 I'm Keith Gosland. I'm Ann Charles. And I'm Linda Quinlan. It's September 10th, Tuesday. And welcome to all things LGBTQ headlines. Apparently, I have things to say to you. So first thing is events. First thing to let people know is the translating identity conference at UVM schedule for October 12 has been canceled. And as rumor mill has it, it's due to a lack of volunteers, and they're hoping they can build a basis and support for next year. Don't forget, Larks and Ravens, first, third, and fifth Saturday of each month at the Capitol Grange. There is a new festival in town. Zach's telling me I'm looking at the wrong camera. Thank you, Zach. The Stranger Clay Festival. And this is a new venture here in Vermont. We're going to talk about it more in a bit. There is the We Do Language Symposium, which will be at the Kellogg Library on September 19. This is presented coordinated by Toussaint, who has been on our show before, and who we greatly want to support. This is based on Toni Morrison's quote of, we do language that may be the measure of our lives. And in fact, what's being shown is the foreigner's home, which is a video documentary of Toni Morrison at the Louvre in the exhibit that she put together. Queer trans people of color film also on September 19 are showing happy birthday, Marcia, about Marcia P. Johnson. Where are we going to go? I know it. You're heading out of town to Boston. So there's your update. Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules. These are the people who are looking at the Medicaid formulary changes specific to gender affirmation procedures. Originally, their hearing was also going to be on September 19. It's been postponed until October 3. And that's daytime at the State House. Tuesday, September 24 is main dine out. 10% of all proceeds from the 60 participating restaurants go to Equality Main. So do we drive over and get some lobster? Exactly. And you notice the twang. Very quickly, today is the special election North Carolina. Oh, I'm on tenterhooks. And one of the people running is Dan Bishop, who is the architect of HB2. The person running against him, Dan McGreedy, is truly a friend of our communities. And then I want to talk a bit about health and human services and UVM and religious freedom. And Zach now is going to be putting up a few pictures of Chick-fil-A. They decided to expand into the international market. But unfortunately, they picked Toronto to start. And Toronto was not amused. Twinfield High School, on opening day of school, they asked all the students to identify by their preferred gender, preferred pronoun. Their parents filed a complaint. The official response back was that their students didn't seem to have a problem with it. Twinfield High School? Which is in Plainfield. Oh, OK. Right next door. I see. Vermont Woman, after 34 years, has issued their final addition. Unless you're interested in being a publisher editor of a newspaper that's devoted to true women's issues, not just your cookie cutter mainstream. I mean, it's not like housekeeping or good housekeeping. There will be no chocolate chip cookie recipes. Pride Day. Happened Sunday in Burlington. The theme this year was proud, legacy, powerful future, 50 years of persistence. Zach's going to be showing you a series of photographs taken from within Pride Day. However, Linda would like to say. Well, just a small rebuttal. One of the objections we've had, and I at least, and Keith to some degree, is that we really don't want to support corporate interests, especially corporations who work against our very existence. And so we have been kind of not going to Pride events. We went to an alternative event in New York City as well. So anyway, I just wanted to say that. That's the counter-narrative. That's the counter-narrative, yeah. OK. Not necessarily, Catra. And if there's time, we're going to talk about that straight Pride Day in Boston and why they were prosecuting the demonstrators. So what you got. And the police protecting them also. The police protecting the parade. The parade people. And those were your headlines? Yes. OK. I have some too. I know you do. They are as follows. Pride around the world. I'd like to talk about Bermuda, Honduras, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Right now I'd like to show you a picture from Bosnia-Herzegovina because I have a clip when I consider this story later in the program. Good news and bad news from Russia. Activism in Brazil, a very interesting colorful story. Pride flags greet Mike Pence on arrival in Iceland. That's right. ILGA Europe welcomes a landmark decision by Kazakhstan's Supreme Court to uphold the privacy of a lesbian couple. So that's more good news. Bad news following up on my story of last time. The Home Office in the UK has refused thousands of LGBTQ asylum claims figures reveal. And I'll have those figures if we have time. A well-known Nicaraguan, LGBTIA activist, is arrested. I have a picture before you now. His name is Ulises Rivas. He's