The event had been set for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Fletcher Free Library in Burlington.
Critics caught wind of the event and vowed to protest the discussion they considered to be an attack on transgender people and their rights.
“The response of the transgender activist community in Burlington follows a familiar pattern of eroding the principles of free speech and rational discussion,” Gender Critical Vermont wrote in an email Monday afternoon announcing the cancelation.
Peggy Luhrs, a Burlington resident and lesbian activist since the 1970s, is one of the founders of the group and was scheduled to speak at the event. She told Seven Days the decision to cancel is only temporary.
“We will reschedule,” Luhrs said. “We’re going to look for a bigger venue, we’re going to look for a place where we can have security. There’s just no point in having a screaming match.”
According to a statement from Fletcher Free Library director Mary Danko, Gender Critical Vermont reserved a library meeting room for the purposes of hosting a “discussion group for Vermonters who oppose the subversion of Women’s Rights by the transgender agenda.”
The library consulted with the Burlington City Attorney’s Office and concluded the event fell within library guidelines for reserving space and should be allowed, Danko wrote in the statement, which was posted Monday to the library’s website.
“Public libraries have always been organizations that vigorously try to uphold the tenets of free speech on which our country was built. We have fought censorship on many levels, including efforts to ban books that occur still to this day,” Danko wrote.
Critics of the event equated the planned discussion to hate speech and questioned why the city’s public library would allow it to take place.
Is the institution “truly abiding by their standards and directives of not promoting hate speech and violence?” asked Taylor Small, a trans woman who serves as director of health and wellness at the Pride Center of Vermont.
Dana Kaplan, the executive director at Outright Vermont, said he got calls from parents all over Vermont who were concerned that the library was hosting the event.
“I think that there are a lot of folks in our community who feel extreme relief that the event is canceled,” said Kaplan, who is trans.
There’s no trans agenda trying to subvert women’s rights, Kaplan added. The trans agenda, he said, is “of gender liberty where everybody gets to be themselves, and I feel that that is also a feminist agenda.
“I don’t understand the pitting against each other,” Kaplan said. “We’ve got a lot of bigger issues to focus on.”
Luhrs said the group is not a hate group nor was it going to use hate speech. The discussion was titled, “What are the unforeseen consequences of the Transgender agenda?” The description read: “If you are a Woman, Gay Man, Lesbian, Child or Parent, or cherish Free Thought/Speech, you have a stake in this conversation!”
“I’m not a transphobe. I don’t hate trans people,” Luhrs said. “This is about protecting women’s rights and lesbian rights. “
For example, she said, lesbians are often told “they are transphobic if they won’t consider trans women as partners,” even when the trans women have male genitalia.
Luhrs said she also planned to talk about how the trans movement could be hurtful to women’s sports and could undermine laws such as Title IX.
She wanted to discuss her opposition to puberty blocking hormones and gender reassignment surgery for people under the age of 18. Adults should be free to make those choices, but a “wait-and-see” approach is better for minors, Luhrs said.
Ultimately, the medical interventions don’t change her opinion that gender is fixed at birth. “I believe you can’t really change sex,” Luhrs said. “You can pretend you can, but you can’t.”
Trans activists immediately shut down any challenge by labeling opposing views as hate speech, she added.
“This is totally Orwellian as far as I’m concerned,” Luhrs said, adding: “I have never seen so much authoritarianism from the left, except maybe Stalin.”
“I’m a longtime, very out lesbian, and I have no problem with gender nonconforming people,” she continued, “but I have a problem with a certain group that is trying to make all the rules their way.”
The discussion has yet to be rescheduled, Luhrs said.
The debate made its way to the Burlington City Council on Monday night, when Councilor Perri Freeman (P-Central District) introduced a resolution affirming the rights of trans people and condemning discrimination.
“The City of Burlington acknowledges and supports the existence of transgender and nonbinary individuals in our community and supports their rights and freedom to live openly, without fear of retribution,” reads the resolution, which passed unanimously. The city also “condemns any bigotry, hate speech, and exclusionary spaces that are hostile toward the very existence of transgender people.”
Despite the cancelation, two counter-events are still scheduled for Tuesday. From 6:30 to 8 p.m., Burlington resident Laura Hale has reserved the Fletcher Room at the library — next to the room that Gender Critical Vermont had reserved.
Hale’s event will include conversation, art and reading.
