Central Vermont's queer community is on the front line of flood recovery

Plainfield was one of the hardest hit towns by the recent flood, and recovery efforts are ongoing. There’s been a strong showing from the queer community in central Vermont in these efforts.

Reporter Erica Heilman spoke with some members of the queer community about why they come out in such force during crises. This interview was produced for the ear. We highly recommend listening to the audio. We’ve also provided a transcript, which has been edited for length and clarity.

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Erica Heilman: OK, so we’re looking at about, I don’t know —

Rylan Sirianni: Well, this shallowest part, kind of gets deeper over there. It was probably like 10 to a foot yesterday and now, I would say, like probably 3 to 6 over there.

Erica Heilman: That’s Rylan Sirianni, wading through a basement full of water to hook up a generator to a dead sump pump. Rylan is part of a big community of queer people in central Vermont who have been instrumental in flood recovery around here, both this year and last. And this loose confederation of very effective young people has been working closely with town and city flood recovery efforts all over central Vermont.

I went down to Plainfield to talk with some people about why the queer community, in particular, is so responsive in a crisis.

Meg Bolger was mucking out a house in Plainfield, and I pulled her aside for a couple minutes to talk.

Meg Bolger: The queer community has channels that are already set up. So, like, there’s a mutual aid thread. There’s specific threads that we already have, preexisting the disaster. And it’s narrow enough, it’s like a small enough group of people, that you can mobilize those people.

And you can also take requests from the general population. Like Dan, who’s been coordinating the Plainfield volunteers, like that request got put onto a queer thread. And then a bunch of queer people showed up today who might not have otherwise, because that was, like, distributed through channels that we were already plugged into.

And I think, like — I don’t know — how does the straight community get their information? Front Porch Forum? Posters? But like, we just have this additional layer of infrastructure that we’re all working with.

Erica Heilman: This is Wren Lansky.

So there could be a Signal channel for people who like to crochet. I mean, why is this community — why is the queer community so responsive?

Wren Lansky: There’s a belief in like, we help each other. Yeah, I guess if we want to, like, get into queer identity and queer politics, like the state has never really been there for queer folks. And so we know that we have to show up for each other … and that includes all of our neighbors. That includes everybody, not just queer people.

And mutual aid is, like, small autonomous groups of people coming together to understand what the needs are and meet each other’s needs. Not like, tit for tat, like, “I’m going to help you so you help me.” But my security and ability to be safe in the world is bound up in your ability to be safe in the world and have your needs met. And so, if I give money to a GoFundMe, I’m not thinking about that as, like, charity or as, “I’m a good person so I’m going to give away my money.” I’m thinking about it as, “I want to build a network and a community and a culture where the expectation is when people need things, their needs are met by each other.”

Because we know, watching FEMA and state response, how slow it is, and how many hoops you have to jump through. And if people can just, yeah, come together and meet those needs more quickly, it’s often better for everyone.

Meg Bolger: It’s a little bit of like, believing what goes around comes around. It’s believing that like, there isn’t a scarcity model. Abundance happens when you give.

But I just think that like, when it comes to showing up, like this is showing up for working class people, right? This is showing up for our neighbors and our friends. But also like, the people who are, I don’t know, so lovely and chipper and welcome our help. So I think that some of it is just that there’s an understanding that like, we need each other.

A lot of queer people, we did not find community where it was first obvious, right? And so like, we needed each other. And I think that feeling of like, we inherently need each other — I think capitalism and a lot of current modern society pushes us towards like, monetization, where like, “I don’t need you. I’ll pay someone to look after my kids.” Or, “I don’t need you, I’ll pay someone to fix my car.” And like, we have an understanding that there’s certain things you can’t do without, like human-to-human interaction and human-to-human care. And so I think that translates to a deep understanding of, like, we need each other.

Wren Lansky: It’s hard to pick apart because it just feels obvious to me. Like it just feels like that’s what you have to do. You know, like, Bob down in the village whose basement we were mucking out, the next morning was like, “Thank you guys, so much, like, this is incredible.” And it’s like, yeah, and of course, you’re neighbors. Of course that’s what you have to do.

It’s hard to zoom out because all of my friends feel the same way. And so I don’t think I would hang out with people who didn’t have that orientation to, if there’s a disaster and your neighbors are in trouble, you go down and you muck out their basement.

There’s no other time where you get to walk around the village and just ask people, “What do you need?” Like, that’s such a feeling. And I know so many more names of folks out in the village now than I did before.

Erica Heilman: I want to give people like a taste, like a sensory taste of what it looks like feels like in this part of the woods.

Rylan Sirianni: I mean, it’s changed a lot. So many people have moved here since the pandemic, but I feel like we used to — it’s like glitter wood punks or something. I don’t know. I mean like that’s what it felt like back then. And not that it isn’t now, but it’s just, there’s just so many more queers around and they all bring their different flavor, and I think that’s changing and evolving and taking new shape. But yeah, I think we used to all be, like, glitter wood punks or something.

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