the third from the left in the picture. He was picked up on bogus charges of robbery. He was running an asylum, LGBT asylum shelter. In Costa Rica, he came back for his father's funeral and was arrested. One good piece of news from Victoria in Australia. A trans birth certificate campaign has turned to other states after Victoria has passed a reform. So you can change your birth certificate. You need a letter from an adult who's known you for 12 months. But that's progress. And there's going to be activism in other states of Australia toward pursuing that end nationally. All right. That's it for international. For the headlines? OK. So what's the best pool you've got for us? I have a couple of sports things. Good. Ryan O'Callaghan, a former Patriots and Chiefs offensive tackle, has written a memoir. It's called My Life on the Line. And it's a heart-wrenching story about his coming out first to himself and then to others. So that's kind of a big thing in football, we'll see. Like the David Coppe story. Yeah. And writer and director Jamie Settos documentary includes a lively interview with 88-year-old philosopher Ram Dass, formerly known as Richard Albert. I still have this book for anybody of a certain age. They might remember his book is Be Here Now, Now Be Here, Be Here Now, Now Be Here. And another book is Becoming Nobody. Anyway, Ram Dass is bisexual. And he began talking about his bisexuality in the 70s. So that should be an interesting interview. I have a clip of Charlie's Angels, which I will show later when I talk more about that. And she's gone pop culture with us. I know. Kid's book, Arthur Raymond Aroya. Bash's boys who do ballet, you know that whole thing about. Oh, what was it? Good morning, America. Prince Henry or something? No, it was on Fox. Oh, that whole thing. That was a good morning, America. Yeah, what initially happened. Yeah. And there was a great demonstration of dancers in front of the studio. I know. That was great. And so anyway, he did that on Fox News. And teens wagging mega flags confront students at a GSA meeting in Bakersfield, California. Members from the group called. The group was called Future Farmers of America. Oh, that group. I know. And they confronted their peers by waving flags, promoting Trump. So we'll have more stories when we get back. So we'll move to Keith. The most tender place in my heart is for strangers. This is the beginning of an article about the Stranger Play Festival. And the statement was those words could be the mission statement for the women playwrights who are featured. This came about, according to the article, from a master's level class in Concord, New Hampshire, where the men who were present in the class wrote about families and relationships and intimate partners. And all the women wrote about people who didn't know each other before the narrative starts, which was not kind of what you would have expected. What evolved was women playwrights don't get produced. And I mean, I think some of the statistics is like 30% as opposed to what men get produced. So they decided to host a festival. And then the question became, were we going to do it? And then cost factors come in. So Vermont got picked to our advantage. And they reached out to Vermont's community of directors and found four women to direct their productions. That's fabulous. Four Vermont women. And it's Tess Hallbrook, Monica Callan, Sarah Vennacher, and our own Kim Ward. Yes. And the first performance is going to be at the Off Center for Dramatic Arts in Burlington, September 19th to the 21st. And then on the 22nd, there's an afternoon performance. And then again, September 27th through 28th in a matinee on the 29th at the Grange Hall Cultural Center in Waterbury Center. This is a first time venture. They say that they've developed this incredible friendship by trying to bring this festival together. And they're hoping that this is going to become an ongoing event. So this is something that's really due to support. Very quickly, Health and Human Services, they have that new division about promoting and supporting religious freedom. They filed a suit against UVM, the UVM Medical Center, saying that they were forcing their staff to engage in procedures that were against their ethics, morals, or religious beliefs. And it was a specific case that was cited. What UVM has said is they had been working with Health and Human Services for over nine months. And when they investigated the complaint, they could not substantiate it. So they're like, what is it you want? And Health and Human Services is threatening to take away multiple millions of dollars in funding. So this is something we're definitely going to want to be following. And as I said on the last show, Vermont, the feds have their eye on us. And they're going to find a way to step in and make us an example. And looking at the very positive pro-women pieces of legislation that we've been looking at enacting, we've got to be at the top of their list. So now