 Hi, I'm Keith Ghostland, and this is All Things LGBTQ. We are taping on Tuesday, March 9th. We tape at Orca Media, which is in Montpelier, Vermont, which we acknowledge is being unceded Indigenous land. And now Anne is going to take us to far and distant places. I am. I've organized it by continent again. So I have news from Australia, which is that thousands attend the LGBTQ Mardi Gras in Sydney. And I'd like to show you a picture of the revelers. In Africa, I have a whole series of African stories, and I'd like to explore them in greater detail later. The first story involves hundreds of Tunisians protesting to demand the release of a jailed LGBTQ rights activist. And I've been reading up on Tunisia. They are heralded as a victory or a positive outcome of the Arab Spring because they emerged with the democracy. But social issues are really problematic there, particularly LGBTQ rights. So I'll talk a little more about that. And my next African story involves safe space in Kenya, which is not occurring in the Kukuyo refugee camp. In fact, it's called Block 13, and all the LGBTQ refugees are together. And they're really courageous. They've had pride marches there. But anyway, some of their beds were burned while they were sleeping. So they're asking to be moved, but they want to be moved as a block for safety. So I have a lot to talk about with Ghana, and I'd like to save that from my segment. But just to give you the headline, the LGBTQ plus communities are under assault and harassment. I told you about the office that they opened that was closed immediately. There's more to that. And I will talk about it in detail. More from Africa. There's been a spate of attacks and arrests in Cameroon. And I have some chapter and verse about how terrible things are there. Cast her some menus from South Africa. So I put her story in. It's a story of struggle, but not as bad or intense as the other stories in the other parts of Africa. So she's appealing to the European Court of Human Rights off over the discriminatory testosterone limit. She's a biological female with too much testosterone, and the World Athletic Association wants to subject her to examinations, and medication, and so she's- They want to give her estrogen, I think, right? Europe. Good news from Europe. A Polish court. Poland. Yes, and I have a picture. Actually I have a couple pictures I've overlooked, but we'll do- I neglected to show you a picture of Caster Semenya. So there she is. She's 30. In Europe, a Polish court acquits the activists who put the rainbow on our Lady of Chester Kova. Oh, good. And let me share. I couldn't resist showing you another picture of the Lady of Chester Kova with the rainbow. They said, you know, this isn't even, you know, this doesn't offend anybody. It's not a violation of religious rights, and of course the conservative group that opposes this was all full of conversation about our Lady of Chester Kova. Is that the Black Saint or something? Black Madonna. Black Madonna. Yes. Another news of interest is that the U.K. is planning to open its first LGBTQ retirement community in London. It looks beautiful. In Vokeshall. And I have the, you know, details about how much they charge and how it all came about. More European news, I'm going to show you a clip of the summer of 85, a film from France that's, I read a mixed review, but he said it's full of eye candy for the men in the, or for those who are interested in male eye candy. So anyway, I'll tell you more about that. Well, apparently I will be the judge of that. They are very nice looking, these actors, I have to say. But let's go to Asia now quickly. I have good news from Malaysia where a landmark challenge against the Muslim Gay Six ban has succeeded. And you know, this is a great breakthrough, but it's not fabulous news because the court said, look, homosexuality is already criminalized in the civil code. You don't need to exert. You don't need to apply Islamic law. We've already got it covered. So, but, that's a- You mean you're not going to cover the Pope going to, where did he go? Iraq. Iraq. No, why would I? I don't know. But I have a picture now before you of South Korea's first transgender soldier, Bin Hwe-Soo, who was unaccountably found dead. That's a very sad story, but they don't know what happened to her. She was 23. She was a staff sergeant before being discharged after she had the operation in Thailand. There's no immediate cause of death that they could figure out, and it's strange because she expressed hope of continuing to serve in the military's female corps. And she'd been pursuing a lawsuit, contesting her dismissal with a hearing expected in April. So I don't know what happened, but she was found dead, and there's her picture. So let's move on to Linda with some headlines. Well, let's move to a lesbian photo book that made a difference. I'll talk more about that. This light up Mormon University's icon Y with rainbow colors, we'll talk