 I'm Keith Gosland. I'm Ann Charles. And I'm Linda Quinlan. And I'd like to welcome you to All Things LGBTQ News Show. It is Tuesday, March 23rd. And we're taping in Mount Pylia, Vermont, which we acknowledge as unseated indigenous land. Keith. You did that so well. I know you rehearsed the date. I did. So in acknowledgment of this being Women's History Month, this week's trivia and Ann got it, this was the first lesbian who was elected to the Vermont legislature. And bonus points, if you know the district and the current representative, the precious Anya. So I want to start by acknowledging the passing of a former Vermont lesbian activist. Joy Griffith, who most recently has been living in Massachusetts, has passed over due to complications of Alzheimer's. And why people in Vermont will remember Joy is she stepped in and took over Golden Threads, which was an organization for older lesbians when its founder, Christine Burton, was known. Precomputers. Precomputers. I mean, she edited a newsletter that got mailed out to people. And Joy and her partner, Judith Ross, were united in a civil union on July 1, 2000, the first day that civil unions were an option here in Vermont. And then they subsequently were married when Massachusetts allowed them to do so. And Joy received the first Del Martin Old Lesbian Pride Award for all of her work with Golden Threads. And this was one of the comments that was made in her memory was, the most memorable thing about Joy are her sense of humor, her generosity, her exceptional charisma, and her radiant smile. And her wife, Judith, was with her when she passed over, which was. And I'll just say that we might know the person who officiated for their civil union. So in New Hampshire, Ray Buckley, openly gay man, was just elected to his eighth term as the chair of the State Democratic Party. Good for him. New Hampshire, who would have thought? Looking at New York. And we're going to want to follow this. The New York Senate has just passed S78A, which was a bill sponsored by Senator Brad Holman, out gay man from the Manhattan. This is extending services and programs specifically to LGBTQ plus seniors. So we're going to want to look at what they're doing, how they're doing it, and Mike, we want to model it here. Was it in New York City and that they stopped the cops from, did they pass that bill, do you know? They did, to stop the cops from harassing people. Right. Transgender people in particular. But wasn't that a city ordinance? I think so, yeah. Now, we're going to look at Quebec really quickly, because there was a case that happened recently, and it was called the More Judgment. And this judge was ruling on their civil codes, and specifically the designation of transgender persons. And the attorney general of Quebec is filing an appeal to this judge's decision. And it took a while to really figure out what was happening. But what Judge Moore said is that transgender youth were being held to a different standard, because they had to have a professional provide documentation before they could change gender identifications on any of their documentations. And Judge Moore said this is a different standard than adults, it's discriminatory. Well, the attorney general says that he thinks this is in the best interest of our youth that we require professionals to be involved. So they have filed to appeal the decision and put a stay on it. One of the positive pieces of this that the attorney general is not appealing is they're changing the language for designations of parental relationship and removing mother, father, and putting in a non-gender, non-binary designation. So that was a positive step. So is this a province? I mean, not as controversial. It's not why it is. Yeah, it's not Canada as a whole. This is the province of Quebec. OK. Now here in Vermont, Guilford, Vermont, the estate of Allison and Tom Hanna, they gave $350,000 to the Vermont Community Foundation as part of their estate bequest. Half of it is specifically for the Samara Foundation to go to supporting LGBTQ plus initiatives. Thank you, Allison and Tom. And the last little bit that I've got just because it's fun. And when I come back, I'm going to talk about the town hall forums and some of the highlights of what happened in them. Burlington, Chef Brian Gilger-Sleeve, they had closed down his restaurant because of COVID. So he's done these pop-ups. And he hit on this novel idea, thinking in terms of Chick-fil-A, who we all know how we feel about them. He started a pop-up twice a month. And you can go online and find when and where called Chick-Full Gay. And all of the proceeds go to benefit LGBTQ plus organizations. And he is apparently making some of the best chicken sandwiches in Chittington County. And his most recent pop-up raised over $1,200 for the Pride Center. So thank you. Is he coming down to Washington County? No, we're going to have to go to Chittington. Road trip. Exactly. Well, I