HB (00:00):
Yeah, it's really amazing. When we started this work, it was like you would Google rural, queer, rural L-G-B-T-Q, and it was like US Country Queers, which is a great other oral history project. And this one book by Mary Gray, who's now a MacArthur genius, really none of the national mainstream L-G-B-T-Q organizations we're talking about ruralness at all in any of their work. I'm not claiming that we changed the entire conversation, but I think it's really a lot of people have started thinking and talking about ruralness within our movement and within our community in ways that are really exciting and important. I think it's opened up a lot of possibility for people who want to live either in communities where they grew up or go to rural spaces and small towns and live their best and gayest life.
Host (00:52):
Gay in America is an oral history podcast sharing experiences of gay people from all orientations, backgrounds, and ages in America. Our goal is to inspire each other to live our best gay lives and help us all understand that our shared experiences unite us as a community. Happy New Year everyone. You may have noticed I took a small break for the holidays, but now I'm back and to start off 2024, I'll be introducing you to HB lto of Vermont. HB is an L-G-B-T-Q-A activist focused on providing services and support to those who live in rural communities. So if you're one of those who live off the beaten path or wish you could, this episode is for you.
HB (01:49):
Hi, I'm HB lto. I use they and them as pronouns. I'm the executive director of Out in the Open and we are here in Vermont building power of rural L-G-B-T-Q folks here in the northeast, but across the continent as well.
HB (02:12):
So we do all kinds of different things. Some stuff that is more traditional, sort of like social servicey, peer support groups and distributing covid testing supplies and sitting next to a mountain of covid tests here. But a lot of our work is also in sort of arts based and cultural organizing, but all focused around this experience of being an L-G-B-T-Q person who also happens to live in a rural place. So any of the ways that we can explore what that experience is like for people build up our network and community of folks who are seeing RURALNESS and their L-G-B-T-Q identity as inextricably linked and together as something we're interested in doing. So we've done that in a lot of different ways over the past 10 years. Everything from oral history work and sort of establishing state historic markers for important places in L-G-B-T-Q history here in Vermont. All the way to summits that are sort of like, they're not conferences, but they're multi-day camp outs where members of the community are putting on workshops and skill shares about things that they're really interested in. And that's everything from chainsaw safety to nose to tail hog butchery to community safety and everything in betweens.
Host (03:46):
HB is the executive director of Out in the Open.
HB (03:49):
I've been really lucky to be in my job for about 10 years and just kind of get to explore whatever it is that I want to be doing. We now have a full-time paid staff of nine people who also do a lot of work in health justice and mutual aid and all kinds of other stuff. So really looking at listening to our community and responding to what it is that we need.
Host (04:14):
It's easy to forget. There are a lot of us who don't live in big urban city centers, those who live in rural communities, they face some unique challenges.
HB (04:25):
I think when we first started doing this, a lot of our early work was really even sort of what I was saying, trying to even get people to see this as a big part of their identity as an L-G-B-T-Q person. And I came up in the nineties and I feel like we were always taught, all right, you're queer. You've got to move to a city. That's where the center of queer life is, and that's the only place you're going to be able to have a happy life or a safe time or meet anybody in community. But also knowing that for myself, that didn't feel true. And when I lived in cities, I was not at my best and really wanting to be able to come home to the communities that felt like the size at which felt really right and good to me. And also people who were interested in doing the same kinds of things that I was interested in doing.
HB (05:12):
I think a lot of it is we spend a lot of time talking about isolation and connection. It's like when it's cloudy here, a lot of the times our internet doesn't work. So over the last few years, even if we're holding virtual events there or in the middle of the snowstorm and we've lost power and you can't make that event, which might've been the only time in the month that you were going to see anybody, we don't have really robust public transportation, sort of all of those kinds of things. I think I often say the challenges that anyone is experiencing are challenges that we're L-G-B-T-Q people are experiencing in every community that is anywhere that people are.
HB (05:57):
Recently, we've had a lot of folks having a lot of challenges with housing and affordability as we've seen over the last couple of years. Lots of folks moving to rural areas and those of us who already live here really struggling to match folks remote working salaries and life becoming a lot less affordable here, which has been really difficult and wonderful. We want to be able to welcome our new neighbors and have a really lovely connected community and at the same time trying to figure out can we still have places to live. So across all of our work, we work with about 5,000 people a year.
Host (06:36):
I will admit I had to Google Brattleboro, Vermont because I'd never heard of it. It looks like a truly amazing place. I wondered how HP ended up there.
HB (06:47):
So I moved to Brattleboro in 2011, had been living on the west coast for a long time, about 10 years, and then came back to the northeast where I grew up to do some small scale organic farming, which had been part of the work that I had been doing for quite a long time. And then it was November and I didn't have a job anymore, and some friends had moved to Brattleboro and bought quite a large house that they were looking to fill and have some more space in. So came here in January of 2011. January is not the most inspiring time to move to Vermont, but met a lot of really wonderful people pretty quickly. Something I've really loved about being in Brattleboro, a lot of people who are really interested in this community and making it a wonderful place for folks to be.
