BRATTLEBORO — HB Lozito recalls living in a big city out West when memories began to bubble of a small-town childhood back East.
Lozito appreciated the freedom that the San Francisco Bay Area offered someone who uses the word "queer" with pride and "they" as a singular pronoun. But the concrete metropolis didn't have the more grounded moments of the thirty-something's birthplace in Maine.
"I had been living in a very large population of LGBTQ people, but it also felt important to be somewhere rural," Lozito recounted recently. "I wanted to have both of those things, together."
Vermont - the first state in the nation to adopt same-sex civil unions, in 2000, and full marriage rights by a legislative vote, in 2009 - seemed to be the answer. Yet a move to Brattleboro a decade ago initially sparked a question.
"I was saying to myself, 'I know there are queer people here, but where are they?'"
Today, Lozito is executive director of Out in the Open, a nonprofit working to connect rural LGBTQ+ New Englanders through programs ranging from social events and support groups to an annual summit that has drawn a national crowd.
"Members of the LGBTQ community who are in some really rural parts of Vermont might feel like they're the only person in their town or county," Lozito said in an interview. "We're here to support you. You're not alone."
As an affirmation, the Vermont Community Foundation has selected Lozito to receive the 2023 Con Hogan Award for creative, entrepreneurial, community leadership.
"Lozito has been instrumental not only in creating safe and thriving places for rural LGBTQ+ people but also in building long-term visibility, knowledge and power in the community," the selection committee said in a statement. "They have helped redefine what it means to be queer and live rurally."
The $15,000 annual prize is named for the late Con Hogan, a Vermont public policy maker who served in both Democratic and Republican administrations before his death in 2018. The award recognizes people who are following in his footsteps by working collaboratively on shared goals.
Growing up in Maine, Lozito was an elementary student when their mother presented an anti-sweatshop fashion show "that really got me interested in organizing."
Lozito moved to the West Coast to study environmental studies and politics, and went on to work in Portland, Oregon, and Oakland, California, before moving to Brattleboro in 2011 and joining the nonprofit formerly named Green Mountain Crossroads in 2014.
"People can be so incredibly isolated from each other, especially in rural places," Lozito said. "When you're in a city, you can have a huge party with exactly your own demographics. But for all kinds of reasons, we're not able to do that here."
That, in turn, can bring challenges - and, conversely, a potential path to a bigger community.
"There's fewer of us in general in rural spaces, so there's more opportunity for people to connect in a broader-spectrum way," Lozito said. "It allows us to have different kinds of conversations than we might have if everyone's just sharing a very specific slice of one part of their identity."
People who question why a seemingly progressive paradise like Vermont needs a LGBTQ+ support organization aren't seeing the full picture, the activist said.
"Things are relatively better for some parts of our community, but we've seen a huge rise in negative experiences for trans youth and trans adults. And there are LGBTQ people who are unhoused or undocumented, living with substance use disorder, having a hard time receiving medical care - every kind of experience that people are having in the state."
Named a "Champion of Pride" by The Advocate, Lozito told the national magazine about Out in the Open's launch of a Health Equity & Access for Rural TLGBQ+ (HEART) program to offer peer support for medical appointments, care planning, transportation and insurance haggling.
"I am working for a future where all people have their needs met all of the time," they were quoted as saying.
Lozito is set to be recognized at a public ceremony on Oct. 11 at the Vermont College of Fine Arts in Montpelier, with more information available at the selection committee's website.
The award comes a year after fellow Brattleboro resident Joe Wiah, director of the Ethiopian Community Development Council's refugee resettlement efforts in southern Vermont, received the 2022 Con Hogan prize.
"I think people now are more able to find safety in being out as themselves," Lozito said in anticipation of this year's event. "We've come a long way, but we have a long way to go."
This News item by Kevin O'Connor originally appeared in VtDigger and was republished in The Commons with permission.