have many headlines, starting with two general headlines. Poland? Poland's coming up under Europe. I'm going to talk about this in detail in my first segment. But the number of nations with anti-gay laws drops to 71. And I'll speak specifically about that in my first segment, as I said. And of course, we have to cover the pope. In a setback for gay Catholics, the Vatican says the Church cannot bless same-sex unions. Now, I was raised Catholic. I'm not at all surprised by this. All this talk about Pope Francis being, you know, accepting. So what they say is, it's OK for you to be gay or lesbian or trans, LGBTQ if you're Catholic, as long as you don't act on it. So the congregation for the doctrine of the faith says that this is not intended to be a form of unjust discrimination, but rather a reminder of the truth of the liturgical right. And R-I-G-E. And it's not in this article that I read, but I think they said, we cannot bless sin. It's a sin, yeah. Yeah. So when you said, we have to cover the pope, I was immediately going to yell out, cover him with what? Yeah. Excoriation would be my answer. I was going to say it before. So enough of that. Let's move in. My only African story concerns Namibia, where a gay rights protest is being planned after surrogate babies are denied documents. These two gay men had, through surrogacy, had a child in Durban, South Africa. And the Namibian government won't issue these two twins birth certificate right. So their names are Paula and Maya Delgado-Louis. They were born in Durham. Namibia, as soon as they wanted to go back to Namibia, where one of the husbands is with their two-year-old child, but they can't be granted citizenship by dissent. Of course, if they disregard a birth certificate entirely, they'll be stateless children. So a protest is planned for the 25th of March. If they were born in South Africa, though, wouldn't they have South African citizenship? But they can't go back to Namibia that doesn't recognize same-sex marriage or same-sex relationships or same-sex parenting. Onto Europe. Starting with some good news, Ireland's incredible transformation into an LGBTQ plus haven. As we recall, another Catholicism comes into play here. It used to be very conservative, no divorce, no abortion because of Catholicism. But same-sex partnership has been celebrated. Same-sex marriage became legal in 2015, 2017. Same-sex couples can adopt. Leo Vrothkar was appointed Ireland's first gay head of government in 2018. Vrothkar issued a public apology to members of the LGBTQ community. They should tell this to the Irish grade in St. Patrick's Day and Staten Island. Right, right. But anyway, so good news, Ireland is time to be celebrated. Now let's go to Poland. And a hoo-ha with the European Union. In a preemptive gesture, Poland plans to ban gays from adopting. And they're going to have a little witch hunt. If you're a single parent, they're going to vet you to make sure you're not in the same-sex relationship. But this is kind of a preemptive strike because the EU has voted a little while after they did this to declare the entire EU an LGBT freedom zone. So this is a slap in the face for Poland, Hungary, other hate-mongering countries. And the EU is kind of active in favor of our rights, this news cycle. They've also sanctioned Russia over the rights abuses in Chechnya. And this is the strongest sanction that the EU has issued against the senior official of the Russian Internal Affairs Ministry in Chechnya and the deputy prime minister of the Chechnya region for repressions directed against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex persons who belong to presumably LGBTQIA groups. They were wrongly accused of being opponents of Ramzan Karadov. And we've talked about him. He's the leader of Chechnya who says this couldn't be happening because there are no LGBT people in Chechnya. So the EU has issued the strongest sanction yet against these two individuals and by extension the Chechnya government. Now, good news from Asia. Legal experts launched China's first nonprofit foundation dedicated to offering legal aid to the LGBTQ community. And this person who started this foundation began his LGBTQ human service work by arguing against an inclusion in Chinese textbooks of lesbian and gay lifestyles as mental disorders. So he's become involved in a larger effort. They wanted to start a nonprofit in China. He had some legal experts who are colleagues because people are sympathetic. A lot of people want to support LGBTQ rights in China and don't know where to go. So they've got this organization that they founded. So this founder first challenged a Chinese college textbooks description of homosexuality as a mental disorder. More good news from Asia, if I may. Japan court rules failure to recognize same-sex marriage unconstitutional. And I have a picture before you now of supporters outside the Sapporo District Court. And they're holding