 Hi, welcome to the All Things LGBTQ Interview Show where we interview LGBTQ guests who are making important contributions to our communities. All Things LGBTQ is taped at Orca Media in Montpelier, Vermont, which we recognize as being unceded Indigenous land. Thanks for joining us and enjoy the show. Hi, everybody. I'd like to introduce Sarah Lipton, Director of the Montpelier Senior Activity Center here in Montpelier. And we're glad to have you, Sarah. How are you today? Thanks so much for having me, Linda. I'm really happy to be with you. I'm good. I'm just very much running around like a chicken right now. Yeah, and I know you're understaffed, so that doesn't help either. Yeah, well, that's why, basically. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about yourself. Are you from Vermont? And how did you end up at the Senior Center? Yeah, thanks for asking. I am not from Vermont originally. I actually grew up in Maine, but I've been here in Vermont for about 12 years. I think it is now. It will lose track of time a little bit. I have many different stripes and hats. I came out as a queer person in the 90s, which was a terrible thing to do. And then traveled the world for a little while and went to Naropa University, which is a Buddhist university. Spent about 20 years pursuing the Shambhala Buddhist path and teaching leaders all over the world how to really show up and be who you are and connect to your vision so that you can actually land it and move forward. I had a business called The Presence Point, which I was doing that work through. I launched a nonprofit called Genuine and actually created a podcast, which is out there. You can listen to it anywhere. It's Genuine the podcast. Genuine comma the podcast, but it's out there, which I co-hosted with a dear friend of mine and we interviewed people all over the world and some famous people too, which was fun, really about what sparks and inspires them. And I have two small girls and seven and five and during the pandemic had to stay home with them. And so my businesses kind of went to nothing. And I had to then figure out what to do and wound up coming back to work, but not the way I imagined. I wound up actually running the Feast Program here at the Senior Center and I fell in love with it. And then when the former director decided she needed to move on, I thought, well, I have all this leadership background training other people. I could probably just step in and do this. And so I've been doing that for the last year. I've been the director and I love it. It's total chaos when I have not enough staff, which has kind of been all year. But I get to bring all of my creative energies into this place and connect across the whole community. I just had an hour-long meeting with someone from the Helicopter Library about all the things that we're going to do together. And I've loved connecting with you, Linda, and the Rainbow and Relic group because I'm so excited we're going to be able to offer more LGBTQ programming with our poetry readings and, you know, some maybe open mic and comedy nights and things like that, which can be really fun. And I think it's just really important to be able to create a space here that's inclusive and welcoming to any older adult that wants to come in. And older adult is a very wide definition. You know, our membership is 50 and up. And we offer a wide array of things. And I'm really excited to let people know that we're here and we're open and we're doing stuff. We're about to launch 40 classes this fall. I know I was going to ask you about that, but we'll get to that, like how many classes and all, but has it been hard to get back and just swing after the pandemic? I mean, Yes, very much so. I kind of just thought everything down for two years, so. Very hard. I think the hardest thing, the biggest impact I would say is that we had to stop doing our congregate meals, which were where many people up to 100 people on Tuesdays and Fridays would come in and eat together and not being able to do that because of the pandemic and not being safe for people to be unmasked in the same space and all that. I think has been the hardest thing for many of our older, older, older adult members. I know that they miss it. They're telling me a lot right now about that. And I'm listening and I'm trying to figure out how we can open fully back in a safe way. And I don't really have the answer yet, but I'm working on it. And I think one of the things that's really, really been key for me in my role and my time this past year is listening, is meeting the diverse array of members that we have, and as much as I can, or as much as people are willing to come out and meet me to find out what people want. I can create for creating sake or I can create what you actually want. This Senior Activity Center is a place for you to create what you want. And it must have to be, especially for older, older adults, the idea of COVID is a very dangerous thing. And so you have to try to juggle all that, the needs of the community and how to do that in a way that's going to benefit everybody. It's hard because I think it's a place to be. It's very difficult. And I think, you know, as we all saw, one of the most harmful aspects besides the actual medical aspects of COVID was the isolation. It was the lack of social engagement. And that is one of the hardest things to recreate while we do still have to wear masks. And we do have to still be aware of, you know, COVID is totally still out there. I mean, I know three people right now that are out with COVID. You know, it's not here. It's still here. And we're open and trying to figure it out. And so I