about that. And Gay Club celebrates Dolly Parton's vaccine with a 50-foot mural. Strut in Orange County, California will dedicate the artwork for frontline workers. Strut is a gay club in Costa Mesa, California that commissioned the 50-by-20-foot mural depicting an angelic gay icon. So here is a picture of the mural with Dolly Parton on it. It's very pretty. May I interrupt? Remember, we stayed at the Hard Rock Cafe in Las Vegas, and there was a big, life-sized Dolly Parton picture next to the elevator. So it's been done, but I'm sure this is better. Well, that was a picture, though. This is a mural. And I have a picture of me standing, I think, with her in Las Vegas, the picture that is. And Governor Andrew Cuomo is removed from an LGBTQ gala after allegations that he acted improperly with at least three women. So it's up to five. And then... Keith says it's up to five now. Is it up to five now? Yes. Wow. We're just adding to your headlines. I know, huh? The nation's biggest evangelical child welfare group, OK, it's LGBTQ parents. So we'll talk a little bit more about that. A new anti-LGBT coalition calls Equality Act a threat to children, a gay DC newscaster suspended over a fat-shaming vaccine tweet, Blake McCoy tweeted. He was annoyed that obese people were getting access to vaccines before others. He was fired? No, he was suspended. And that's different than being fired, I guess, because they may take him back. Rand Paul greets Biden's nominee, Rachel Levine, with the anti-trans outbursts. Enough of Gen Z believes that gender binary is outdated. So that's good news for the future. Gays for Trump activist Scott Prezler is given an award after a man who hated gay people. He was given the Ronald Reagan Freedom Award at a CPAC meeting last week. I love this story. NASA Names Perseverance Landing Site on Mars After Black, Lesbian, Seattle Base, Sci-Fi Rite, Octavia Butler. The Red Planet Landing is called the Octavia E. Butler Landing. So that was really good. Barack Obama allegedly made fun of Pete Buttigieg for being short and gay. I saw that. All right. And then we have Pence will address anti-LGBG group in his first speech since leaving office. He has a long history of associating with the religious right. And then again, I'm trying to stay on a trend here. Evangelical Franklin Graham accuses Pete Buttigieg of flaunting his sexuality. White House warns that their anti-trans bills are illegal. And then I have this fun story. Well, it's not really fun, but anyway, it's about first comes the U-Haul about the disappointing amount of divorces that happen among lesbian women. Bisexual women with straight male partners are less likely to be out, a recent study finds. Diverse group of cities have the highest rate of gay households. Two surprises were Orlando and Miami. San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle topped the list. Austin was fifth and Boston was seventh. And Arizona-based bread and roses is the first crisis center in Pima County, Arizona, and they have a homeless shelter for LGBTQ youth. And then there is a book that I was going to talk a little bit about that's called The Last Call by Ellen Green. And we have a few more stories. Pose is having its last season. That's such a shame. I know. And then we'll, we have a few more if we have time. So let's stop there and move on to Keith. With Pose, their comment was, we've run the storyline that we had envisioned. We've said what we wanted to say, so now is our time to say enough. And you need to respect that. Yeah. I love the sherry though. So March, other than Linda saying that it's the crappiest month, she used different language. March is bisexual awareness month. And a recent Gallup poll said that 5.6% of people who responded identified within the LGBTQ plus spectrum, more than half of them identified as bisexual or multi-amorous. And as you were saying, it's the Gen X, it's our younger generations where it's really becoming more of the identification. So March is also women's history month. And part of the trivia is why March? And associated with that is thus far, she has been the highest ranking LGBTQ plus woman elected to public office in Vermont and they both got it. So looking around Vermont, Queer Connect, which is in Bennington and Rutland now, Lisa Carton, who was one of the founders and executive directors, is stepping away. And for Bennington, Jess Bouchard, who was the person who was running the Lesbian Story Hour, is stepping into being executive director. And Carly Haven, who might have been a guest on one of our interview shows, is going to step in as a co-executive director in Rutland. Interesting setup. The Pride Center of Vermont, Safe Space, as of yesterday, Kim Jordan is their new program director and she comes out of the racial justice movement in Burlington. And we are the first to announce this. So Montpelier, the Social and Economic Justice Advisory Council, there's a mouthful, and the city of