a sign that reads, the ruling is a big step forward for marriage equality. It's in Japanese, so that's the translation. It's unconstitutional. This is the first ruling on marriage equality that's been favorable in Japan. And Japan is the only G7 nation not to have same-sex marriage. And the suit asks for damages to be paid to the plaintiffs who are arguing for financial recompense. Nevertheless, it's a really important gesture. And in the account I read, it chronicled how LGBT, how Japan is commercially suffering from this ban against same-sex marriage. The US has condemned it. And the American Chamber of Commerce issued a statement saying that Japan's stance makes it, hurts it competitively on the international market. A number of companies have taken their own steps to work around the situation, such as the Osaka-based Panasonic, but there are limits. I think they'll come around. I think so, but get going, Japan. They just take it. So more good news and pictures. Bangladesh TV has hired the country's first transgender news anchor. And here's a picture of her. Tashinuva Anan Shishir. She's 29. And you can see her broadcasting. She delivered a segment. She had worked as a rights activist. And she delivered her first segment on Monday, which was International Women's Day. And she read a three-minute news bulletin and burst out crying. And the whole set applauded. So it was very festive there. She's had a difficult time. She said the worst was when her father stopped speaking to her. When she came out as transgender, she moved to Dakar. I'm sorry, not Dakar, Dhaka. She moved to Dhaka and ended up begging for part of her time. So Bangladesh is making a lot of gestures toward the transgender movements. And the first Islamic school was opened in November for the Bangladeshi transgender community. So more good news from Asia. Pakistan's first transgender-only Madrasa breaks barriers. And I have a picture now before you of Rana Khan, Rani Khan 32. And it shows her reading the Quran at Pakistan's first transgender-only school that she herself set up. She also experienced a lot of discrimination. And she studied the Quran at home, but opened a two-room Madrasa in October. I'm teaching the Quran to please God, to make my life here and in the hereafter, she said, explaining how the school offered a place for transgender people to worship, learn about Islam, and repent for past actions. Now, as we know, Pakistan recognized the third gender in 2018, giving transgender people fundamental rights, such as the ability to vote and choose their own gender on official documents. Nevertheless, the transgender community remains on the margins, often having to resort to begging, prostitution, and dancing. Pakistan's 2017 census recorded about 10,000 transgender people through trans-right, though trans-right groups say the number could now be well over 300,000 in a country of 220 million. So very exciting news from Asia. And now let's move to Linda with some national news. Well, the movie The World to Come has an unspoken lesbian theme. Catherine Watterson and co-star Vanessa Kirby found the economy of language of love in the new LGBTQ themed film. The movie takes place in 1856 in the midst of loneliness with her husband in despair over the death of a child. A neighbor moves next door, bringing companionship, lively conversation, and passion. So we might want to see that. Where can we see it? Well, I don't really know. I think it didn't really say where it was playing, but I'm sure if you look it up, it will be somewhere. Either on Amazon or HBO or someplace. Fort Lauderdale honors LGBT church, and the gay mayor is under attack. Mayor Dean Trentollis, anti-LGBT church, yeah, yeah, yeah. Mayor Dean Trentollis and the Lauderdale City Commission presented a proclamation honoring the church and school founded by anti-LGBTQ minister D. James Kennedy. The proclamation designates a Sunday in March as Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church Day. Anti-Gay Florida activists say that, oh, and on the same day they got the proclamation, the minister said that same-sex marriage is like marrying a Volkswagen. How strange. No, this comment came from Frank Wright of the D. James Kennedy Ministries, and he was nice enough to say that after Fort Lauderdale honored the church. Isn't that a strange thing to say? I know. Coral Ridge Ministry years ago put me on their aid list, their evil list for my HIV AIDS activism. Well, you should have been honored. The owner of South Beach Palace Restaurant in Bar says Miami officials should have been better prepared for the spring break crowds. In February, he said, in his LGBTQ bar and restaurant, he began to see intoxicated guests ordering hundreds of dollars of food and drink and then walking out without paying. Donal, the owner of the bar and restaurant, knew this was going to be a different kind of a year. He doesn't support the actions by the Miami