‘The intent is to celebrate the queer and trans community in Burlington,” said Hale, who is married to a trans woman.
Outright will host a letter-writing “heck yeah” event. Supporters are invited to visit the nonprofit’s office at 241 North Winooski Avenue in Burlington from 1 to 4 p.m. and write letters of affirmation to Vermont’s trans youth. Kaplan will then ask Fletcher Free Library to display them. Supporters can also email notes to info@outrightvt.org.
Reporter Courtney Lamdin contributed to this story.
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How do these “gender critical” folks reconcile their opinion that trans youth should not have access to medical transition, such as puberty blockers, WITH parent/guardian consent, yet are fully on board with girls under 18 having full access to medical contraception, abortion, and pre natal care, w/out parental consent or knowledge? What happened to My Body, My Choice, or, Don’t like abortion (puberty blockers), don’t have one (don’t take them) ? This is as much about the health and well being of trans kids as well woman care and birth control ( and yes abortion) is about the health and well being of other young people. For the record, I see both as needed services for our community
I have to wonder how Peggy and other organizers would have responded to their own child, had they come out as trans, enby, or GNC? Peggy, would you have told your son his life was invalid, had he told you he was a woman?
And did folks also know that many of these same GC folks who have used Planned Parenthood medical services, and donated to them for years, have now pulled their support because PP also provides transition services? Sounds again like all the calls/justification from the right for pulling all funding from PP because abortion is one of the services provided.
I don’t understand how some people let fear twist them so far. The so-called “trans agenda” looks a lot like mine: live life, pay the bills, do the chores, enjoy your family and friends, get a creemee now and then.
The prefrontal cortex that allows rational thought is not developed until age 25. To allow children under the age of 18 to make the decision to have permanent gender-altering medical procedures with lifetime consequences is child abuse or malicious neglect, pure and simple. Life-altering decisions should not be made by the amygdala. I applaud Peggy for having the courage to stand up to the neo-Maoist wing of left-thinking folks in this town.
I do not have an issue with this particular event, as it appears to be for adults, and probably helpful. I just wish that there would be such opposition about Drag Queens reading to young children in our public libraries that are supported with (my) tax payer money. THAT is a concern.
“Is the institution “truly abiding by their standards and directives of not promoting hate speech and violence?” asked Taylor Small”
Sooo…Is this actually part of the instruction given to the library by its bosses (us), and if so who gets to decide what is “hate” speech and what is regular old Free speech? Not this Taylor person I’m sure.
Unfortunately, if you go on the Gender Critical subreddit, there is far worse than a discussion of the “trans agenda” going on. How can this woman say she accepts trans people while simultaneously endorsing a subreddit that calls Christine Hallquist a man? Make no mistake, this group doesn’t want trans people around. Go to the subreddit, if you can stand it.
All bets are off my dears….. from having any semblance of democracy to ideas about gender. we stand in the dooryard of a very different world, from our environment to our human relationships. get ready, it’s going to be a tricky transition.
Anyone who holds the opinion that hormone treatment and the allowing of a transition for a child is neglect, or abuse – please read “what we will become” by Mimi Lemay. It is a compelling story about a mother and how she responded when her 2 year old daughter started to tell her – and the world – that she was a boy. It would have been abuse to NOT let this child transition.
My head hurts from trying to understand all of this.
Ahhh, the hate driven, militant lesbians are at it again. Hardly a surprise. You’d see a far different reaction from Luhrs if it was discussion scheduled to fight the lesbian agenda. She’d be screaming and calling it hate speech. Luhrs is a transphobic, hate driven bigot, plain and simple.
“I believe you can’t really change sex,” Luhrs said. “You can pretend you can, but you can’t.”
‘Pretend’ is the key word and it also appears to be the trigger word in this particular beef between the parties.
I support Councillor Freeman”s resolution affirming the rights of trans people and opposition to discrimination. There is a problem with the rest of the resolution because transactivists define hate speech as any speech that disagrees with their newly minted ideology.
Our local Peace and Justice Center called 3 patrol cars to the Echo Center to keep me from attending an event celebrating a woman I’ve worked with for decades due to what they called violence and hate speech. I went to a meeting with their Board and demanded to know what violence I had committed and their only response was that I had complained about the lack of feminist books on their Gender Studies shelf and said you don’t seem to care about women. I was not complaining about the presence of books by and for transgender folks only that there were barely any books by all the major feminist writers and thinkers in a place where I previously bought a lot of books.