you're going to take me to other places that are doing similar things that aren't that nice. Well, first we're going to go to Pride around the world, starting with Bermuda. I have a picture now before you of Bermuda's first Pride Parade that occurred in Hamilton. More than 6,000 people came. Activists from Barbados, Jamaica, and other English-speaking Caribbean countries traveled to Hamilton. I need to remind you that this is 14 months after Bermuda became the first jurisdiction in the world outside the US to rescind gay marriage for same-sex couples. It's top court last November. Rule the Domestic Partnership Act is unconstitutional. Same-sex couples are current now. After this ruling, same-sex couples are currently able to legally marry in Bermuda, even though the territory's government has appealed the ruling to the Privy Council in London, which has the final say in legal cases from Bermuda and other British territories. Yesterday sent a powerful message to the world that there is a place in Bermuda where, for a couple of hours, everybody just came together. An activist told the Washington Blade that is, I was happy. That's really what it was all about. They just came together very happy. And there was love, and there was peace, and there was laughter, and there wasn't any fear. It was just acceptance of whether you were black, white, gay, poor, straight, or whatever. There are a lot of places we can move from there, the activist added. So then Honduras also celebrated gay pride. And I have a picture now before you of a Honduran trans woman participating in the Pride March, which is- Why are they all in September? Well, this was August. Oh, they're following Berlin's schedule. Still. Yeah. This Honduran march drew 450 people. It was at the end of a week's activities. The banner read, Honduras Unlivable for LGBTQI, which provides a glimpse on the violence that's occurring throughout the country. In fact, according to a lesbian network in 2018, 25 LGBT people were killed, 16 gay men, five trans people, and four lesbian women. The situation seems to be worsening. The number of killings between January and August of this year, 13 gay men, seven trans people, and six lesbians. It already outpaces the year before. In the face of such violence, a Pride March is an act of defiance. Kudos to the protesters in Honduras. Now I'd like to go to Sarajevo. Bosnia Herzegovina, which is also celebrating its first ever Pride March. It occurred peacefully. There were counter demonstrations. Some 2,000 people showed up for this. While top Bosnian politicians failed to attend the march, the US ambassador to Bosnia, Eric Nelson, showed his support along with many other diplomats and representatives of non-governmental organizations in Bosnia. So I'd like to show you a clip now featuring US ambassador Eric Nelson. There were protesters, as I said. Bosnia and Herzegovina is the only country in the former Yugoslav region that has hosted a public Pride event. The socially conservative country also has a history of violence targeting LGBT festivals, most notably in 2008 and 2014. And I'd like to talk for a minute about the clip that I just showed you, because Eric Nelson mentions, Eric Nelson mentions Bosnia Herzegovina's aspirations to join the European Union. And this leads me to a correction that I have to make, an error I made on the earlier show. An earlier show, Linda asked me if Hungary was a member of the EU, I replied in the negative. And of course, I was wrong. Hungary joined the European Union in 2004. I should have known that. I should have corrected it earlier, but now I have. And I have an editorial, if I may. We watch this show regularly called Gay USA. It comes out of New York. It's wonderful. And what happens, they occasionally make an error also. And there are viewers right in. So if we don't slip up often, but if we do make an error, please write in. It's all things LGBTQ at Hotmail.com. Tell us, we're very responsive to all. Say, Ann, you did it again. Oh, no. So anyway, I had to get that off my chest. Now I would like to move on to Moscow, if I may. I will. If it's not too long. Well, it's a double story. Pro-Putin nationalists disrupt the performance of a gay play in Moscow with homophobic slurs. The play with gay themes was called Out of the Closet. It was performed at 100 seat Moscow theater. It, the theme has no LGBT content, but it's based on real stories of coming out of men to their mothers. Thugs barged into the theater and shouted homophobic slurs at audience members. The protesters, it's awful. And it echoes the first response to the straight pride in Boston because the police arrested the director, arrested one of the audience members, didn't seem surprised that all these thugs were there. The protesters said that invoked the law banning the promotion of non-traditional sexual relations to minors, this is their language, even though the theater had operated an over-18s policy with strict IG checks. When police were called, no