BRATTLEBORO-Bullying is a distinctive pattern of repeatedly and deliberately harming and humiliating others, specifically those who are smaller, weaker, younger, or in any way more vulnerable than the bully. It's the power imbalance that marks it as bullying, according to Psychology Today.
With that in mind, it is interesting to wonder why a political party would seek to demonize a tiny 0.9% of the population - those people who identify as transgender - in order to seek power. Or to threaten the hard-won rights of another 5.5% of the population who identify as something other than heterosexual.
Yet this is the world that we see right now with the election of Donald J. Trump as president again. This is a man who organized his campaign around attacking the most vulnerable people in the United States, including refugees, disabled people, women, older Americans and, especially, trans and gay people.
"The ascendency of Donald Trump to his second presidency is fraught with anxiety and fear for many Americans, particularly gay Americans," wrote Michael Bronski in The Guardian recently.
"Books with queer themes are already being removed from school and public libraries. Trans people are being denied the right to use bathrooms or be on sports teams that align with their gender," he continued.
No fewer than 22 Republican-controlled states have enacted restrictions on medical care for transgender people, and GOP lawmakers have introduced more than 80 bills in state legislatures and federally. The Republicans have also set their sights on eradicating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, which benefit LGBTQIA+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, with the plus sign representing other non-straight identities) people.
In his concurring opinion to the Dobbs Supreme Court ruling, which reversed Roe v. Wade and eliminated abortion access as a federal right, Justice Clarence Thomas has broached reconsideration of "all of this Court's substantive due process precedents," including the Obergefell decision that made marriage equality the law of the land.
("After overruling these demonstrably erroneous decisions, the question would remain whether other constitutional provisions guarantee the myriad rights that our substantive due process cases have generated," Thomas added.)
So, yes, it can happen even here, in trailblazing Vermont, which in 1999 became the first state in the union to offer gay people legal civil unions, and which in 2009 became the first state to grant marriage rights for same-sex couples through a legislative process rather than by an edict from a court.
Vermont has the seventh-highest rate of LGBTQIA+ people in the nation, according to a survey analysis from the Williams Institute at the University of California Los Angeles School of Law. It also has the greatest number of same-sex couples per capita in the nation.
"In Vermont, too, young adults are leading the state in LGBTQIA+ identification," a 2022 VTDigger story says, noting the Williams Institute's data that find approximately 25% of LGBTQIA+ Vermonters are between ages 18 and 24.
But even in a place as safe and welcoming as Brattleboro, the LGBTQIA+ community is scared.
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"I've been hearing from a lot of community members that people are scared," said HB Lozito, executive director of the nonprofit organization Out in the Open, which seeks to build community among the rural LGBTQIA+ population.
Lozito identifies as trans and uses they/them pronouns. "People don't know what's coming," they said.
Why would demonizing the most vulnerable populations - outright bullying - be a successful political strategy?
"I've heard from speakers that after Trump was elected for the first time, it's like a caged animal who's injured," Lozito said. "And he's saying, 'All right, I know I'm backed into a corner. I can see that progress is being made in society. Things are moving forward. I'm feeling left behind. So let me lash out at anything.'
"It's like the last dying breaths of that way of life. And at the very end, you're really slashing and burning anything that you can find," they continued.
Twenty years ago, when Lozito was new to the trans community, "most people didn't even know who trans people were," they said. "They didn't know that we existed at all. And you could hide in that."
But 20 years ago, there wasn't the full weight of the federal government coming after a small percentage of people. And trans people paid for their anonymity.
"We didn't have access to health care, we didn't have access to education in schools," Lozito said. "All of these kinds of things that we've pushed for really hard and gained through the movement in the last 20 years. But it was nice that people didn't really know about us and we weren't receiving the full impact of their interest."
One thing Trump has been pushing for is to define trans people out of existence.
"He said, 'I'm going to change these federal laws so gender and sex is defined as binary, it's assigned at birth, and there's nothing anyone can do about it,'" Lozito said.