Gender Critical Vermont was formed to break the monopoly of speech on this issue and encourage a look at where this is taking the LGB community and how it affects women’s hard-fought rights. I also don’t think her resolution should be telling people who they may meet with. In addition to free speech, we are also constitutionally guaranteed freedom of association.
Liberal (permissive) approaches to free speech in public library settings tend to help all sorts of progressive causes more than they hurt them.
Librarians tend toward the political left as much or more than any people in education-adjacent fields; however, they also tend to be more resistant to censoring/silencing any ideas (even hate speech) than is currently popular in left/progressive circles, because doing so is in direct contradiction to their code of professional ethics. In the long view, this is a good thing – if you disagree based on this particular case, take a look at the “most challenged library books” in libraries and you will quickly see that it is disproportionately populated by attempts to censor/silence LGBTQ voices that librarians have fought hard to make available in their collections.
Librarians resist censorship, and it takes a damn good reason (like direct incitements to / threats of physical violence) to convince them it is OK to forbid an idea from the library. The public may – in some indirect way – be librarians’ “bosses”; however, they are professionals hired to do a job and, when they uphold their rigorous commitment to free speech, even against their personal objections or community sensitivities, they are doing it well.
Many among us yearn for simpler times, when the gender universe consisted of women (June Cleaver – always in heels and pearls!) and the men who oppress them (Ward Cleaver, Eddie Haskell, occasionally the Beav in Seasons 5 and 6).
The LGB consonant troika reigned supreme back in the day, and none dared utter “I’d like to buy a consonant, Peggy, and solve the puzzle.”
The arc of the moral universe is long, but bends towards justice. As is always true, that arc and history itself leaves many people and their ideas behind.
As a transgender woman who stays away from political frays and so called agendas. I’m remain unswayed by both sides of the argument. Having been born in the mid 50s into a family of six boys, expressing my feelings at age 4 to my mum. Being chastised, then told no more thinking of the kind, we will keep this a secret.
The most devastating days ensued. I had become nothing. Invisible and sub human.
The carried in until my late teens when overwhelmingly I never stopped feeling as expressed as a child.
Both sides here will never hear from me or have my support. I will as I have since age 19 live my life, go about my days doing what every other human being on this planet does making their way through life.
We are not defined by our gender or who we love. Recalling the day I began transitioning, short time later what Rights I lost upon transition. Having to have earned those Rights back not through agendas or arguments. Simply living and allowing my actions and self define me.
This whole thing is interesting to me because in the case of trans people’s place in the broader political and social context of LGBTQ identity and civil rights, I suspect there may be some uniquely legitimate reasons to revisit how the aims and struggles of various subgroups within the “community” align and intersect (this is not a new discussion, as far as I know; just bringing together the L and G under one social umbrella has been a long, fraught project from the beginning).
I can completely understand (whether or not I agree with) a negative feminist critique of trans identity politics; cis-womens’ experiences as cis-women are bound to be different from trans-womens’ experiences as trans-women. I can also understand why any vocal opposition to someone’s way of constructing or defining their gender identity can be threatening. I can understand mutual competition for resources and social capital. But I do not understand the knee-jerk reaction to the use of public resources. I’m not sure how one hopes to negotiate peace in a shared social and political space without allowing people to voice their views openly. Beyond the basic principle of “an injury to one is an injury to all”, which is a nice platitude but far from universally upheld, sometimes it’s necessary to tolerate people airing widely diverging views in public. Kind of a cornerstone of enlightened civil society, y’know?
Unless one just needs to be RIGHT for one’s own sense of self-righteousness, or afraid to be wrong because adulting is hard. In those cases, nobody can help ye – have fun being a source of misery for the rest of the world, I guess…
As a non-binary person living in Vermont, I would like to send my sincere thanks to the Burlington City Council for their acknowledgement and support of transgender and non-binary people in Burlington and for their thoughtful resolution to protect our freedom to exist free of hate and harassment within their community. I am grateful to live in a wonderful place that considers the negative impact of hate groups like Gender Critical and supports trans rights through both words and actions. Thank you, Vermonters!
The problem here is that a talk is cancelled due to threats of violence solely in regard to the subject. It is shameful that folks will threaten violence to squelch opposing views. Shame.