member of the mob was detained. They continued to hinder the audience. They didn't check any of the thugs' papers. They acted if the protest, they and the protesters were on the same team. The performance eventually continued, despite the fact that the director was arrested. She says police have twice before sought to investigate claims that the play was defiling children and violating the gay propaganda law. We know about the Russia propaganda law, and that's been rebuked, as we know, by the European Court of Human Rights. But it's been evoked in this instance. I have a good news out of Moscow, but if Linda wants me to wait with that. You'll have to wait for that. OK, it's not out of Moscow, it's Russia. Well, we have another football story, which is about Drew Brees, which, unfortunately, is one of my favorite teams in New Orleans. He is quarterback for the New Orleans Saints. And he doesn't see the problem that he did a video for this hate group. He says he's not anti-LGBTQ and does not appreciate media outlets suggesting that it was a bad idea for him to appear in this homophobic groups video. Well, according to him, he says he doesn't see anything wrong when he got huge criticism for doing this about having a message saying bring your Bible to school, or bring your Bible to school day, which was produced by our friends to focus on the family. So apparently, he doesn't see any problem with this. So Drew, get it together, or I'm going to have to stop watching you. And Charlie's Angel rises as a kick-ass women united will be out in November. What is it? TV series? Movie. I can't wait. Looks interesting. It's fun and can't be. And it stars Kristin Stewart, Elizabeth Banks, and Naomi Scott. In a recent interview, Stewart talks about how she was advised to remain in the closet if she wanted to continue to make blockbuster movies. And that she should not hold to the hand of her girlfriend in public because that would really hurt her career. She, however, suggests that she doesn't care what they think, and that's not the kind of people she wants to associate with. So good for her. And now I'm going to show a clip of that movie. So here it is. Because they can. It doesn't mean they should. But I have so many talents. He's like, oh, I sure am. I'm just a decoy star. That's just the way you make me feel. Who's still? Outstanding angels. You have a new client? Who is she? I can't sleep at night. I'm the lead programmer on a product that can revolutionize the power industry. But there is a possibility it can be weaponized. Elena, we need to go. You know we're ringing bombs. No, I'm Jane. Oh. I'm Basley. Welcome to the Pounds and Agency. We exist because traditional law enforcement can't keep up. I don't like that, boy. You guys are like ladies-fied. Jane's former, my sixth. Oh, god. What did you do to Ben? I compressed his carotid and deoxygenated his brainstem. Well, that sounds painful. Don't worry. He's going to wake up. Unless he doesn't. Sabina runs the ground game. See, I know stuff. Let's get the weapon before it becomes every bad guy's favorite new toy. Take her to the closet, hear her out. We're going to need some wigs, toys. We're still in the first closet. There's another closet. Oh, Vince. Let's just stop the touching. Some of these blows up. Love phosphorus. My favorite chemical. Jane, are you flirting with a handsome nerd? Coast note. How'd that feel? Because it looked like it felt really good. It felt nice. In angels. Good morning, Chuck. Very interesting. I know. I can't wait. Point trash. I cannot wait to see that movie. And then there's an, yeah, OK. There have been two transgender murders in the last week or two. And that makes 18 this year. This is unacceptable. One was a 17-year-old. And her name was Bailey Reeves. She died leaving a party in the evening. It was like 8 o'clock. People heard shots. They called the police. When the police got there, she'd already been dead. And in Florida, B-Love Slater was also found burned to death in her car. I don't know. This is like, it's just unacceptable. Anyway, very sad. So we will turn to Keith now for his segment here. Just very briefly, we all know about the Happy Family Strait Pride Day in Boston. Because Straits, our oppressed minority. Story coming out of the Pride march was there were 2 to 300 people who actually marched. There were many more. 1,200, I heard. Protesters, demonstrators. I heard 200. No, 200 people in the march. Mostly in too, weren't they? There were 1,200 counter demonstrators. White supremacists, that was the theme of the day. What happened though is there were 36 demonstrators who were arrested. The police were very much protecting the parade. When they got into court, the district attorney, Rachel Rollins, moved to dismiss all but eight of them. And the eight were, there were some active violence or a weapon or something involved. The judge, Richard Sinott, who was a Republican appointee, said, no, I'm going to prosecute. We are going to arraign, prosecute