"That is just ridiculous," they said. "It means nothing. It's not even possible to do. We exist."
"A lot of what we've been talking about at Out in the Open is that we can't shrink and feel like sinking into division," Lozito said. "Actually, what we need to do is move towards each other more."
Lozito finds it interesting to see "how in many rural places, in many conservative places, a lot of people voted for Trump but also voted for progressive policies at the state level. To me, that says there's more commonality here."
Still, the results of the election have been unsettling to the gay community.
For one thing, it has sent gay and transgender people to their attorneys to ensure the legality of their family relationships.
"People are rushing to try to make any kinds of changes that they can to legal documents that they need to protect their family and kids," Lozito said.
Lozito pointed out that Vermont allows trans people to change their names and birth certificates. Also, drivers' licenses allow three gender marker options: Male ("M"), Female ("F"), or Other ("X"). Winning these rights was an important victory for the LGBTQIA+ community.
"Part of that change actually was an administrative change at the Department of Motor Vehicles in 2018 or 2019," Lozito said. "They were changing their computer systems. And we were like, 'Oh, you're changing your computer system? Hey, could you put this in as an option?' But now it's a whole list of trans and nonbinary people in Vermont."
People who want to get their name off that list can do so.
"You don't need to go before a judge or anything in Vermont to change that," Lozito said. "We've been having a lot of conversations with people this week who have an X on their license right now and are scared about what that might mean and are wanting to change it back.
"So people should know that it's a pretty easy trip to the DMV to do that," they said.
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Demonizing the gay community has a long history, going back to Weimar Germany before World War II and before the Stonewall Riots in New York in 1969.
"What we've been talking about at Out in the Open for many years is knowing our social movement's history," Lozito said.
"A lot of people in this country and around the world have been through fascist regimes of all kinds over the last 500-plus years. So for us, a lot of it is really learning how people made it through these times before. Some of them are still here with us today. We need to see what they are doing."
One good model might be the civil rights movement, Lozito said. "What were the strategies that people used in those movements to create change?"
It can be dangerous. Civil rights activists in the 1960s were often beaten by police officers and attacked by dogs during their marches.
"They didn't want that," Lozito said. "Nobody wanted that."
But "we can't control the actions of oppressors," they said.
"All we can do is be together. And so I think we're going to keep living our lives and being the people that we are, and if people come for us, we have safety and solidarity in numbers."
Lozito estimated that more than 1,000 people in Windham County identify as LGBTQIA+, out of a population of 45,900, as of the 2023 U.S. Census.
In the end, it will be community that brings strength, they said.
"A lot of the strategies that we're employing are connection, deepening relationships, and knowing that so often we've been the people who protect ourselves and who protect our community," Lozito said.
"There is a lot of love and power here. So one strategy is just, let's eat meals together. Let's strategize together about what legislative avenues we have within the state of Vermont to protect us. What legislative avenues do we have within our region in the northeast to protect people? While also knowing that there's a lot that we can do outside the powers of the state as well."
Out in the Open is there for people who are concerned about the future, Lozito said.
"We tend to do a lot of crisis support for people," Lozito said. "We have a lot of experience helping people figure out what it is they need to do before the administration changes. And if people want help or support doing that, they're welcome to reach out to us anytime. Or also, if you just want to connect with other people who might be having a similar experience here."
There are many unknowns in the future, Lozito said.
"Also, there is a lot of fortitude," they said.
"People really believe in our community. Not just LGBTQIA+ people, but our our broader community," Lozito noted.
"You know, half of the country didn't vote for this person, and there's a lot of strength in that as well," they observed. "So I think people are both nervous for what might be coming, but also sort of digging into the strategies that we know work for continuing to build community and protect each other."
Joyce Marcel is a reporter and columnist for The Commons, where she regularly covers politics, homelessness, and economic development issues.
This News column by Joyce Marcel was written for The Commons.