I am a proud gay man and fighter for Womens Equality and LGBTQ Equality.. Can these Gender Critical people not hear that their arguments are just wolf whistles from the alt-right against gays and lesbians? You have moved so far left you are in the alt-right. The Conservative/Liberal political line is a circle not a straight line, as any decent Political Scientist will tell you. Gender Critical, you need to look at yourselves with clear eyes.You sound like Trump.
To say she “doesn’t believe you can change sex”, is the same thing the alt-right says about gays and lesbians. They “don’t believe you can change (have) a different sexual orientation from heteronormity. Gender Critical you are oppressing yourselves and others.
The issue is, as always, competing needs. Violence is threatened against people giving a talk, because other people fear violence. Do into others, before they do into you. Excellent.
Small problem tho, violence against trans folx is pretty much universally perpetrated by men, but somehow it’s all those d@mned feminists fault! Baffling.
So…
Protests were planned, which the organizer of this event deemed to call “threatened violence.” That’s a tactic of the alt-right, and it’s plain bullshit. I am trans. I have been the target of real violence over the course of my life, walk with a limp from an injury that’s now forty-years-old, was inflicted on me by a maniac with a baseball bat. You feel you need to have a discussion to talk about the threat my “agenda” poses? I get to show up with a sign, and make a little noise about it…
This is a funny read. I’ve known who Peggy Luhrs is for decades. She worked for Bernie Sanders’ Women’s Office in the 1980s, marched for abortion rights, against the Iraq War, against the F-35, against George Bush and in favor of universal Health Care…she’s about as Left-Wing as Karl Marx. What she is learning now, is how quickly the Left will throw you under a bus the second you walk out of step. – Welcome to the parade, Peggy.
“If you are a Woman, Gay Man, Lesbian, Child or Parent, or cherish Free Thought/Speech, you have a stake in this conversation!” Note who is NOT given a stake in the conversation: transgender adults or children, or parents of transgender children, whose lives would be affected by her desire to ban puberty blockers or trans girls from sports. Next on the agenda, let’s have a discussion on racism in America, white people only, please! I”m not racist, but…
Whoa. If you go to the Gender Critical subreddit be prepared…it is a lot.
Counter-events planned: conversation, art, reading, writing letters of affirmation to Vermont’s trans youth
Peggy Luhrs: “I have never seen so much authoritarianism from the left, except maybe Stalin.”
Gender Critical Vermont: “If you cherish Free Thought/Speech, you have a stake in this conversation!”
Trans community: “Ok since you’re talking about us, we’re going to show up and share our opinions”
Gender Critical Vermont: HOW DARE YOU THREATEN US WITH VIOLENCE?!
I’m sorry, I didn’t realize “free speech” and “conversation” meant “same opinions as me, only” and that expressing a dissenting opinion is actually *eroding* freedom of speech. Wow do I feel silly.
Seven Days again should be ashamed of their “good people on both sides” approach to reporting. That doesn’t make you unbiased, just bad at your job. Try to remember that “neutrality always sides with the oppressor” (maybe I butchered that quote but look it up if you’re curious)… by all means though keep up the appearance of neutrality at the cost of good journalism.
Gender Critical VT has no connection to Reddit and its gender critical thread. I have never even seen that Reddit thread or much else of Reddit.
From Quillette https://quillette.com/2019/12/07/are-we-in…
: …it’s also not true that most trans murders are motivated by “hate.” The first case I reviewed while researching this article, that of Claire Legato, involved a trans woman killed while attempting to break up a physical dispute over a financial debt between her own mother and a close family friend. This was not atypical. The conservative writer Chad Greene, himself a member of the LGBT community, recently reviewed a sample of 118 of the cases of anti-trans homicide compiled by the Human Rights Campaign. His conclusion: exactly four of the perpetrators were clearly motivated by “anti-trans bias,” animus, or hatred. In contrast, 37 of the murders were due to domestic violence, and 24 involved sex workers and were largely the result of the dangerous working conditions associated with illegal sex work. More than a few others were essentially random acts of violence: one of the victims in Greene’s data set was Jordan Cofer, the transgender man murdered by the Dayton Shooter. “
From Quillette https://quillette.com/2019/12/07/are-we-in…
: …it’s also not true that most trans murders are motivated by “hate.” The first case I reviewed while researching this article, that of Claire Legato, involved a trans woman killed while attempting to break up a physical dispute over a financial debt between her own mother and a close family friend. This was not atypical. The conservative writer Chad Greene, himself a member of the LGBT community, recently reviewed a sample of 118 of the cases of anti-trans homicide compiled by the Human Rights Campaign. His conclusion: exactly four of the perpetrators were clearly motivated by “anti-trans bias,” animus, or hatred. In contrast, 37 of the murders were due to domestic violence, and 24 involved sex workers and were largely the result of the dangerous working conditions associated with illegal sex work. More than a few others were essentially random acts of violence: one of the victims in Greene’s data set was Jordan Cofer, the transgender man murdered by the Dayton Shooter. “
Greetings to whomever.