all of them. So there was an emergency application to the Massachusetts Supreme Court that very quickly ruled that, no, you may be the judge, but this is not your decision to make. This is a separation of powers. And it is the district attorney who gets to make this decision. All right. And what this leads to is the 45 regime has appointed 160 federal judges. Those are lifetime appointments. If we are going to do advocacy and challenge, we're going to really have to look at the grassroots and state level because we know we're not going to be getting the support on the national. This judge, actually, with the, yes, we will arraign them all, went to as far as to charge the defense attorney with contempt of court when she challenged what he was doing. So now, you're probably going to take me back to Moscow where this would have been very much in keeping. We're going back to Russia. But we have good news. Oh, good. We're in Siberia. Five people live. No, no, no. I don't know how many people live there. But it's Kemerovo, Siberia. There's a Russian bakery. It's a Russian bakery. It's been fined $150 for hanging a sign at the entrance that banned LGBTQ people from entering. The Ipbakov brother's bakery in the city of Kemerovo placed a wooden sign near its entrance that said, I don't want to use this slur. F blank are not allowed. We know what that means. This is when it opened in February. Is that an FF double one? F. Moving on. All right. The bakeries' co-owner, Anton Abatov, told the news that the sign didn't discriminate against anyone. The court said, and this is amazing that this happened really in Russia, the sign humiliates homosexuals as a group of people distinguished on the basis of sexual orientation and negatively impacts others' feelings toward LGBTQ people. The owner told the court that he hung the sign because of his personal convictions. That old familiar story. The presence of non-heterosexual people in his shop could affect his children. The court cited him as saying, and he added that this is so sick, he makes natural food, and everything unnatural is alien to him. Are we sure he's not part of health and human services? In 2017, a bakery in St. Petersburg owned by a prominent Orthodox activist, German Sterigoff, came under fire for doing the same thing. TV coverage is linking the two bakery owners, but they were fined in a good move. More public, well, I don't know, more good news comes from Brazil. You may or may not know. They have an evangelical mayor in Rio who's quite homophobic. A Marvel comic has been issued with the same-sex kiss. I'd like to show that to you now. You did a Marvel comic? I know, I know about popular culture. And Brazil's biggest newspaper has printed this illustration of two men kissing on its front page to attack the attempt at censorship by evangelical mayor of Rio, the evangelical. Marcellos Cruella tried to ban copies of the novel Avengers, The Children's Crusade, from appearing at a book fair on the grounds that it included unsuitable content for children. This has echoes of past efforts at censorship. The editor of the paper said he's publishing it, publishing the picture to throw light on censorship threats. It's an attack on freedom of expression. The controversy began on Thursday when Cruella ordered the biennial, this is a book fair, to wrap copies of the graphic novel in black plastic. What we did was defend the family, he said, in a video he tweeted. I should wrap my family in black plastic? He ordered City Hall Inspector's deceased copies of the book, which had apparently already sold out by that point. It's a backwards decision, it's ignorant censorship, said the President of the Commission for Social Rights at Rio's Bar Association. Philippe Nato, a YouTube celebrity with 34 million followers, bought 14,000 copies of the book with LGBT themes at the book fair and gave them out for free wrapped in black plastic with a warning book inappropriate for backward and prejudice people. Demonstrators marched through the event, wrapped in rainbow colors and waving placards in books while gay couples kissed in protest. I'd like to show a picture of that, but I don't have it. Although we are going through the most frightening government in terms of repression since the dictatorship, this time we have united and engaged people who will not permit that censorship. The imposition of others' moral values, Nato told the Guardian. Linda's telling me I have so many stories though. I know, but look. I only have a few minutes left. Well, let me just take them up. My friends arrived in Iceland, all the corporations near the airport flew rainbow flights in protest. The prime minister met him wearing a rainbow bracelet. And then in Kazakhstan, a lesbian couple was filmed kissing at the movies. A homophobe took a picture of it, put it up on Facebook. They were threatened, 60,000 people saw it, but they have been the Supreme Kazakhstan Supreme Court of held the privacy of the lesbian couple. And so