police, though, who arrived to disperse crowds at a curfew that had been just set up, like I guess a week before, with military vehicles and assault weapons. The city should have planned better, and they should have known what would happen. So that was his perspective. The Ellen Show seems to be losing millions of viewers and revenue, reports of misconduct and cozying up with warmongering George W. Bush and her softball interview with Kevin Hart has apparently hurt her. What happened in the softball interview with Kevin Hart? Well, he's an anti-LGBTQ dude. And she just lost half her viewers. Dozens rally in Montana against the anti-LGBTQ bills that are in legislature there. They gather in the steps of the state capital in Helena to urge others to join in contacting their representatives about voting against LGBTQ legislation. They waived rainbow flags and signs. So if you're there, you might want to join that group. There weren't too many of them, although Montana's not very big, I guess. And then Seattle has an expansive and a year in the Making AIDS Memorial. And I have a photo of that. The pathway extends through several blocks of Capitol Hill neighborhood, which is the LGBTQ neighborhood in Seattle, and will incorporate art as well. Ellen Page shows, Elliott Page shows a joy on the cover of Time magazine. And a trans woman, Diamond Keire Sanjas, was killed in a robbery in Cincinnati, Ohio. She was 23. And then I'll just do this and then come back for more later. Representative Gregg Stope spoke during a debate on the Equality Act, and quoted from the Bible, and said that the rejection of God's design of complementary sexes offends God. Sounds like the Pope. Yeah. Yeah, well, they all hang. So the LGBTQIA Alliance of Vermont completed the Town Hall Forum statewide caucus. And on April 1, all of the member organizations, the facilitators, the organizers, are going to do a formal debriefing. And there will be an official document that will be forthcoming. And anyone who participated in any of the forums will be getting a copy of this. And part of the conversation is to look at, what were the issues that were raised, and how we as an LGBTQ plus network, both social organization and political, are committing to responding to what people brought up as issues, and what they saw as being the needs, what the initiatives that we should be bringing forward. In of interest, there were 261 participants, which I don't think is a bad sampling. No. From all over the state of Vermont. And we had some from out of state who were either ex-patriots or individuals who were looking at moving to Vermont and wanted to get a sense of, OK, what's the most frequent comment from people was they truly appreciated the affinity space, that this was LGBTQ plus forums created by the LGBTQ plus community, specifically for LGBTQ plus Vermaturs. But looking at some of the themes that came out relative to health justice, top of the list was lack of intersectional training for health care professionals, LGBTQ plus BIPOC, and that there needs to be a commitment that this is not a cursory one and done. This needs to be embedded in their training, and it needs to be mandatory. Also looking at creating lists so we can see who are the supportive providers, both physical mental health addiction services, and that there be a better and faster response to reports of either malpractice or discrimination, and that those be publicly accessible, that we can go in and look at them. And then associated with health justice was transportation. How do we get from a rural area to appointments and looking at insurance? What are the things that are not covered and how is insurance being provided to our communities? Looking at housing, they supported Linda's idea that we need some LGBTQ plus specific housing, but they went even further. They were saying that queer, trans, BIPOC, new Americans should be a part of and considered when any housing initiative is being undertaken. Are our needs being included? Are they looking at not only creating shared space, but space that may be specifically our own? Particularly looking at the indigenous community, people of color, why am I not entitled to a space that I can call my communities? And then looking at funding and support and ensuring that all levels of income get included. And ages too, wasn't that part? Multigenerational. Multigenerational, multi-income are some of the key components for a successful housing development that is able to be funded and sustained. I mean, you may have some funding to start up, but what is maintaining the facility on an ongoing basis? Rural queerness. And this was a fun topic. And people were saying, all of the others come together for this. We like living out in the hinterlands. But what does it take to support it? The sort of the village model of there's a support network in place, that there is transportation, that there are events, such as the town hall