by Renee McGuinness, Vermont Family Alliance

Correction: VFA is deeply sorry to announce that we learned VTDigger was not included on VFA’s media contact list this legislative session. It is incorrect for us to state VTDigger failed to publish VFA’s commentaries: VFA failed to send them to VTDigger. Renee McGuinness reached out to Sarah Mearhoff and asked her to correct the record regarding VFA’s mission prior to submitting the original commentary. Mearhoff did not respond. Following is a corrected commentary.

VTDigger has presented a very biased perspective on gender-affirming industry ‘shield laws,’ H.89 and S.37, which Governor Scott signed into law on May 10.

Sarah Mearhoff’s article Phil Scott Signs Landmark Reproductive Shield Bills Into Law reads like a press release for Planned Parenthood of Northen New England, and mischaracterizes Vermont Family Alliance (VFA) as an anti-abortion group. Vermont Family Alliance is a parental rights and minor protections advocacy group. All VFA’s testimonies to Committees on H.89 and S.37 address the so-called “gender-affirming care” aspects of both bills, which Mearhoff failed to consider.

Digger repeatedly presented the false notion that anyone who disagrees with treating minors with dangerous cross-sex hormones and mutilation surgeries is denying transgender rights and relied upon anecdotal statements and baseless endorsements from medical organizations and lobbyists, not on scientific studies. This is not investigative journalism. 

Mearhoff provided a quote from Lucy Leriche, Planned Parenthood of Northern New England’s Vice President of Vermont Public Affairs, yet failed to reach out to VFA for comment. Statements from Vermont Right to Life Committee and Pregnancy Resource Centers are also noticeably absent.

VTDigger is a journalism trust that claims it is a news organization “in pursuit of truth” that reports “without fear or favor”, and whose mission is, “to produce rigorous journalism that explains complex issues, promotes public accountability and fosters democratic and civic engagement.”

Digger, along with legislators, failed to serve Vermonters by intentionally ignoring perspectives from VFA, a grassroots group of Vermont citizens and constituents that provided rigorous studies on the negative outcomes of so-called gender-affirming care, and declining input from both experts with dissenting points-of-view and patients harmed by so-called gender-affirming care.

VTDigger has failed to fulfill its mission on the issues of gender ideology, so-called gender-affirming care, and all aspects of H.89 and S.37 ‘shield laws.’