By Aubrey Weaver | Community News Service
Out on her daily walk last year, Olivia Taylor noticed a sticker-covered street sign at the corner of Ethan Allen Parkway and North Avenue in Burlington’s New North End. In black typed text on each sticker were phrases that, to her, clearly targeted transgender people.
One said no one is ever “‘born into the wrong body.’” Another, in an apparent criticism of gender-affirming health care, called treatment “lifelong medical dependency” and “a business model.”
“I would just kind of scrape the stickers and keep walking,” said Taylor, a Burlington resident who ran for city council last year as a Progressive Party–endorsed independent and serves on her ward’s Neighborhood Planning Assembly steering committee. “But I started realizing that I was seeing more and more of them.”
Taylor met up with other members of the community to talk about what they had noticed.
“We all wanted to do something,” said Taylor. “I felt really frustrated the city wasn’t able to do anything.”
“We do not censor or criminalize speech in this nation because it offends,” said Burlington GOP chair Christopher-Aaron Felker. “Stickering campaigns are common forms of free and political speech. We didn’t invent stickering campaigns — we learned them from you all.”
So she joined others in an informal campaign to take the stickers down. A small group of folks made a series of weekly trips around the New North End this past winter to remove the stickers — often found on signs or poles — and the effort is set to pick back up this summer. “I got to know people in my community who I’ve never met before and who also care,” Taylor said, adding, “The majority of our community really does care about removing them.”
The group launched a GoFundMe to buy thousands of stickers supporting trans people — and distribute them to be placed over the others — and raised more than $900 last summer.
Burlington city councilors unanimously adopted a resolution in March that, among other things, asked a council committee to look at changes to Burlington’s graffiti ordinance to deal with “graffiti that spreads hateful and harmful messages.” Residents can currently report graffiti of any kind through the city’s SeeClickFix site.
A heated public comment session preceded the vote March 13, though most who spoke supported the resolution, including Taylor, who said in an interview that she helped Councillor Joe McGee, P-Ward 3, write it.
At that public forum, Burlington GOP chair Christopher-Aaron Felker spoke in favor of the “stickering campaign.”
“We do not censor or criminalize speech in this nation because it offends,” said Felker.
Felker added: “Stickering campaigns are common forms of free and political speech. We didn’t invent stickering campaigns — we learned them from you all.”
He said movements like Black Lives Matter and the Vermont AFL-CIO also use stickers in their public messaging and that “if the city wishes to crack down on graffiti, they can crack down on everyone, but they won’t and we are not backing down.”
Community News Service reached out to Felker and Reduxx, a “biological feminist” news organization mentioned on some of the stickers, for comment, but neither responded.
Discussions on the issue have repeatedly raised questions about whether the stickers constitute protected speech. Vermont Rep. Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, P/D-Chittenden 6, one of the organizers of the sticker GoFundMe, wants to look into gaps that exist between hate crime laws and what actions slip through the cracks of the law like these stickers.
Mulvaney-Stanak said in an interview that she has an intern researching this topic and wants to see changes in how the state records and responds to so-called “bias acts” that haven’t reached hate crime classification.
Some of that begins with monitoring, said Mulvaney-Stanak. “It’s hard for the attorney general’s office, which has a civil rights unit, to have a really accurate understanding of clusters of hate crimes and bias acts in parts of the state because there’s no requirement under state law (to report bias acts and hate crimes).”
Mulvaney-Stanak hopes to “make sure that we are just leveling up on a state level to make sure there’s consistency across the state of law enforcement and just towns themselves. And then we’re just not letting these things go.”
Mulvaney-Stanak pointed out two other anti-LGBTQ+ acts in the state recently: reports that Vergennes Union High School plans to host a vocally transphobic public speaker for a school event and an instance where a queer poet was accosted by protesters at a reading in Lyndonville’s public library.
Mulvaney-Stanak said some Vermonters “are really falling in line with all the (anti-LGBTQ+) rhetoric out there nationwide — those folks exist here and those are some of the folks putting the stickers up locally.”