Host (07:33):
When they first arrived, there was not a thriving connected community in the area, so HB rolled up their sleeves and started making connections.
HB (07:48):
Obviously I knew there were L-G-B-T-Q people here somewhere, but wanted to be able to find them. Where are folks and how can I meet people? And so a friend of mine and I started putting on game nights and movie nights and concerts and hip hop shows mostly with friends that we knew, folks who were coming through on a tour from New York to Portland or something like that. And a lot of people started coming, so I think we sold out the first show that we had and there were people sort of screaming, when are you going to do this again? And really exciting. So we started a group that we called the Promo Event Collective. Our logo that I made in PowerPoint on my computer was two hot pink unicorns sort of facing off against each other. And I had been doing organizing in L-G-B-T-Q community for a long time before coming here, but was sort of rediscovering the community too.
HB (08:43):
There had been, there's a really rich and long history of L-G-B-T-Q people doing community building work here in southern Vermont. And so it was great to be able to tap into that existing space and build on it. So we started that work. There is an existing organization here called the AIDS Project of Southern Vermont. They had a program called the Men's Program at that time that was primarily funded through Center for Disease Control Funding. And in 20 11, 20 12, the CDC was like, all right, basically we think AIDS is over in rural communities, so we're going to stop giving them money. And those of us who were here were like, it's over nowhere. So that organization lost quite a large stream of their funding to support that program and have paid staff members supporting L-G-B-T-Q people here. But the wonderful foresight of those folks who'd been doing that work for a long time, they were like, all right, we're losing this resource. Let's start another organization and its place to take that on. So they started our organization, which at that time was called Green Mountain Crossroads.
HB (09:49):
Those folks ran it for about a year and then we're ready to move on. So I stepped in and yeah, we really started at that time having a focus specifically on ruralness, even though of course we had been here but hadn't been really naming that as part of the work, expanding to look at justice and liberation as more a part of the work that we were doing and kind of took it from there. We changed the name to out in the open in 2019, which had been just the name of our once a year summit that we had been doing. And then we were like, alright, we're starting to do some other different things. Some work outside of the Green Mountain state, so let's be a little more expansive in how we're talking about the work. So that's a little more than how we got started, but how we got here,
Host (10:38):
All this work has undoubtedly changed lives, but how has it changed hb?
HB (10:45):
It's a good question. A lot of my role has really changed, which isn't the most interesting part of how it has changed me, but certainly comes to my mind first. I think I have been really supported in exploring how I want to and do this work. The board that we've had and the community volunteers that we've had and the community members that I've met have often been like, alright, we don't know exactly where you're going with this, but we're going to come along with you. And that being able to receive that level of trust has been really amazing and I think helped me trust myself that I may not know where we're going to end up, but I'm happy to go there together. I think a lot of the work that we did around out in the open summit and its first years was really about that we really wanted to make space for rural L-G-B-T-Q people to be together and talk about what it is that we wanted to talk about and break down sort of notions of expertise and who's allowed to steer a conversation or who A lot of the sessions in that were just asking questions.
HB (11:53):
There was a session once someone held that was called, am I queer enough? And was just talking about that question, do I fit in here? And there were so many people, including a lot of the organizers of the event itself who attended that conversation, which spoke to me. I mean, I was in that conversation a lot of, yeah, we have so much of this insecurity throughout our community and what is it like to actually go at some of those things head on and talk about them directly? So I dunno if humble is the word. I think humbled
Host (12:25):
The work is difficult to be sure, but HB sees the deeper meaning in it.
HB (12:30):
I'm thinking about our Andrews in oral history project and we talked to a lot of elders in the community, some of whom have passed on now, folks who are in their eighties, just really being trusted to receive those stories from folks and then feeling not necessarily not weight in the heavy way, but more in sort of a gravitas kind of way, just like being the weight of that responsibility and wanting to be able to carry that stuff through. So I think we talk a lot about joy in this work, but also a lot about responsibility. And I think that has that sort of commitment to me, to this place and this community over a long amount of time is not something I thought about at the beginning necessarily, but something I think a lot about now.
Host (13:20):
I wondered what it's been like for HB to be transgender in such a small community as Brattleboro population 12,000.
HB (13:28):
Oh, I dunno. I mean I definitely had a lot of those thoughts. Well, before I lived in Brattleboro, I was using name them pronouns and I was doing some farming in West Oakland going by my name at that time. And when I moved here I'm smiling, so remembering this one story of a community member who did a lot of climate change organizing. And I met early on when I moved to Brattleboro, who often when I was in Community spaces was the only person using they then pronouns at that time and sharing that. And I was with another friend downtown and this person was trying so hard to figure it out and get it together, was really enthusiastic, wanted to welcome us as new people in town and just was waving on the sidewalk. He was like, Hey, thanks. And I was like, I love this so much and I can just see the goodness in this person's heart that's like, I don't know exactly how to do this, but I want to try. And that was really nice. So I think I felt really supported as someone living in this town to just really fully explore my own identity. And so I think there had been a lot of thoughts in my mind early days, a lot of love and support from trans community of folks, the US as well. But really, yeah, stepping fully into that when I moved here,
Host (14:57):
Well, that's how they got to Brattleboro. So I asked HP to go all the way back to their teenage years and tell us about their first gay experience.