think, you know, as with most things in life, one of the hardest things is patience, trying to figure it out. I mean, we've been working really hard to create a really robust environment of activity to create that sense of thriving for our aging and older adults. And, and yet it's still hard to get people to come engage with things if you don't feel safe. And that's just a, that's a puzzle. So are you still going to continue doing both like maybe some activities in person that people can come to and then do things as well? Absolutely. Absolutely. So we had to shift away from our congregate meals. We shifted over to the curb side meals so folks can come and pick up a meal on Tuesdays and Fridays at the curb. You're welcome to bring your meal inside and eat together. We are going to try to figure out the congregate meals again. And then in terms of our activities, we still have a lot of drop in groups where folks can come and play Scrabble or I was going to say Parcheasy. I don't think that's one of them. I think it's Scrabble or Parcheasy. Yep. We've got a number of other games. And then I guess I want to play Parcheasy. Mahjong. Yeah, Mahjong. Thank you. And then we have some musical groups that play together and our walks with Joan on Monday mornings and we of course have the Trance group as a walk-in drop-in group. And then we are going to be having quite a number of new classes coming in this fall. We've got an English country dance class that's going to be starting up. We have a couple of really interesting brain classes, a class on neurodiversity and the aging brain that'll be in person here. Another class about games, actually about how games and puzzles work with the aging brain and how you can kind of enjoy sort of massaging your brain through playing games, basically. And then we've got trash tramps. Yep. We've got the trash tramps. We've got feels like a thousand different yoga classes. Mostly those are still online. But we do have some hybrid classes. We have a space upstairs that is our hybrid room. So we have classes where the instructor and a few participants can be together in the room and on the screen, the rest of the participants are there. So we do have a hybrid setup and I'm investigating being able to create a second hybrid space. So out of the 40 plus classes we have this fall, I think about 16 are going to be in person. That's nice. Yeah. I know from people I've talked to and myself who said it's been very difficult. And people are very anxious to get back even though we have to navigate how to do that. But I think especially for seniors and people who are living in the country just might have been one of the only ways they had to connect with other people. So it's really important to get back to that. Absolutely. So you have yoga and then we're going to have an LGBTQ poetry reading in October. And so it sounds like you're really getting back to... Oh, in the farm stand. Oh, the farm stand. Yes. So back in May, the parks department in coordination with us decided to create a farm stand right out front of our building here every Wednesday from one to three, selling for a dollar a piece the beautiful fresh produce that's coming from the feast farm, which the parks department runs to grow food for our own feast senior meals program. There's a surplus of food and so we're able to sell very low cost to folks. And we have, because we received a grant really nice grant from AARP for this kind of community place making activity, we've been creating events at the farm stand as well. So we have an incredible array of different things happening every Wednesday from, you know, yesterday we had the community jam that was performing and a presentation by everybody wins, which is a really cool organization that matches older adults with kids for a reading program. We've had some... And the music at the farm stand was great yesterday. Yeah, you probably could hear it upstairs. Well, we have two musicians, two different musical groups coming next week, so we're going to enjoy again. And then you have the events in the park in the back, right? Like, is that... Yes, there's the Berry Street potluck. So we've been working with the Capital Area neighborhoods and the Center for Arts and Learning right next door. The three of us have been collaborating sort of a meeting tonight to plan the next event in, I guess that will be in September. And looking at what all we can do to bring more vibrancy and engagement just here on Berry Street, you know, amongst our neighbors. We've already seen just we've had two events and we've already seen how much life there is here. You know, Berry Street is a very dense neighborhood and sometimes it feels a little hard to kind of break into the community here because it's so dense. And so we're just trying to create some continuous events to bring people out and to connect. And we've been having these potlucks with really interesting engaging activities at them. There was a speed networking event last time and there's some other fun things that we're planning. And maybe next year we'll do a festival. It's kind of our dream. Well, I know you were part of the Pride Festival. Yes. And you've been here with art and different organizations. That was really good. And you put a flag up. Yes. I myself climbed out the window in that pride flag. I had to get city council approval and I got it. Good. Good. And I didn't know. Yeah. And it's really important, especially in the winter here, to have places that people can go and gather and hang out and do all those activities. And you've been great really. I've noticed a huge change. I've noticed that there's much more going