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by Renee McGuinness
Wednesday afternoon, our DeTransition Awareness Day informational event was shut down by the State House Sergeant at Arms, Agatha Kessler, five minutes into the event, under the pretense that she did not have the authority to quell a group of LGBTQ+ activist disrupters (allegedly from Rainbow Bridge Community Center), unless they became violent. Less than 24 hours later, Vermont State and House Democrats released a statement that mischaracterized our event as an “attack” on the transgender community.
DeTrans Awareness Day is an international, annual educational event held on March 12 to bring awareness to Detransitioners. Their website states, “Some say that detransition is very rare. Others refuse to acknowledge that we exist. We want all to see that we are a group that is rapidly growing. Our unique health care needs are ignored by the same professionals that were eager to medicalize us. We are not going to hide in the shadows. We deserve ethical medical treatment.”
SPEAK VT and Vermont Family Alliance collaborated to host a state DeTrans Awareness Day event in Vermont in State House Room 11, for which we received approval for use by the Office of the Sergeant at Arms on February 19. Our event was advertised and many Vermont residents showed up for this informational event.
How can Democrats claim our event was an “attack” on the transgender community when the event was not allowed to take place? How can our message be condemned when we were not allowed to speak?
One disrupter was turning our display signs around as we were setting up, which made us wary of setting up our computer equipment to showcase videos of DeTransitioner Chloe Cole’s testimony to Congress and Dr. Az Hakeem’s success in reducing the number of persons who regret transitioning through group therapy.
Democrats claim in their statement, Vermont Senate and House Democrats Reject Today’s Attacks on Transgender Community, that, “Vermont has long stood for the values of freedom, fairness, and respect for all people. These values demand that we recognize and support the rights of transgender and nonbinary Vermonters to live openly, safely, and with the same access to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as anyone else. Attempts to use one person’s private experiences as a tool to infringe upon the rights of others are not only misguided but dangerous.”
Vermont Family Alliance and SPEAK VT counter that we had many resources to share, some containing the testimonies of MANY DeTransitioners, not just one person’s experience. Furthermore, we believe that Vermont House and Senate Democrats are refusing to acknowledge the pain, suffering, and regret of the DeTrans Community, thus denying them their rights to health care, to live safely, openly, to live freely and to pursue happiness.
What really happened in Room 11 on Wednesday, March 12?
SPEAK VT and Vermont Family Alliance worked peacefully to present information to people in attendance, while Transgender Community Activists intended to cause public inconvenience and annoyance by disturbing a lawful meeting of persons with loud noises and the potential implied threat of confiscation or damage to our materials and equipment due to their actions, in violation of Title 13 : Crimes and Criminal ProcedureChapter 019 : Breach of the Peace; Disturbances
Here is a four-minute interview with me sharing my perspective of the disruption and the intentions for the event: Event Organizer explains what happened and what disruptive protesters prevented her from saying.
Do Vermont House and Senate Democrats condone this type of law-breaking, disruptive behavior inside the State House?
The author, an Addison County resident, is the Vermont Family Alliance Policy Analyst.
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Categories: Commentary
So the party of peace and tolerance strikes again. If Republicans did this, cries of Jan. 6 would be heard. I guess it’s OK when the shoe is on the other foot.
One person’s civil rights protest is another’s insurrection…if not for double-standards, progressives would have no standards at all.
The choice to weave and dodge around the Truth of a matter does not minimize or eliminate the facts of said matter. The idea that shutting one down or shutting one up will make it all go away is a fools folly. So, let the fools continue their windsock dancing into obscurity and eternal oblivion. They are not winning – that is why they are wailing and flailing – desparate to remain relevent and exerting control through bully tactics and gaslighting.
Shakespeare said it best, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” (Hamlet). Only I think under the circumstances lady should be “lady”.
How about “Vermont Chicken S___ ” ?
Thank you Guy for printing the link in a previous article to the the duties of the Sgt. At Arms which states in part that “The Sergeant at Arms of the Vermont State House is elected by the members of the Legislature and plays an integral role in maintaining order and decorum in the building”. Ms. Kessler failed in her attempt (?) to inforce “order, and decorum, and deserves to have her future as Sgt. At Arms questioned, given her failure in judgement in regards to this incident. If she did this intentionally knowing that those who rightfully reserved the venue would be challenged to a point where the event could become a safety issue, and the event would have to be closed down, her ability to run the day to day events in an unbiased way, her reasons for wanting to be Sgt. At Arm should be brought into question, and an investigation of her ability, and/or her intent in taking the job should be questioned .
Libel lawsuit?