forums, where we get to come together. And it's actually one of the positive side effects of COVID is we've learned how to do Zoom. So that some of that sense of social isolation has been decreased. But now we've got to get broadband out there. So people aren't relying on maybe an old dial landline phone to make connection. And I think we should keep up some of this after, hopefully, when the pandemic's over, we should keep up some of our Zoom stuff in order to stay in touch with people all over the state. Looking at organizations both within and outside of the LGBTQ plus community, that's what people are talking about. I mean, even our legislature is talking about that even after they can start meeting in person again, they're going to want to keep those Zooms functionality so that people can go in and see what a committee is doing. Our youth said that we need to put some more teeth into Act 1, the social and equity standards. We need real curriculum. We need people who are representative. We need people from within those communities to be actively involved in the teaching and the implementation. We need safe space for our youth. And we need faculty that will take the anti-harrisment statutes seriously and actually do something. So AJ, we need some affordable housing. We need support networks for aging in place. And we need those people who are service providers to have training. And it goes back to the all levels of service providing need that intersectional training, specifically looking at LGBTQ seniors. And as I close, the probably hottest forum was on racial justice. And as we were talking about before we started taping, where the forum ended up as where it really should have started. And there was an IPOC caucus and a White People's Caucus. And one of the comments that was made when we came back into the larger group and started talking about, OK, so what was the conversation like in each caucus? There was a member of the White Caucus who said, well, why are you not posting and telling us what you talked about in the BIPOC caucus? To which the response was, why do you have to be everywhere? Don't we deserve space that is our own registry? And then the comment came back looking at the people from the White Caucus saying, OK, so where is your action plan? What are you going to do to work on the issue of racial inequity? And people sort of stumbled and came back with the, well, I don't want to do something that would be offensive or not really be supportive to which the members of the BIPOC community aptly responded with. So your embarrassment is more important than our lives. And there was no real conclusion to that forum. It was an open conversation and an acknowledgement of traditionally we put the onus of racial equality on the BIPOC community. Oh, this is work you need to do versus looking at what is it that we from within the dominant White community need to do to create room, support voices, and how do we get out of the way and name racism when it happens for what it is? And my comment, as I've shared with you, is as a cisgendered white man, I really do need to own how my privilege is based on the oppression of others, that my white privilege is the direct result of racial equality. And how uncomfortable am I willing to be to ensure that there is true inclusion and equity? Well, one of the comments from the notes that you shared with me was, I think, very pertinent. After the conferences, after the reading, after white-handering, what are you going to do? Exactly. What will you undertake to, quote, add enriching in different contexts? Exactly. We don't want to hear about your guilt. We don't want to hear, what are you going to do? Exactly. And that's going to be very interesting to see what comes out of this meeting on April 1st. I mean, that line of add enrich, what will you undertake? Exactly. Rings in all different contexts, certainly including this for white people. Exactly. OK, let's go to the progress in the number of nations with anti-gay laws dropping to 71. The world is continuing its slow march toward full recognition of the importance of the human rights of LGBTQ people. With last month's repeal of the anti-sotomy law in the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, which I mentioned, the number of countries with anti-LGBTQ laws dropped to 71, down from 92 early in this century. Wow. Countries that recently repealed or overturned such laws include Bhutan, 2021, Gabon, 2020, repealing a law that had existed for only one year, Angola, 2019, a vote taking effect in 2021, Botswana, 2019, India, 2018, Trinidad and Tobago, 2018, Belize, 2016, Seychelles, 2016, Nauru, 2016, Mozambique, 2015, Palau, 2014, Sao, Tomei, and Principe, 2014. Now heading in the other direction, Chad adopted a new anti-gay law in 2017. Multiple court challenges aimed to continue the decriminalization trend. Three men in Singapore are awaiting an appeals court decision on