the person who took the photo was given a fine. So that's more progress. It's very upbeat, some of these stories. Okay, I'm finished. Not really, but I will. Well, in the two seconds I have for it, I just wanted to say a few things. One is Michigan approves an LGBTQ credit union charter. So this is going to be a bank that would be primarily, although anybody can join for LGBTQ people, it'll be opening in 2020. So we can incur as much debt as anybody else. I know. All right. But the really good thing is the founder, Miles Myers, and it's called Superbia, Superbia, and it's maybe Superbia. Anyway, they're gonna give loans for transgender people in the process of transitioning, which is something you might not be able to get at your local bank. Should be covered, by the government. I don't think people should add it with... Really? TD Bank. TD Bank. Oh, and then let's see, Grace and Frankie. Lily Tomlin is 80 this year. And the show is going to go on again with her and Martin Sheen and Sam Waterson and Jane Fonda. It's the longest running show on Netflix. So I really enjoy it in a few... But this is the last season. This is the last season, but you can look at all the back seasons if you want. And congratulations on your birthday, Lily. And on that note. We have an interview. We have an interview. I have things to add. I'd like to add to the Lily Tomlin story that she has revealed to have supported a prominent AIDS activist anonymous layer. The public didn't know about it. Which activist? Of course. We'll tell you next time, Randy's. No, oh, it was. Randy Schultz. Who wrote the show. Yes, Randy Schultz. And the band's name is on. Yes. Yes. And the show... Randy Schultz. Is it Schultz? Yeah. Yeah. Schultz. SHILTS. Yeah, from having met him. Oh, you met him? Yeah. Schultz was in the HBO version of and the band played on. As the San Francisco health officer. And she was definitely the person in charge. Yeah. And remember, so your Lloyd closet that was based on the band played on, right? No, that was based on Vita Russo's book. Right. I'm getting my gay pioneers mixed up. Sorry. Sorry. And now we're gonna have an interview with Keith and Holly Perdue. Yes. So stay tuned. It's not often that you really get to spend time just talking with old friends. But Holly Perdue is decidedly an old friend. And as we were sort of chit chatting before this taping started, we were co-liasons to the governor. In our youth, when we were younger, tighter, firmer and some of us had more hair. Right. But as we were talking, it was apparent that prior to that level of political involvement, there was a lot that was going on in central Vermont. There were things happening in the women's community, things happening in the men's community that as we get older, really need to be acknowledged before there's no one who forgets. Right. Who remembers, excuse me. So you came to Vermont, you said in 1982? Yes. And you chose to come to Vermont for a relationship? I did. And that was a good thing at the time? It was a good thing at the time, for a short time, yeah. Okay. And when you first got here, was there a lesbian community in central Vermont to which you could have access? Oh, sure. And when I came here and the person I moved up to be with, she'd already been active in the women's center, which was above the, above on in-rear sports. Okay. And there were women's dances in Plainfield. Above. Oh, above the Grange. Which is now the co-op. Co-op, okay. Yeah. Yeah, which was above the co-op. There are dances there. I knew and met the lesbian separatist community. So if there were women who were pretending to be straight and lived with somebody else, I didn't really know them. But when I moved here, we had parties and things. Okay, so there was a social component where you spent time with other lesbians. The separatist community, was there activism that was happening with that community or just how they self-identified and chose to stay with each other? Well, I understand that there was activism around violence against women because there was talk about something called Gentian Blue and painting men's penises who had violated women. Okay. I knew some of the women who talked about it, but I never knew any of the men who were painting. Okay. But there were men who got painted. I believe so. Well-deserved as we hear giggles from the peanut gallery. They want to help now. Okay. And then there was lesbians of Vermont and women of the woods. Did they happen around the same time or did one sort of predate the other? I know we're over 60 now, so it takes us longer too. I think that women of the woods might have predated lesbians of Vermont a little bit. Okay. But there was also the battered women's networks that the lesbians ran. Which is now the Vermont network against domestic and sexual violence. Well, it was first the Shelter House project, and then women's, I don't know what it was. Hotlines and safe houses. Yes. Women of the woods. Yeah. I think that's... Women of the