weren't necessarily going to march in the parade but since she helped get a whole lot of volunteers together to do it we were able to and i think beverley will mention there was a controversy also around td bank with pride and so we brought a message about boycotting td bank and we had signs about abolish ice and boycott td and we were right near the front and there were like 15 of us and we were chanting what were we saying queer rights migrant rights uh what's the same struggle same fight and it was powerful and the people packed you know lined up and down church street for four whole blocks were like with us and it felt so good to be able to celebrate pride while also bringing a political message and saying don't forget things are not great like have a fun day and stay active i was um grand one of the grand marshals for the pride parade and um when i found out that td bank was funding some of the pride and pride parade and that the ward was not willing to return that money to td i had a choice of whether i was going to continue as grand marshal or withdraw and i decided that i wanted to continue as grand marshal only the time i carried a sign that says divest from td bank and in my speech i talked about how as marginalized groups we need to investigate the organizations that we're asking for money because i don't want to take money from an organization that is oppressing say peace and justice i you know i i want to support peace and justice as they want to support the native american rights and td bank was a large funder in the pipeline in north dakota south dakota at stanning rock which happens to be the reservation i'm from and as you know that black snake went through thanks to trump and has sprung three leaks already and um it's a fight that's going on all over the country and stanning rock was just the pebble in a still pond and so i had to i had to bring that up and uh so i was very very proud of peace and justice for leading the march and of course i kind of encouraged it yeah we did ask it's like what do you think grand marshal okay we're getting to the close of our interview believe it or not um do you have any last words or concluding remarks you'd like to share with us i just hope that people stay involved that we're heading up to the midterm elections that hopefully things are going to go in the way that most of us on the left think as good but that we shouldn't get complacent that when there's democrats in office things aren't great good point and that everyone can be active in different ways there's lots to do and i would like to see more of the avanaki um population become more active and not be so afraid of being defunded by td bank are being having their status taken away by the state of mont because that seems to be something i hear a lot of well thank you very much for coming in i hope each of you will come back in separate interviews or together whatever thanks again okay there there was entirely too much to be discussed so too little time we are booking them already right yes okay maybe we should extend our interview times well that's a longer conversation because we have such fascinating people on i know and you just get going really just get started in and we're also becoming more comfortable with the format and interviewing and we're looking at more expanded questions so yeah so a little trivia yes do you think you know the answer no abortion no legalizing same sex relations no but there's a sidebar to that october 1986 vermont republican party platform committee removes an initiative what they removed was the equal rights amendment to vermont's constitution here were their arguments they wanted an alternative statement using equal protection instead of equal rights and they wanted to replace sex with gender to make it clear that the party platform does not include support of gay rights the initiative went out for votes for ratification and it was defeated 51 percent to 49 percent the two prevailing issues during the campaign non-gender specific bathrooms and marriage equality huh so with that are we leaving i think so okay we have places to go we do time okay dinner awaits so i think we should all hold our fingers about kavina and hope fingers cross that he doesn't get appointed although it doesn't look good yeah so well on that note even if he does we have to continue to resist