their coordinated challenge to the nation's anti-homosexuality law. This month, Jamaican Canadian activist Maurice Tomlinson has been in court arguing to overturn Jamaica's laws against same-sex intimacy. He gained support from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which declared last month that the country's buggery laws should be repealed immediately because they violate the human rights of sexual minorities and deny them unimpeded access to health care. That sounds like a British term, but it must be buggery. Oh, totally. Other Caribbean activists are preparing or have already filed lawsuits, and I've reported on many of these. Challenging the buggery and indecency laws in Barbados, St. Kitts, and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, and San Lucia. At the same time, the Privy Council in London is weighing appeals to accept marriages of same-sex couples in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. This is a familiar tale. Those cases could serve as a precedent for both marriage laws and criminal laws in more than a dozen other former and current British colonies. So things are improving, although gradually. Now, if I have time, I'd like to expatiate a little bit on this parliament vote in the EU to declare LGBT freedom zones of the whole EU. It's overwhelmingly adopted a resolution declaring the entire 27-member EU a freedom zone for LGBTQ people. An effort to push back on the rising homophobia in, you guessed it, Poland and elsewhere. The parliament announced Thursday that there were 492 ballots in favor of the resolution and 141 against in a vote that came after a debate in a session of parliament in Brussels on Wednesday. The resolution came largely in reaction to developments over the past two years in Yes, Poland, where many communities have adopted largely symbolic resolutions declaring themselves free of what conservative authorities have been calling LGBT ideology. The resolution is the work of a cross-party group in the European Parliament, the LGBTI group. The text refers to growing hate speech by public authorities, elected officials, including by the current president of Poland. But does it have any teeth? Well, it's just. You know, that's the question, right? I mean, you can say all you want, but if you're not going to like. Correct the whip. Yeah, throw them out of the EU or something. That's what I'd like to see. Sanctions. It also mentions that discrimination remains a problem across the EU. The resolution said that the fundamental rights of LGBT people have also been severely hindered recently in Hungary due to a de facto ban on gender recognition for transgender and intersex people. It also notes that only two member states, Malta and Germany, have banned conversion therapy, a controversial and potentially harmful attempt to change a person's sexual orientation. And on a related note, three members of an advisory board in Great Britain have resigned because the action on conversion therapy to ban it has been so slow in moving. And a functionary said, well, we want to end conversion therapy, but not by legislation. So these three ministers resigned. And Liz Truss, who's in charge of it, said, oh, no, we're going to ban it by legislation. So maybe the three people who resigned will come back. They don't know. But slow movement. So good news and bad news. I can talk more, but why don't we go on to Linda, who's got a clip. Yes. And if we have any time, we can get back to you. Oh, I have lots more. Just guss and detail. Well, let me do this clip while we still have time. And then we'll chat on for a couple of minutes. The show, and I don't know how to pronounce this, and Wona Rovitz. Wanya Rovitz. Yes. And here's the movie trailer. It's a movie about rage and resistance. And so let's take a look at this clip. I've never really seen myself as a photographer. I don't see myself as a filmmaker. I don't see myself as an artist. Yet I know I'm an artist. So what I've always found extraordinary about Wanya Rovitz's work was that he's someone who's cared intimately about the status of the outsider in American culture, but also the status of the outsider more generally. Wanya Rovitz was one of the most outspoken artists of his generation. He was a person living with HIV, a person living with AIDS at a time when government neglect was rampant. And people were dying because of that neglect. I know that I'm compelled to make things. It's a compulsion to make things that make sense in my life that makes me feel relieved about the experience of living, of the experience of this world. You see it in the text of the writing that's literally in the work. You see it in the searing colors and the content that he's contending with in the work. I mean, the first things that were happening to me, I felt welcomed into his anger. I think people like to talk about the rage that is in his work and that he expressed himself in those very terms. But