on, much more interaction with people and really, you know, making everybody feel really, really welcome. And I think that is an amazing quality that you have. And I really appreciated. It's, it's really nice to have someone that's really involved and really, really wants to do things for the community. I appreciate it. Thank you in that. Well, I want to thank you so much for coming on and the community really appreciates you. And we'll see you soon, I'm sure. And is there anything else you would like to tell people before we sign off? I think just to let you know really that the door's open. You don't have to be over 50 to come in here. We've got lots going on. You know, our classes are open. Basically, most of them are open. You can be a teenager and come take a class here. Our classes are super affordable. We have an incredible amount of amazing instructors. And whether it's an online class or an in-person class, you're going to make community connection here. And I think that that's, there's a vibrancy to that that I think is so important in our community, especially as we're coming out of this pandemic era. And so I just really want to encourage folks to just come by, check us out. We've got so much going on and we're really, we're here for you. And when are dues due? When do people sign? It's only once a year. July, I think, isn't it? Yeah, it's July. Yeah. It's only $25 to be a member. So, you know, not a big deal. membership in though, because you know, it really helps to keep the programs going and pay people and do all the other stuff that the center wants to do. So we have a monthly newsletter. You can sign up to receive that. We have our weekly e-letters. Get on our email list. We're on social media. If you want to find us, we're there on Instagram and Facebook. So if people want to reach you and I'll put this on, make sure that it's on the line. But I could put up the telephone number, but do you have a Facebook or web page? Email. Oh yeah, we have our website, which is Montpelier-VT.org. It's the Montpelier City website. Montpelier-VT.org. And then I think it's like backslash Montpelier-VT.org or something like that. And that's your web page. And will that list also like what classes and what's going on there? Okay, good. So we'll make sure we put that up on the screen. Okay, great. Thank you, Sarah, so much. Thank you, Linda. My best to be coming in. Yeah, take care. So several years ago, first by executive action and then by legislative action, we created an office of racial equity. And we hire or Vermont hired a single individual to carry on a momentous task. Well, since that time, Vermont has seemed to wake up to the fact that maybe that person could use some help. So there has been an effort to expand and to clarify the expectations of the office of racial equity. And joining me today is one of those people who have been brought in to carry on this work. Please welcome Jay Green to all things LGBTQ. Hello. Welcome again. And we are so glad that you were able to fit us into your schedule. And I don't need to ask you about your pronouns because I see they are prominently displayed. Yes, indeed. I went on Etsy and got a custom made pronoun necklace that is very large so that it's readable from far away. Very good. So why don't we start with a little bit about you. What is it that brought you to Vermont? Yeah, I grew up in Rochester, New York and moved around the country and eventually ended up at UC Berkeley in California doing my Master of Public Health degree. And when I started at UC Berkeley, my family moved, my parents relocated from where they were in Minneapolis to Lebanon, New Hampshire. And my dad was working at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in an administrative capacity. And my mom was unfortunately diagnosed with a recurrence of her breast cancer that had first occurred back in like 2002 or something. So it was sort of unexpected to say the least to have it come back like a decade later, a decade and a half later. And as her time on this earth was sort of dwindling, I realized that it was really important for me to move back to the East Coast and be with her for as much as I could. And I was fortunate to do a summer internship in the summer of 2016 with the New Hampshire Bureau of Infectious Disease Control. And then I relocated to the Upper Valley permanently in spring of 2017 and was able to stay with my mom and spend time with her until she passed away in January of 2018. So I was living with my folks up until January of 2018 when I relocated to River Rejunction and got my own place to live. And I feel very fortunate that I landed in a really a really great spot for me. I transferred from the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health to the University of Vermont's distance learning program, which would turn out to be fortuitous in a couple of years. It was great to be in the distance learning program ahead of 2020. And yeah, so things sort of all worked out in a really positive way for me when I relocated from California to Vermont. And it was obviously difficult with my mom's passing, but I think about her a lot in my job. And I think about am I making my mom proud with my life choices quite a bit? And I think it's safe to say that she would be proud of me for doing what I'm doing with the Office of Racial Equity. She was very strong. I mean, she brought me and my younger siblings to anti-Iraq and Afghanistan more protests when we were like five or six years old to start building up a conscious object or file for us. So we wouldn't get drafted. So yeah, she was a really strong believer in the values of social equity and