woods, yeah. Well, at first it was called the Lesbian Social Network because many of our members were teachers and we sent out a newsletter. The newsletter could not sit on their coffee tables in case somebody came to visit them and knew and figured out then that they were lesbians. So after the first couple meetings, the teachers brought it to our attention that we should change the name to something less obvious. So we changed it to women of the woods. And you were the contact for that. Oh, yeah. And I recall an old story of a letter being delivered to your home that merely said lesbian, Worcester, Vermont. Yeah, and there were 17 of us in town at the time, so. The North Hampton of Vermont. Right. So women of the woods was the genesis for a social gathering, a political gathering, or just to create a network within the women's community so you didn't feel so isolated. Right. It was someone I knew was going through a divorce from another woman and needed, wanted a social network. So I opened up my Rolodex and we sent out postcards. No, we wouldn't have been postcards because that would have been too obvious. So we sent out letters to people inviting them to an event. And I don't even remember what the event, the first event was. If I'm hearing correctly, a lot of networking within the women's community was by virtue of those Rolodexes. Yes. Not just yours, but the next person along the line. Yes. In that during some of the days of activism, you'd pick up the phone and start a phone call and wait to see the ripple effect and where it ended up. Right, yeah, we knew, I mean, I knew if I called somebody down in Bennington that she would activate the tree down in Bennington. That was the civil rights bill, not lesbian, it was women of the woods. But... Okay, women of the woods did an event that always intrigued me. Which one? Always a bridesmaid. Yeah, always a bridesmaid. And how did that come about? Because I remember visiting and seeing pictures of you all on the stairwell that was at Moonstorm at that point in time. In our beautiful dresses. Exactly. And Sarah came in a dress that her mother had worn when her mother left on her honeymoon after her brides, after her wedding. She spit into it. We were all amazed. Okay, so this was literally all of the times that you all had to be bridesmaids for other people's families. And here you were just wearing them for this evening of just fun. Well, you pay hundreds of dollars for these things. You have to get more than one use out of them. You don't get to rent them like to see those. Right. So how many years did that happen? Oh, six or eight probably. Probably at my house because we used to have a staircase that came down from the second into a big. You still got pictures? Yeah, I'm sure we do have pictures. They're beautiful. I may want to look at them at some point. Yeah, well, we look so virginal because we were so young. I have no comment on that. Moonstone or Farm? Yeah, Moonstone, yeah. Is actually known on a national basis because some of the work that you've done relative to queer families. Oh, yeah. And working on some adoption reform here in Vermont. Being an adoptive parent yourself. Of how many children? 11. And I found an old quote where then SRS, which is now the Department of Children and Families would come looking for you when they had special needs kids. Yes, they did. So was that really common within the queer family community that special needs kids were the people you were bringing in? Or was that just your personal skill? These are the easy questions. I don't know that that's an easy question because when we were adopting, there were not a lot of other lesbians out there adopting. I mean, there was a couple up in Burlington who adopted internationally from India. But locally, people were not adopted. Adopting older children. We were, I mean, back then when we first started, we were like the first, I think, to adopt older children outwardly, you know, except that that's not a true statement. Our social worker here in Vermont knew that we were lesbians. But the social workers of the sending states just thought that, well, it was said in our home study that Sherry was this nice woman who lived with this woman who adopted all of these children. Which was really an odd thing. Who had a degree in brain trauma, correct? I do. Yeah. Yes, but I mean, we got our special needs adults first because the woman I was living with who's not the current woman wanted to birth a child. And I said, we should do foster care. And then this specialized foster care program came up and we got Bonnie. Well, we had two regular foster kids before that. Okay, but you've been in the forefront in other ways you were saying that some of the sending states didn't realize that this was a lesbian couple household. So you might have come as a bit of a surprise to the state of Mississippi. Oh, well, the state of Mississippi, he was an infant. You adopted an infant from Mississippi. Right, he was just an infant