Montpayer has entered into a contract with Creative Discourse to go out and assess the experiences of underrepresented residents. And they are doing, particularly for the BIPOC and the LGBTQ plus communities, affinity spaces, which means only members of those communities know allies coming in to talk about, so what is the response of the city of Montpayer to his LGBTQ plus citizens. And one of the things that a small group of people had suggested was, remember back in the late 80s, early 90s when we used to put ally cards in businesses windows, we could start doing that again because somebody noticed that the Barbershop on Miles Court has a trans-inclusive poster in their window. HRC did their corporate index and they list what is the best place for LGBTQ people to work in every state. And there was one Vermont entry that got a perfect rating, and it might have been Ben and Jerry's home maids. And we thank them for it. The Vermont Human Rights Commission is putting out a plea to our communities that on their website, and if you go to Vermont.gov and then look for the Human Rights Commission, they would like people to report on public accommodations that are not in compliance with the gender neutral bathroom law. I mean, they had started this campaign prior to COVID and then it got derailed because everyone was isolating at home. Well they want to bring it back again. Do we know of places where no, that should be a gender neutral and you've made it gender specific. And as a part of that project, one of the suggestions was that they might create the same kind of resource list that the cell phone app, Where2P, where they list, here are the public accommodations that already have and respect gender neutral bathrooms. So this includes restaurants? Yes. If a restaurant has a single use bathroom, according to the Vermont statute, it needs to be gender neutral. It cannot say men, women. And as was pointed out, just because a bathroom has a urinal in it doesn't mean it's multi-use. If you can walk in and lock the door behind you, that's single use and it's gender neutral. Just because there's accoutrements doesn't mean you need to use them. Well that's good to know. I thought you would find it comforting. Yeah, there you go. And looking quickly around New York, in Connecticut, they have put together what's called the We Care Coalition and they're looking at doing the same kind of reform to their parentage statutes that we did here in Vermont and they are using the model language that thus far we have used in Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and successfully in Vermont. So New England is expanding and we're sharing those resources. Connecticut also has a bill that they've introduced that is looking at extending the state veterans benefits to LGBTQ plus veterans who might have received less than an honorable discharge because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. We may want to look at that here. What was of note was there was a reference to a bill that Representative Takano, who is the chair of the Veterans Affairs Committee, has introduced to put a commission in place to look at how LGBTQ plus veterans current and past and if they're receiving equitable benefits and what's interesting about Representative Takano is he was the first out Asian elected to Congress. True colors, which was the youth organization, one of the youth organizations in Connecticut, has closed their doors because financially they couldn't withstand the COVID impact. And Maine, and we're going to want to watch this and you've kind of referenced associated LD 926 is the identification of the bill. This would put a ban on trans youth competing in sports and specifically they're looking at trans girls and requiring invasive medical exams as you were. What Maine, and what Maine has already said their attorney general is this law is in clear violation of our non-discrimination statutes. It's also not in compliance with the NCAA policies about competitive, but and this was the little sidebar. This is almost identical language to what has been introduced into 20 other states. This is how the conservative right is again trying to create a split within our our communities. So we're fighting amongst ourselves versus looking at what they're presenting. You're going to take us back to South Africa where we're going to. I thought I'd start with Australia and give a couple of updates, well one update and a little more detail about my Mardi Gras story, but the update is remember I think it was last time or the time before I reported on Facebook withdrawing from Australia and the standoff there the day after I reported on that Facebook caved they were getting such bad press and they were losing business, but there's a new law in Australia that is you know they've been negotiating and they're trying to regulate some of this, but Facebook users are free to use their Australian outlets again. And Facebook will learn not