On October 12, Vermont Representative Taylor Small visited Northern Vermont University – Johnson in person. Lyndon students were able to watch the speech livestreamed in the Alexander Twilight theater. The theater drew a small crowd of students. She gave a lecture on the art of politics that told the story of her journey in life and how she became a legislator. After the speech, Johnson students were able to ask her questions.
Representative Taylor Small is a Democrat who was elected in November 2020 to the state legislation. She represents the Chittenden 6-7 District, which covers the city of Winooski. Taylor Small is the first trans person to be elected to Vermont legislation. She serves on the house committees of Human Services and the House Discrimination Prevention Panel. In her first year, she proposed the bill H.128, which bans the LGBTQ+ panic defense in court. The LGBTQ+ panic defense is a legal defense banned in 14 other U.S. states and the District of Columbia, where an offender can use their victim’s identity as justification for their crime.
At the beginning of Small’s speech, she gave her life story that led to her involvement in politics. She was born in Portland, Maine, but her family often moved because they struggled to find stable economic support. Beginning in middle school, Small faced bullying for presenting effeminately. Bullies taunted her for “acting gay.” It took her several years to realize her own identity. As a young adult, she identified as nonbinary, but after a suggestion from her partner, she had a realization. She was in an airport pacing and crying for ten hours when she finally came to terms with her identity as a trans woman. “I thought to myself welp someone who is cisgender would not take ten hours to themself in an airport to think about their gender identity,” said Small.
Representative Small didn’t have a traditional route into politics. In college, she didn’t major in politics; instead, at the University of Vermont, she majored in Human Development and Family Studies with a minor in Sexuality and Gender Identity Studies. Going into her career, she was focused on helping adolescents with mental health issues. She supported homeless youth through her work at Spectrum Youth and Services and Northwest Counselling and Support Services. As she looked for other job opportunities, Small told the NVU community about the discrimination she faced as an out trans woman through the hiring process. “‘You’re just not the right fit,’ which [employers] kept saying to me, was this coded language that ‘We are not set up to support an out trans person in the workplace,'” Small described. After being unemployed for six months, she decided to seek out her community and volunteer at the Pride Center of Vermont. Her volunteering eventually led to a director role with the center, where she helped provide LGBTQ+ education for health care and human services providers.
In the middle of the COVID-19 lockdown, bored stuck at home, Small got a call that changed the course of her career. While getting dressed in drag for a virtual show, she got a call from former Representative Diana Gonzalez, who asked if Small would like to run for office. Gonzalez saw the work Small had been doing with the Pride Center and believed she could make an impact in legislation. “What I think is really beautiful about politics that isn’t highlighted as much [is] that when you go into it, you do it for a love of your community,” Small said, and that’s how she believes she won a seat in the house.
Small talked through the proposal process behind the H.128 bill and gave students a look into what happens behind the scenes in politics. Small took up the issue of banning the LGBTQ+ panic defense because she wanted to defend victims’ rights like Scott Amedure. Jonathan Schmitz murdered Amedure in 1995 after the latter revealed his crush on Schmitz. Schmitz later used the legal strategy to get a lesser charge of 2nd-degree murder, citing Amedure’s sexuality sent him into a panic. The panic defense was only used once in Vermont in 1991. A victim left a local gay bar in Burlington before being beaten. The defendants attempted to use the LGBTQ+ panic defense, but it did not hold in Vermont courts. “The reason why I took up this work is because when we have laws on the books that allow folks to justify these actions against marginalized communities, it shows marginalized communities they cannot use these same systems,” Small said. She worked with a team of lawyers to draft the bill into legalese before bringing it to her committee.
In the house, every member sits on at least one committee. It’s there that they decide what bill proposals work on. First, each committee must vote to pass the bill. Then it goes before the rest of the house, edits being made along the way. Small’s bill unanimously passed through the house and made its way to the senate, where it found some hesitation. Small got the rare chance to speak in front of the senators on behalf of the bill to explain its purpose better. When asked if she didn’t trust the judicial system, Small said, “I wouldn’t say that I don’t trust our judicial system, but what I do recognize is the presence of bias and prejudice in our system, because bias and prejudice is within all of us.”
While the crowd was small, attendees on both campuses claim the event was insightful and rewarding. Rep. Small’s lecture inspired students and gave them knowledge of what it is like to work as a legislator. “Even though I don’t see myself working in politics anytime soon, I’m grateful for how she broke it down for us,” senior Alexandra Huff admitted. “Politics was always something I struggled to understand, and while I’ve still got a ways to go, Representative Small gave me a solid place to start.”
Feature Photo provided by Rep. Taylor Small