Please accept my appreciation of your well-thought-out and balanced article on the postponed discussion in the Fletcher Free Library by Gender Critical Vermont. The issues presented are indeed charged with emotion and are passionately felt on all sides. For over forty years, I have fiercely defended marginalized populations, and my credentials are well-established and widely known among fellow progressives.
I do not think I am alone in my disbelief that saying “I disagree with you” constitutes hate speech. Democracy depends on free and open debate, and I look forward to learning what Gender Critical Vermont has to say. I hope that our community will continue to support free speech and allow individuals to form their own opinions.
I must add that several friends have warned me against sending this comment. They suggested that doing so could jeopardize my livelihood. However, I refuse to accept that in this enlightened, well-educated community, there could be any risk in saying, “We need to hear what others think.”
outsider looking in, trying to be an Ally in this and curious whether, in advance of this event, did Peggy Luhrs/Gender Critical Vermont ever reach out to Outright Vermont to internally discuss concerns and seek collaboration on possible resolutions? If so, pls advise if/how those discussions broke down? If not, why not why wouldn’t Gender Critical Vermont seek that internal dialogue first? …It seems that this event as advertised may not technically qualify as “hate speech” but advertising a public event about “the subversion of Women’s Rights” by transgender people- and “the unforeseen consequences of the transgender agenda” seem intentionally (unnecessarily) provocative. Indeed, it could stoke prejudice -even violence- against transgender people, including local trans youth. And that would be a sad, bitter irony… We all owe Peggy Luhrs much respect and gratitude for her lifelong fight against misogyny and male violence against women. But it seems she does her great legacy a disservice here, seeming divisive, even “subversive” to the greater fight against misogyny and patriarchy, and worse unintentional or not potentially stoking violence against transgender people and trans youth. As ever, Vermont has a chance to showcase its legacy of leadership on queer issues. Please- Gender Critical Vermont and Outright Vermont- meet in private first, discuss concerns and opportunities for reconciliation and also explore ways to present a united LGBT front publicly in the greater fight against patriarchy, misogyny and the EPIDEMIC of male violence against women. Remind us why you should lead that great fight. Please.
Outreach to Outright VT has not brought any willingness to discuss these issues. You cannot change sex. Every bit of DNA will remain as the sex one is born (not assigned) and hormones or surgery do not change that. There are growing numbers of de-transitioners, many of whom feel they were too easily “affirmed”. There is a push to trans now and Doctors have spoken out about the lack of support for a wait and see approach that often ends with a child realizing their homosexuality.
But when the police in the UK go to people’s houses to “check their thinking” and hold a young mother in a cell for over 7 hours, separating her from her nursing child over a tweet, I think it’s time to ask why, in the name of a very tiny population, this is being done. No one to this day is checking anyone’s social media for misogynist or anti lesbian tweets. This is the new misogyny and like the old misogyny it is foremost about silencing women. The definition of bigot is; “a person who is intolerant of any creed, belief or opinion that differs from their own”. The bigotry here is those suppressing questions and differing opinions about the current transgender ideology. Adults and children should be free to dress as they wish and engage in whatever activities appeal to them.
Adults will decide what course they take in life and all deserve full human rights and protection from discrimination. But transactivism cannot force people to believe what they know isn’t true or compel or forbid speech in the Orwellian manner now going on in the UK and in the USA with the firing of people who dared to resist the propaganda and relied on science and their own empirical knowledge.
I see that Sevendays decided to violate its own letters to the editor policy by publishing a second LTE about this event from Christian Herrick, two months after the fact.
….and in the midst of an unprecedented global crisis.
I guess it’s true that narcissism has no pause button.
I see that sevendays violated its own Letters to the Editor policy by publishing a second LTE from Christian Herrick slandering Gender Critical VT two months after this article appeared.
….and in the midst of an unprecedented global crisis.
I guess it’s true that narcissism has no pause button.