Speaking about Republican politicians, Mulvaney-Stanak said, “It’s this hostile environment where they’re really creating all this fear and misinformation around parental rights and coming in at that angle, at least for young people … No one’s taking parental rights away. What we’re trying to do is save lives for kids who are in hostile home environments where, you know, their parents are just not accepting of who they are.”
Taylor, too, expressed concerns about the stickers adversely affecting young people. “I think the biggest thing is that they are showing up in front of playgrounds and schools,” she said. “Especially when children all over our country are being punished for wanting gender-affirming care … It’s really concerning that this seems to be specifically targeting children.”
Taylor said she hasn’t been able to keep up with the weekly cleanups due to family complications but is committing to monthly cleanup walks, the next being July 2.
“It’s really easy when I’m walking alone to get really angry and frustrated with the amount of stickers,” said Taylor, “but one of the things that makes me really hopeful is that the stickers are never up for very long without being scratched or crossed out by someone in the community.”
The Community News Service is part of the Reporting and Documentary Storytelling Program at the University of Vermont.
Two of the most repulsive words INHO, that represents Vermont, Mulvaney-Stanak. Her mother is still agitating the people of Barre as chairperson of the Barre City council Diversity committee. Like Barre or any other VT city needs a Diversity committee. The word Stanak comes from her father who came to VT probably in the 70’s as an activist-hippie type and later was the director or something for the state of VT’s Act 250 commission. These two names have caused as much activist trouble in Vermont more than anyone I can think of. These people are never happy about anything until they have over run someone else. This is one man’s opinion in free America where speech is still free.
General advice:
Surgery between your legs will not fix the problem between your ears.
Of course being led by what is between your legs, not your head, nor your heart has been a catastrophic failure since time began.
Lust, Sex and Love are not the same thing.
If the stickers are predominantly appearing on public property such as the backs of street signs, isn’t is more an issue of vandalism rather than free speech? Why not just pass an ordinance making all public property besides a bulletin board off limits to posting messaging?
Burlington’s Anti-trans 2-page resolution is a hate-filled document. If anyone is hateful it is the Burlington City Council for passing it. Facts were not the motivator, emotions were. The mayor “enthusiastically” signed it. It uses the word hate 19 times to describe the stickerers. It is not hateful to reject trans ideology. It doesn’t equate with hating anyone.
I was at the Vergennes event. The protesters were quite a large group – hundreds. Inside were over a hundred people.
When the ‘lead protester’ took the megaphone the first words out of her mouth were – transphoic haters. At this point, students are just talking machines that have been programmed. I was sickened to see a boy about 10 years old with chin length blue hair and a very feminine dress on. I do believe it is child abuse.
The Parent Group was just offering information from a de-transitioner. Nothing hateful about it at all.
Someone has got to file a lawsuit against Southern Poverty Law for putting them on a hate group list. Shocking.
When the left media rejects all submissions from non-trans believers, one turns to stickering to get their message out.
By the way – surprisingly I received a notice from a Burlington church organizing to go to the Vergennes protest. A church where one expects to hear messages of unity, peace and love – not hate, called the Parent Group transphobic haters.
Again, I was sickened by it.
Let’s see we give Veterans one ( 1 ) day, we give Jesus Christ two ( 2 ) days
Christmas & Easter, and who decided we need a ” month ” for ” Pride “, I fly
my pride flag every day, it’s red, white, and blue with stars yes ” Old Glory ”
If these clowns want respect, they need to earn it, so far no thanks………….
It takes more effort to indoctrinate vs reveal the truth. Pride is what separates us from God, which is their goal, aside from being completely and utterly head over heals in love with themselves.