pacifism. And yeah, so that's the very long answer to highlight to Vermont is a combination of family circumstances and just sort of luck, I guess. So how did you happen to stumble across the position at the Office of Racial Equity? And what about the position was attractive to you? And I think you've alluded to some of the underlying family beliefs that might have played a little role. Definitely. Yeah. So I graduated from the University of Vermont Master of Public Health program in October of 2021. And I spent a few months looking for work, applied to lots of different positions. And one day I was on the vermont.gov careers website. And I noticed that this position had popped up with the Office of Racial Equity. And I was like, Office of Racial Equity, I've never heard of, I've never heard of the Vermont Office of Racial Equity before. This is interesting. So I looked through it and it seemed like a really great match between my interests and skill sets and what they were looking for in a policy and research analyst. As I kind of did my Master of Public Health training and education, it seemed to me more and more, the more and more I've learned about the conditions that create disparities in health, the more and more it felt like, what are we doing if we're not attacking those problems at the root? And a lot of the times the root cause is systemic racism or laws or policies and procedures that have been put in place at the government level that actually keep systemic racism in play. So it made sense to me to transition from public health focus to a broader, more systemic, like government-wide focus. And that's what's really cool about the Office of Racial Equity is that we're able to interface with every branch of state government and that's all within the purview of the Office of Racial Equity. So that's very cool. And I get to use fancy words like purview in my job, which is fun. So let's talk a little bit about what is unique and distinct about the Office of Racial Equity and then how the mission or the work of racial equity extends out and involves you with the work of other state agencies, commissions, departments, because as people have heard me carry on ad nauseam, I get concerned at times that we create silos, a sort of separate but equal. And we don't allow the true intersectionality of our issues to really manifest. Absolutely. Yeah. And I love that you brought up intersectionality because that was certainly something that brought me to the Office of Racial Equity was sort of understanding myself as a transgender person and starting to lose my cisgender privilege when I started transitioning in 2019 made me extremely aware of the impacts that these kind of instances of discrimination or harassment have on people because I was like pretty happily sailing my way through the world as a white woman for 27 years. And that was like fine. And I just didn't have to think about how my whiteness or cisgender status really offered me any kind of privilege because that's the thing about privilege is that it's really invisible. You don't see what you're just getting as a default. So once I started transitioning and getting this gendered and experiencing job related harassment because I was using they them pronouns, it was like, okay, this is how it feels to experience discrimination. And this is a deep unsettling problem. And I'm white. I don't have to deal with racial microaggressions. I don't have to deal with you know, any comments related to my my language, you know, because English is my first language. So this, it was a really important motivating factor for me for joining the Office of Racial Equity was like, this, where I can, I can turn off my racial equity work as soon as I turn off my work laptop, you know, I don't have to walk out and live my life in in public as a person of color and experience those racially motivated instances of discrimination. So if I can contribute my energy towards the work of racial equity, that's a positive thing for for the world. So I feel like I'm still answering your previous question a little bit, but I wanted to put that out there because I think it's a really it's a really important message. So and also it's why I'm on all things LGBTQ. I wouldn't be here if I wasn't somewhere in that alphabet soup. So I'd say I'd represent mostly the T in LGBTQ plus and so to speak a little bit more about the Office of Racial Equity, the Office of Racial Equity was just my supervisor executive director of racial equity Susana Davis for about two and a half years. And then he the second report of the racial equity task force made a request to the legislature that they add more staff position than more funding for the office. So I was hired in February of 2022. And my co-worker Shalini Suria Narina was hired just a month before me at the end of January of 2022. And of course, I'm getting notifications there. And so now we're a three-person office and the sort of mission statement or goal of our office is to work towards dismantling those instances where systemic racism pops up in our state government. And it's I mean, it's a very big task. And it is it can definitely feel overwhelming at times. And that is, you know, just kind of it's like that saying about if you have like a really big project or something, you have to like eat the elephant one bite at a time or something like how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time. So yeah, that's that's kind of where we're at. We're we're going after the elephant of racial equity one one bite at a time with the three of us in the office. And now we've added a we have an intern with us temporarily for the