to mess with your reporting. That's right. And Australia I find very interesting because of this thousands of people marching in Sydney. There were 36,000 people in a stadium event for the Mardi Gras and 5,000 people took part in the parade and there were gatherings of up to 50 people in private parties and while these gatherings are unthinkable in much of the world right now the state of New South Wales has gone for 48 days without a coronavirus transmission and Australia has only recorded 29,000 cases and 900 deaths throughout the whole pandemic. That's impressive. It really is. It's very interesting. I don't know how they did it, but now it's time to go to Ghana where as I said an office was opened. It was raided by armed police. The group announced the police action with a video posted to their social media and then decided to indefinitely close. The Ghana does criminalize same-sex relations but what happened, the story behind the story is that the landlord got angry and didn't realize he said that this was going to be an LGBTQ office so his name is Asenso Guillambi and he owned the house, called the police, said he was unaware and unhappy that the group had rented his property so he reported it to the security agencies and insisted that they take action. I will not tolerate such activities on my property. Of course they were happy to do it. Same-sex sexual relations and marriage equality remain illegal in Ghana. Penile penetration of anything other than a vagina is outlawed under the country's 1960 criminal code. The legal and cultural atmosphere has pushed a lot of people into the closet, but the situation of lesbians is kind of amorphous because they don't speak about it. So cases have been brought accusing women of homosexuality and so forth, but anyway in reaction to the raid 67 celebrities and politicians signed on to a letter pushing back on the treatment. We have watched with, and this includes some famous people, we have, let's see who they are, Naomi Campbell. Anyway, they have said, we watch with profound concern as you have had the question to question the safety of your vital work at the LGBT rights Ghana Center in Accra, she's writing to them, and feared for your personal well-being and security. It's unacceptable to us that you feel unsafe, the letter said. As prominent and powerful advocates for this great country, we are beseeching his Excellency, the President of the Republic of Ghana, Nana Ado Danquah, Akufo Ado, and the political cultural leaders to create a pathway for allyship protection and support. We petition for inclusivity which will make the nation even greater and stronger. So in a similar story, the man who opened, who started this whole movement and opened the office says he fears for his life. But then there's a related story that I'd like to cover in a little detail. Last week, Ignatius Anor, and I have a picture before you now of him, he's a journalist for Euronews English and he shocked the nation because he came out as gay in a Zoom panel discussion on LGBTQ rights in Ghana. So it was on joy news and the topic was the LGBTQ community in Ghana. He said, this is going to be the very first time that I'm using your medium to say that not only am I an activist for the rights of African sexual minorities, what you would call the LGBTQI community, but I am gay, he revealed. It is the truth that I have accepted and it is the truth that I will live by. This isn't Ghana on national TV. And he explained that he was closeted for a long time because he was afraid for his job. He denied his sexual orientation while repeatedly working as a journalist for a TV show, Station and Aqua. But then he mentioned the personal toll that such a decision took. He gave a heartbreaking account of coming out to his mother who vowed to pray for him because she believed he was possessed by a demon. I remember the following day she came to say, I have not been able to sleep because of what you told me and I could feel the pain because she thought I was going to put my life in danger for what others are facing particularly a TV person and being suspected of being gay and not openly saying it, he said. I remember telling her that she should forget I said that to her, revealing that he made the request so his mother could have the peace that she needs. He now intends to live his life openly as a gay man. I have lived a life of lies. I have lived a double life and no human being deserves to do that and to have accepted that truth and live the freedom that I live today. I am very content. I'm a very content person today. What a thing, what an outcome. I just fear for his welfare but what a gesture of activism and bravery. Yeah, so I have a lot more but I think I'll pass it on to my friends and see if we have any time left. Okay, well the lesbian photo book that made a difference was by Jeb photographed lesbians from different ages and backgrounds in their early lives working, playing, raising