Sorry but this is not a hate or anti-LGB(so called T)QIA+ act. Most Americans do not beleive people can be born in the wrong body. Vermonters, and especially burlingtonians are the ones that have unfortunately bought into a false rhetoric pushed by a depopulation driven globalist adgenda and a multi billion dollar pharmaceutical industry. The children are the victims. The “progressives” are the pawns pushing the narrative. These people have no principles, morals or values. Ask the detransitioners their news sources refuse to cover.
we must be wiser than snakes and more innocent than doves…..
Vermont is censorship capital of the world.
Because we don’t have free speech on any forums, because we can’t come out and speak publicly, some are resorting to posting the truth in print. And now they want to charge people with a crime.
Suggesting that it might be a business model is not hate.
Questioning anything is science.
Christianity allows you to totally question, it’s the only faith that does, it is unafraid of truth and love.
They are losing control of the narrative, they can no longer spin the lies and hate, so they have to go for compliance by brute force. This is the heart of cancel culture, this is how the flesh works, but not the Holy Spirit.
Christianity is far more forgiving and understanding than any science. Science would, by the theory of evolution say you are defective, and you will be the last of your kind because the genetics don’t work. Our Governor, as much as he might try, cannot get pregnant.
A Christian perspective suggests that saving sex for marriage is the ideal, it’s actually much higher than that, that we not lust after any one….to which the Holy Spirit is demonstrating through the law, that we are all sinners. Some Christians, like early Jewish leaders think they have fulfilled the law and are without sin, this is PRIDE…..this is what we should be talking about for PRIDE MONTH. ALL OF US are sinners, and there is only one way for freedom, through Jesus Christ.
This is all about exposing sin. This is all about exposing us being fallen, this is the true awakening.
If a male babysitter did what they are saying the state can legally do, the babysitter would be locked up in jail, ostracized across that state and reviled by the public in general.
We are so filled with PRIDE, that we can only assume we are righteous and know everything. We could not possibly be wrong. We will not humble ourselves to any wisdom other than what is running around in our heads and what we read on the propaganda network on our propaganda delivery tools. We have no way of judging truth and love.
And here we are arguing about a stranger being able to perform medical operations that are not reversable on our children without parental consent, and should they disagree with that challenge they are convicted of a hate crime and their children taken from them.
Children are easy to sway. Children are very impressionable. Children are vulnerable.
They know this. They are doing this as part of a plan, it is not coincidence, it is not organic it is completely astro turfing.
Suggesting your child should wait to make informed major decisions until they are an adult is love. Vermont parents are showing kindness, love, patience, toward their children.
If we don’t know the difference between love and hate, we are doomed. Which is their plan.
We needn’t worry too much, this is all going to collapse, the absurdity, corruption, lies and forced compliance always lose in the end, books and history show this.
Hey Mulvaney-Stanak…the act of our government actively promoting and facilitating the transgender lifestyle, particularly targeted toward children is in itself an “act of hate” against those who harbor a Constitutionally-protected Biblical worldview. Hate works both ways and you dont get to define it to suit your sick agenda.
” No one’s taking parental rights away. ” This a bold faced LIE. Pick a progressive state and you will find all kinds of info about how their state has made it clear that to “bother ” the it things then you are in trouble. Many states have enacted legislation, including VT that puts “special” protections to these defectives.
Hate crimes are nothing more than an explanation, by the left, for actions that they disagree with. According to the left yes, you dems and progressives, ANY descent is HATE or phobic, you decide.
I make this suggestion to any and all who put up the “you are confused seek help” type signs and stickers that you put them on your property. That way you can see the nuts come by and do damage to your home. You know they will they, cannot help them selves. The people in this article cannot now go onto your property to do anything like remove your freedom of speech. They have shown they cannot control themselves so make sure you have deductible money handy. All any of them want is attention, because you all made just showing up a trophy worthy event. No, you are not special, you are sick and in need of help and counseling. I pity any of you that do the “change” and I really hope you reach out to Christ to fix your confusion.
Lastly I find it so sad that people who really are just minding YOUR business are so incensed over this. More virtue signaling as I see it and I am not impressed or amused.