HB (15:05):
Oh, some of these questions I've never been asked Robert, this is fun. I'm like, there was this person who I have not talked to, I'm like, I don't know how they identify anymore, but she worked at this marina that was also a fried food restaurant and there was like, yeah, this one summer and we just wrote messages back and forth to each other on napkins that would come out with a tray of food or something and she would post it on the bulletin board and then if she wasn't there when I went to her shift, my friend or someone else would be like, oh, this note is for you. And just sort of summer fling in that way that was sort of like, I'm not even really sure what's happening, but this is really exciting and I'm not even going to really think about what's happening, but this feels really good and let's keep doing that. So I don't know that that was first experience, but it's definitely standing out as early.
Host (16:04):
I assumed most of us, HB has had some negative experiences being L-G-B-T-Q.
HB (16:10):
I mean there's all kinds of scary times of, I used to drive cross country a lot before cell phones. I didn't have any money and were always, I was usually traveling with at least one or two friends and we were always keeping, keep a walkie-talkie with you, keep a knife with you. And there's lots of times that I've been scared at a rest stop bathroom or scared at a gas station and sort of just had to look at my buddy across the room and give a look and be like, we got to get out of here right now. So there's a lot of that kind of stuff. Think I put a lot of that out of my mind or to the back of my mind in terms of specifics, but I know that's happened a lot of times
Host (16:51):
Their best gay experience.
HB (16:54):
I'm like, I don't know. My whole life is a gay experience, so it's all pretty good. I mean, I feel really lucky to have a strong group of queer family people. Some are folks that I met while studying abroad. Some are folks that I was at Camp Trans with people who I met now that I've known for over 20 years and just never really let go of. We have brunch together every week. I drive their kids to school and I think, yeah, that group of people has made my gay life really amazing.
Host (17:31):
Looking back on their life, would HP do anything differently?
HB (17:35):
Go to therapy earlier? It's like the number one coming to my mind. I can't think of anyone really who's in my daily life, who's not in therapy. I think a lot of the regret, I don't know that a lot of things I would do differently from my early twenties I think could have been really, I could have been really supported and really helped by doing some of that, learning about myself earlier.
Host (18:01):
Looking forward, what's ahead for hp?
HB (18:04):
Oh, we're having some work done on our kitchen right now, so I'm like, I can only think beyond this week until that project is over. I mean, for me, I hope to continue what it is that I'm doing for a long time and continue to be able to do this work in a creative way. I think in a person who spends a lot of time making art and doing craft and feeling like that is able to come into my work, not just in a direct way, but in being able to think really expansively about what does it mean to be an L-G-B-T-Q person in a rural space? And then how organizationally are we manifesting that? I think personally, yeah, continuing to attend the long and deep relationships that I'm very lucky to have with people in my life. While not saying no to opening the door to new folks,
Host (19:02):
Do they have any advice for someone who wants to create their best gay life in a rural community today?
HB (19:08):
Trust and relationships are really foundational. In my personal life. I've spent just a lot of time really investing in those few people who have been really close to me for a long time. And I'm like, that doesn't help someone who's like, well, I don't have those people now and I don't want to wait 20 years. But I think just finding that one person and not ever letting them go. It doesn't need to be someone else who shares any part of your identity at all. I think it's like, that's something I really love and value about rural communities is we're really good neighbors and I think people, once you're, in my experience anyway in the northeast, once you're in, you're in. And it can be really hard to get in. But then I think, yeah, a lot of people are like me and just very loyal or just don't let go
HB (20:19):
Find your people. There's someone out there and whether that's on the internet, whether that's your neighbor who isn't gay or maybe they are, but shares an interest with you and wants to get to know more about you might not even be the fourth or fifth time that I talked to someone, or it might be the 20th time until I mention something queer or something political. But if we're able to sort of build some shared understanding, maybe we talk about our favorite ax handles and the best way to chop our wood, and that's sort of where things are for a while until we've deepened that relationship enough that we feel comfortable. But don't be afraid to put yourself out there. Yeah, a lot of our work is trying to counter this narrative that people in rural communities are all bigoted and terrible. And if you do put yourself out there, all you're going to receive is hate and violence back towards you. Certainly that does happen. And keep your wits about you and pay attention. And if you're getting that sort of tingly feeling like get yourself somewhere safe. But also there's a lot of really beautiful connection you can have with people by sharing yourself too.
Host (21:48):
This podcast is produced by me at Open Roads Media, LLC, and features new episodes each month. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and share with your friends. We do love hearing from you. Tell us how this podcast has impacted your life. Go to our website where you can record a voice message and we may include it in a future episode of Gay in America. We do need your help to keep this podcast going. Your support helps us inspire more people in our community. Thank you so much for listening to the Gay in America podcast and keep coming back for more inspiring stories about being gay in America.