families and trying to remake their worlds. There were testimonies from many of these women reprinted after 40 years. It has additional essays, one being from World Cup player Lori Lindsay. Eye to Eye is work that continues to resonate in the queer community and it will be released on March 23rd. Eye to Eye? Yeah. Jeb's book? Yes. I've ordered that. Yes. Joan E. Byron, a legendary photographer. Yes. She's giving talks all around the country. I've signed up for several. And yes, so that's coming out March 23rd. Yes. All right. And the nation's biggest evangelical child welfare group, okay, is LGBTQ parents. Bethany Christian Services, which once would not place children with LGBTQ parents has a new policy. We're all are welcome. Bethany Christian Services is the largest Protestant provider of adoption and foster care services in the nation. So that's good news. Um, new anti-LGBTQ coalition calls Equality Act a threat to children. The group is called Promise to American Children made up of parents and lawmakers who oppose legislation that harms children and they want to create and support laws that will protect children's health, safety and families. The House has passed the Equality Act and now it's on its way to the Senate. So we'll see how that goes. Not well, I'm afraid. Well, there's a conversation about getting rid of the filibuster so that it would then be able to pass by a simple majority. Yeah, I know it. Stay tuned. Yeah. A Georgia woman speaks out against anti-transbill. Can you tell me where she belongs somewhere, that she belongs somewhere, or do you think she doesn't belong anywhere? Because that's what passing this bill will tell her, said Jennifer Spinnikoff, a former member of Human Rights Foundation's Parents for Transgender Equality. You can see her speech in full on YouTube. Her child is transgender. Yeah. American Horror Story's Bill Echner is doing a new rom-com. The actor will co-write and star in a universal movie called Bros, which is about gay men. Bill will also be the first openly gay actor to write and star in his own major film. So you can keep an eye out for that. And the Last Call by Ellen Green is a true story of men who frequented Manhattan's piano bars, and so did the killer who found them. The townhouse is where two of the killer's victims were found. Last Call is the story of love, lust, and murder in Quarry, New York City. In 1991, a maintenance man found a dismembered body in PA. A year later, another body was found. Both victims were white-collar professional men. Two more men would be added to the body count. But in this book, instead of focusing on the killer, he humanizes the victims. This is nonfiction? This is nonfiction. Yes, it's true. 1991. First comes the U-Haul. Then comes court. The shocking high lesbian divorce rate. The state of queer women's marriage is in crisis. Same-sex females are divorcing at double the rate of marriages between other sex combinations. According to Dr. Green PhD, a couple's therapist wrote, a guide to creating healthy relationships identified the fast-track marriages as the primary cause of divorces. And in other countries, they have also found the same data. But there was one in the Netherlands. 30 percent of female couples divorced compared to 18 percent of straight couples and 15 percent for gay men. I have forgotten my clip. So if one of you could save me three minutes. Okay, let's see. Okay, we have that. Trans and non-binary siblings were shot to death by their mother. Jeffrey Bryant and Jasmine Candy were killed in Pennsylvania. Jeffrey was a 16-year old trans boy and his non-binary sibling Jasmine was 22. Krishika Bright, their mother was arrested at the scene and she called the police to tell them that she had killed them. Pioneering lesbian and feminist dies at 94. She was an activist in the 70s and led a group of women to the Statue of Liberty where they hung a banner that read Women of the World Unite. She continued her activism throughout her life. Who was she? Oh, I forgot. Can you give her a name? We'll get back to you. We'll get back to you about that. I had her name here and I don't know what happened. Oh boy. Okay. I know. What was her name? I know. I think that's it for me. Okay, Keith, let's have it. All right. We'll find your name. I'm sorry. I had it here and I don't know. And respecting Ann's request. I have a segment that I will be reporting back out but I'll do it on our next show. We finally completed those town hall forums. Yes. And we had the statewide caucus and I might be in the beginning stages of going through and identifying the list of needs that came out of the forums and then the list of priorities that was created at the statewide caucus based upon the needs identified in the forum. And this will come up as a comprehensive report because our intent from within the alliance and all of the collaborative organizations is to use this in our advocacy with the legislature, with state