summer and we will soon be hiring for a new office that was created within the Office of Racial Equity, which is the Division of Racial Justice Statistics that was created by each 546 or I believe that was Act 142. Don't don't call me on that. I think it was Act 142 last legislative session. So that's very exciting as well. And I was going to say to give people an idea. I mean, you're talking about taking a bite out of the elephant. And I'm not really sure that people appreciate the task that the Office of Racial Equity has been handed. So I'm wondering if you could share some of the specific projects and initiatives that you're currently working on so that people can get a sense of and we expect for people to do this. Absolutely. Yeah. So so I'm my official title is Racial Equity Policy and Research Analyst. And my my corporate Shalini's title is Education and Outreach Specialist Associate, excuse me, Education and Outreach Associate. And so the little blurb that you can read on our website reads that the office works with local, state, federal and nonprofit partners to advance equity in all areas of life and for months. So all areas of life, what does that mean? So for example, the notification that I just received on my computer was an invitation to work with the Department of Health with a project called Stretch, which is organized through the CDC Foundation. And I know that Shalini and my supervisor, executive director, Susana Davis will be working on that this afternoon. I am chatting with you. So I believe that they are collaborating with the Department of Health on trying to reform the grant making system in Vermont to make it a more equitable funding method and more equitable funding distribution method. Let's see. My role specifically as policy and research analyst, I do a lot with the legislature, giving testimony on bills when the legislature is in session and doing outreach to members of the legislature to talk through what are sort of the policies and what are the places that racial inequity shows up in our legal system and in the laws and regulations and policies of the state of Vermont and where can they be changed to make things more equitable. Shalini has a ton of projects that she's been working on. She does all kinds of educational trainings and talks to different boards and commissions around the state about how to focus on equity in their work and how to bring an equity lens, as we like to say, to all of their different projects. Let's see. We're working on a language access plan for the state. We want to make sure that everyone who lives in Vermont has the ability to access the same government services and programs as someone who speaks English as their first language and that includes people who are from other countries and they speak, you know, Pashto or Dari if you're from Afghanistan or Karendi or Swahili if you're from Central Africa. And, you know, that's a pretty big project to say the least to figure out how do we convince everyone in the state to get on board with this idea that, um, yes, all government services should be available to everyone who lives here, which seems really simple when you say it like that, but that's kind of the way that a lot of this works where you say something like everyone in the state should have the same level of access to government services and programs and then you get into sort of the implementation of it and it gets really complicated, really fast. From what you've been listing for the initiatives and projects you're working on, a lot of it would seem to rely upon getting comprehensive and accurate data collection so that you can truly, so you can give a true analysis of who is able to and who is not able to access services. Our Vermont agencies, and I'm using the term agency in a broad context meaning not just the state of Vermont governmental infrastructure, but, you know, the nonprofits and the service providing networks, are they willing to engage with you or with the Office of Racial Equity? Are they providing you with data and are we capturing what we need for data so that you can make policy recommendations? That's a very big question. Yes, that's why I asked you. Exactly. I'd say that there's definitely different levels of ability to capture data accurately depending on who you're talking about and it's one of the topics that we're actively working towards reforming is making data a lot more inclusive. For example, the Office of Racial Equity is a participant on the Health Equity Advisory Commission, which is, Susanna is the current chair of the Health Equity Advisory Commission and I've been going to meetings since I started in this position and one of the things that the Health Equity Advisory Commission is doing is making writing a report that will include recommendations towards defining categories other than white and non-white for data collection around race and ethnicity in Vermont. And that's kind of where we're at with a lot of data collection in the state of Vermont around race and ethnicity is that people get separated into white or not white and that framework is super problematic because it frames things around whiteness. You're defining people as white or not white. How are people of color supposed to feel represented by that data when they're not even identified past while you're not white? That's a really concerning pattern in the state of Vermont that we're trying to advocate that it gets changed that we have. So the Health Equity Advisory Commission is going to be making recommendations to the legislature that we set out some better categories for people so that they can hopefully see themselves reflected