and we got him as- And finalized the adoption here. Yeah, we finalized all of our adoptions here. We did not finalize any of them in the sending states. Most of the states we got children from are sodomy states. You wanna explain? I told somebody that once and they didn't know what a sodomy state was. I thought, really? You're like a 30-something lesbian and you don't know what a sodomy state is. Sodomy laws had to do with prohibited sexual practices which were essentially specific to the queer community. Right, but- And there was originally a court case that said states could legislate this. And then finally a Supreme Court decision that said, no, you can't. But when we got Taliesin as an infant, he's 22 now, but when we got his, they did not wanna issue us a birth certificate with both our names on it. So we sued them and won. But the interesting thing is the judge waited to be re-elected down in Mississippi. That judge waited to be elected. And the same time period that he acknowledged that because we were adopting Taliesin and he was gonna play Little League and he needed a birth certificate to play Little League. But at the same period of time, that same judge issued a new birth certificate of a transgendered person. So that judge waited, we thought he waited a long time and he did wait a long time, but he was waiting to get re-elected because if he got elected- If he issued- If the election was prior to that. He might not have gotten re-elected. So he did it and he said precedent. But before that we got Leo from Virginia. He's 35 now, he came at seven. And that's, I had been calling and speaking to that social worker about a two-year-old little black girl who has that skin condition where you have lighter spots on your skin. The Michael Jackson syndrome. Is that what it is? Well, she hers was legit. Anyways, and she, but they didn't tell me they were looking for a black family. If they had told me they were looking for a black family I would have backed off and not called her every Monday. But she finally said, we found a family for this little girl. Would you be interested in a little black, a little seven-year-old boy? And I said, who is he and what's he about? And she started describing him and I said send me his information. And his information was dire. I mean, he'd been born at a pound and a half. He didn't speak. He didn't learn to walk till he was five. He wasn't toilet-trained. But they sent a picture near the spark of the devil in his eye. So I said, sure. He still does. Yes. And I, so I, they asked in August. They said, we're gonna bring him up in September. And they said, can you send us a video of your family so he can see it and know where he's coming to? I said, sure. It dawned on them that we were lesbians. Well, this is Virginia. So they said, we have a black family interested in him, but they're going on vacation for two weeks. And I was like, yeah, right. Well, I was very polite to her. But anyways, I said, okay. And so when they finally brought him up in October, they said, we're bringing him up as a foster child, not a foster to adopt a child. And I said, oh, you flew him all this way for that. In February, the school district sent them a bill for his services and they couldn't finalize fast enough. So we're in our last minute and we're down to our last minute. Yeah. Do you have a sense that Vermont's sense of activism, men and women working together, based upon your experience, this is something we can achieve? You got 30 seconds? Sure. Some people can. I don't know. I haven't been out active in the community. I have too many children right now who have issues that I just don't get out to be social. So with that, I say thank you. You're welcome. Thank you so much to go home and hopefully Ema has cooked dinner for you. Oh no, I've got Tai Chi tonight. This is my adult night out. Well, that was great. We'll have to have her on again. Yeah. Well, there was so much of actual Central Vermont organizing in history that we didn't get to that. We still have to do the larger statewide and we can. And do we have trivia? We didn't mention the trivia at the beginning of the show. So it may be good because we really don't have time for it now. So I've got a question and wait for you for next time. Okay, trivia next time. Well, then I have another anecdote. What? Let me just hog the camera. We have 56 seconds. Epipole of Kristen Stewart. When I started my career as an academic, a heterosexual mentor said you can't be open. You're not gonna get anywhere. But my lesbian mentor said, well, you gotta be open if you can do this. Might this be something we could talk about in a third anniversary interview? Yeah. Perhaps. Perhaps. You may be disclosing more information than you intended. Oh, I have much more to tell. And we held hands, didn't we? What's that? We held hands while you were in graduate school. We held hands. Yes. Yes, we did. I get it. I get it. Okay. All right. Good. Never mind. On that note, remember to resist.