government, with our allies, and then looking at how do we develop our own programs within the LGBTQ plus communities. I mean, and thinking in terms of like health justice, one of the predominant themes was why is there not some cultural competency training for all levels of health care professionals from an LNA up to your primary provider that includes not only sexual orientation, gender identity, but truly cultural competency for for monsters who may have originally started on the refugee status or people from within the bike park community. So stay tuned. So and so you'll have a summary of that. Yes, I will. All right. Just for you. All right. So looking at our legislature, H 128, the bill that was sponsored by Taylor Small that would put in place a ban on the use of gay or transpanic defenses and Vermont criminal law, it got voted out of committee by unanimous vote. Yes. And watching the committee hearing. Yeah. The day they voted it out and their substantive debate. I was taken by surprise when a conservative Republican representative went out of his way to thank Taylor for Taylor's testimony and for introducing the bill. Wonderful. Not really. So and deservedly so. Well, exactly. And the house will start debating this bill tomorrow on Wednesday, March 10th, looking at, you know, the substantive merits, whatever, Celine Colburn is going to be the person reporting it off. So we will be definitely following that. Joint resolution to this is what was introduced by John Colacchi. And it's whereas in 1925, University of Vermont zoology professor Henry F Perkins established the discredited eugenics survey of Vermont to measure evidence of alleged delinquency, dependency, and mental defectiveness. And this survey targeted members of the Ibeniki bands, Vermonters of mixed racial or French Canadian heritage, the poor and persons with disabilities. It is a formal apology from the state of Vermont, but was also associated with it and what I had reported on before. French Canadians, French Canadian. Yeah. Moving on. What's associated with this is the creation of a truth and reconciliation task force that would look at basically, you know, the systemic racism inherent in this. And okay, this is what happened then. What is it that we need to do now? And how are we continuing within the Vermont infrastructure, Vermont communities to perpetuate this same thing? Well, we go back to families or anything, do you know? I know that there will be a formal apology issued to those recognized Ibeniki people. And Chief Don Stevens has already been commenting on it saying, okay, this is the first step. You first need to acknowledge that you created a wound before the wound can heal. So exactly how far they will go with this may be the outcome of the truth and reconciliation task force. There's also a bill that's before house health care and it will be debated by the full house imminently. H210 and this is equity in health care. Looking at the systemic racism, you know, that is embedded in our health care system. And what was interesting is Representative Patterson from Rutland County. He was the one who went after the Mills River School for putting up the Black Lives Matter flag and really harassed the Moore family so that they felt they needed to leave the country. It will leave the county. When people came in to testify about racism within our health care system and in the equity, his responses, well, it's not embedded in the system. Those are just individuals. Really? So what about our health care system allows that individual to continue to practice like that? There is also going to be a house debate on H196 which is the racial equity bill where by first by executive order and then by legislative statute, they created the office of racial equity, hires Susanna Davis, but then didn't give her a budget or personnel to do the work. So this is going in saying let's try and make this work. And for people here in Montpelier, H177 and this will be voted on by the House this week. This is Montpelier's charter change allowing non-citizen voters. But we're going to want to watch this closely because it passed the House in the last session, but when it got to the Senate and government ops and Senator Jeanette White, who is the chair of government ops, she really didn't get it and she let the bill die in committee. But one of the advantages is that if it gets voted over before crossover, which is in a couple of weeks, we still have another year of need be to make this happen. And then the final thing in the Senate is they're going to be debating S16 which is the use of discipline in schools and particularly looking at how schools disproportionately suspend students race, ethnicity, disability status. If you're a non-caucasian student who is on a IEP, a special education program, or you're the free lunch, you have a significantly higher rate of expulsion than the rest of the students. Okay, but what is still missing from this bill? And