in the data of better and then we can use that data to better understand what the situation is in Vermont for people. So for example there was a really great paper that was recently published by some researchers from Stanford where they looked at health disparities among parent pairs in California and they went through and changed their birth certificate form so that you could identify yourself as the parent giving birth or the parent not giving birth instead of mother and father and that left the door open for mother. Mother pairs to to be counted in the California birth certificate records and what they found was that actually parents where the parents where it was parents who were identified as two mothers had worse health outcomes related to pregnancy and giving birth than mother father parents did and they wouldn't have been able to find that health disparity out if they hadn't asked you know if they hadn't changed the birth certificate so that your child could be you know accurately reflect your family structure not being cisheteronormative. So and they also now are able to measure the birth outcomes for trans men who give birth and the birth outcomes for non-binary people who are the birth giving parent like it was a really great paper because it really showed how a very small change to the record keeping system in California actually opened up this huge wealth of knowledge to be able to find health disparities where previously they weren't even able to measure them so it would be really great to see a similar process take place here in Vermont but especially with health data and I know that we've talked about this before when it comes to electronic health records and health systems it can be very challenging to get the companies that make those software platforms to add a third option for gender for example besides male and female which are ones for sex and not gender by the way so it's you know it's um it's uh it's a lot it's a lot to to think about and it's a lot to uh it's a big elephant to eat so in our remaining time you know and again I'm going to go back to the concern that I have personally about creating silos what is it that Vermont's LGBTQ plus two s plus communities could be doing to become more actively involved and supportive of the work of the office of racial equity yeah um so I think that one of the one of the first well I'll say this one of the things I love about Vermont is that even though people aren't always as aware of the you know preferred language around certain social topics or um maybe they hadn't heard of you know whatever before I found that people are very willing to listen and very willing to learn and I think that's awesome because that's really where all of this change starts from is a place of learning and so I think that for our white LGBTQIA plus viewers a really great place to start is just educating yourself on sort of the history of the United States and where all of these systemic racism where all this comes from where is the origin it's a lot of stuff that we're just not taught in our school system um I recently finished reading The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander there's a fantastic book about the criminal justice system and how the war on drugs has really contributed to a lot of racial inequities that we see today um the uh Office of Racial Equity has a reading list on our website and we also the Vermont League of Cities and Towns recently released an equity toolkit that includes an excellent reading list with a ton of video resources and podcasts to listen to I know I personally get tired of reading sometimes and do a lot of listening to audio books while I'm cooking or cleaning up so definitely recommend checking out the Vermont League of Cities and Towns podcast list to learn more so yeah just really think through um you know doing that learning doing that work and try and lean on other white people when you're encountering the emotional challenges that come with it because it is I can speak from personal experience it can be really horrifying and exhausting to learn about the impacts of systemic racism and um you know talk with your therapists talk with your your white friends don't put that the people of color in the state already know about it from personal experience you don't need to put that on them um so you know do some learning um talk with your white friends talk with your therapist talk with with uh you know uh other white people about it don't burden your your friends of color with uh your racial equity learning just yet um because you know it's for a lot of white people and I include myself in this category there's been a lot of like oh oh kind of moments and um that the fact that it's taking me until age 31 to have those like learning aha moments is a reflection of my white privilege and it's fine to experience that and it's fine to feel grief and and sadness about it but it's not fine to put that emotional labor on your friends and and people of color who already experience that in their personal day-to-day life so that's why I was gonna say so with that I need to say thank you and it sounds like we both give our peers of privilege permission to feel uncomfortable oh yeah with their privilege and to be willing to challenge it and I already am planning on inviting you back to talk about what comes out of the racial justice piece and the direction that might be moving in so with that thank you for spending this time with us absolutely thank you for having me and um yeah uh thanks you'll be thanks so much and you'll be back I'll be back thank you for joining us and until next time remember resist