for me, there was always this kind of hope that was also coupled with that just because of the depth of his articulation. I think there's this component of empathy in the work, this idea that here is someone who is making work at a time of crisis. Obviously, the AIDS crisis figures largely in the work that it makes towards the end of his life. But the work is always both about him and also about the world outside of himself. Well, that's pretty good. It's fabulous. It's not playing anywhere that I can see. And I'll check your local listings is what it says. But we heard we want to exhibit of his at the new Whitney a couple of years ago. He was a fabulous cutting edge artist who died of AIDS and documented it graphically in his art and in his writing, so I'm sure the clip demonstrates. And Amazon decides not to sell books that frame LGBTQ identity as a mental illness. That's great. Yeah. And then the lamb, the lambies. Lambdas. Lambdas will be June 1st. And I know AM looks forward to this. I've listed the contenders in fiction. And that is all. So if you're interested in getting more information, you need to go to linteliterary.org. Any poets we know included on the list? No. We're boycotting them. Well, but you know who is nominated is Juliana Delgada-Lopera. Her book came out earlier, but somehow she's been nominated. You've got her favorite tropical. Yeah, it's on here as a nomination. Right. So that's the exciting news. Bestiary by Kate Ming-Cheng, Better Honey, Pig Bread, by Francesca Ekwuzasi, Exile Music by Jennifer Steele, Fayebree Tropical, by Julie Delgado, and Pizza- Lopera. Juliana. Yeah. Pizza Girl by Jean Frazier. And so if you want to see the full list, please just go to lambdaliterary.org. And on March 29th, between 4 and 5.30, the University of Massachusetts and Clark University Women and Gender Studies program are sponsoring a panel discussion. Discussion will be on how trans leaders are hoping to make future progress during the Biden administration on discrimination and violence against trans people. Registration is required. Some featured speakers will include Kyla Broadus, the Director of People of Color Coalition, and Sasha Bouchart, a senior attorney at Lambda Legal. So you can register at tinyurl. And just as a quick reminder, I'd like to remind people to sign up and watch the Queer Connect Lesbian Story Hour on Facebook. They have weekly readings by lesbian authors. And a woman I interviewed, who is the founder of Lesbian Story Hour, Kay Acker, her book is coming out on March 18th. And it is called Leaving Is Not the Only Way to Go. And for my last, I'm going to have a fun thing, which is a picture of the police vehicles in Wilton Manors, Florida. And on the cars, it has rainbow of colors. You can see it. And on the side of the car, a police car says policing with pride. So check out that. Isn't the entire city government LGBTQ plus? Yeah. Yeah. And so these are their police cars. So I think that's a good way to end that segment. So do you have a story before we go to trivia? Yeah. I'd like to add a couple of things to the Vatican story of interest, perhaps. OK. Like what we're going to cover the pope with? 1.3 billion people belong to the Catholic Church. Do you believe that? But here's the thing, someone made a really interesting comment about the Catholic Church and how really Europeans and Americans, and we've all been lost to the Catholic Church, was lost. Their biggest congregations are now in Africa and South America. And so that's where they are now focusing a lot of this discrimination in a way to please these sort of countries that are of more importance to them than the United States or Europe. Well, this is what Western Europe approved of gay marriage, Catholics in Western Europe and the US, of course, while the majority in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Bloc countries oppose gay marriage. Churches in Africa and Asia also strongly oppose it. It doesn't mention Latin America, but that's pretty conservative, although the pope hails originally from Argentina, as we know. Yeah. So they're really pandering to that whole group of anti-LGBT groups. It's the same geographic regions that the evangelical right is going to, where they're sending all of their missionaries. And I say that once they're there, they can keep them. Yeah. Don't send them back. We don't want them. Exactly. OK. So trivia. I'm going to put the pressure on Anne. Oh, no. First lesbian elected to the Vermont legislature was Suzy Wizawati, who served in the House from 2009 to 2015. And she knew that. She did, because she had interviewed Suzy. Suzy represented District Chittenden 6-5. Does that sound familiar? The same one is. Lippert. Taylor. No. Bill Lippert. No. No, that's. The current representative is Tiffany Blumow, who someone may have interviewed. That's right. That's right. Yeah. So with that, well, hang in there, everybody. And remember to resist.