however, it does make reference and they've almost totally rewritten this bill so that there is now this 20 member task force that will be looking at the data and making recommendations by next November. But what they reference in there is using the data from the behavioral risk survey to help them really come up with the landscape of what is being done and how and to whom because the agency of education admits they don't have the data, they're not collecting it, they're not reporting it, but if they include the behavioral risk survey, LGBTQ youth are indeed in there. Sure. And you've got some time. Before you do that, let me apologize to the office. To the audience. To the viewers. To the viewers. The name of the activist was Ivy Botini. So, thank you. I knew to my head, but I couldn't get it out. Well, I could see the image of the statue with the banner. I mean, it was yeah. Well, let's go to the summer of 85 if we could. I'll give you a little summary, show you the clip, and then we can maybe go back to Keith to check. I want to hear about Britain. I mentioned that in the yeah, but you were going to say how much it was. Yeah. All right, show the clip first. We'll go back to that next time too. Okay. Well, we have time. Let me finish with my clip. We have please. Alexis is a working class teenager who has to decide whether or not to join the workforce or to continue his studies in literature. While out sailing, he caps during a storm, means capsizing, I suppose, and is saved by an 18 year old stranger named David. David takes Alexis to his home where they meet David's forceful, charismatic mother. David takes the helm of this new friendship and budding romance and is soon showering Alexis with attention and gifts. He even gives Alexis a summer job at his mother's nautical store. Which he took over after his father's recent death. Their summer fling gives way to a dangerous obsession and David's fixation on Alexis turns to cruelty as he reveals a sinister side to his personality. It's a little, you know, I read the mixed review. Take a look at the clip. It's on Amazon Prime. Alex, we could maybe take Kate for a walk. Oh, that's all right. It's interesting. It seems like women are the villains, but I could be wrong. I haven't seen it. Okay. Okay, so we're going to hear back from Keith now. Trivia. Trivia. Okay. I just want to say about the forum, the forum, that I talked with someone who went to them and she said it was wonderful just seeing LGBT people from around the state, that it was a real treat. For anyone who participated in any of the forums, the statewide caucus, or even if you register but you didn't attend, there are evaluations that are going to go out asking for specifically that kind of feedback because I'd heard the same thing that people were very appreciative that it was created as created by the LGBTQ plus communities for the LGBTQ plus communities and everyone in their groups kept commenting about you don't know what it's like living in a rural area and here I am in a room with 15 other queers. Right. I mean, I don't have to translate. You understand what I'm saying. You are supportive of my issues. And one of the things that people truly appreciated and it's one of the pieces that I want to really put in place when we report back out on the forums as a whole is resources. People identified needs but also as we were identifying needs, we try to identify, okay, is this already being met by anybody? So being able to come up with those kinds of lists and to, you know, to their credit the Pride Center of Vermont heard you've got a resource list but it is hidden within the safe space programming. They're now making it a standalone program on its own so you can go onto the website and you can truly see a statewide resource so but Women's History Month, why March? Other than when it's my birthday month, happy birthday to and you already got your birthday present and I was gonna say other than Linda saying it's the crappiest month. In 1909, there was a suffragette conference in Manhattan where they made a proposal of recognizing an International Women's Day. The next year, March 1910 in Copenhagen, there were 17 countries represented for an international conference of working women and they formally adopted the International Women's Day. All right and in 1980, President Carter did the first proclamation in the U.S. recognizing March as Women's History Month and it has been recognized by proclamation by every president including the one who recently left maybe against their will from the White House recognizing March as Women's History Month. They might have done it under duress but so the highest ranking elected woman LGBTQ plus to public office in Vermont is Becca Ballant who I think if we go back and check has been our most frequent guest. I don't know Taylor could be too. I think they're close. In all their carnations. So with that Linda. All right now it's time to say resist.