— "Terravechia"... nailed it

Liz Canada 0:00

Aimee, I am very intimidated to pronounce your last name because I've watched many people, including uh the chair of committees, plural, uh, mispronounce it. So can you pronounce it for me? Teravecchia. Teravecchia. You perfect. Perfect on the first try. I did it. I'm ready to chair a committee. I'm so excited. Here I come, New Hampshire House andor Senate. No, that's not true.

Aimee Terravechia 0:25

Sign you up.

Liz Canada 0:26

No, please don't. No, do not vote for Liz Canada.

Aimee Terravechia 0:30

We aren't endorsing candidates, but I might make an exception for you, Liz.

Liz Canada 0:33

No, absolutely

— Present Tense Liz!

Liz Canada 0:34

not. Absolutely not. We're cutting all of this. Absolutely not. Under no circumstances. But other people should run for office. You're listening to New Hampshire Has Its Jews, and I am your host, Liz Canada, and I am in the present. I am recording this on Monday, June 15th. And my interview with Heidi and Aimee, we recorded this on Monday, June 15th, like three hours ago. Usually when I record with a guest, I tell them up front that like I don't know when the episode's gonna go live because it takes me a while to edit. And I have a full-time job that's not this. Although, if you would like to support the show, visit patreon.com slash NHS Issues. And I have a family and and a dog named Gus. I have a lot happening, and so the podcast, as much as I absolutely love it, I do have a limited number of hours that I get to work on it. But in this case, we learned literally minutes before we hopped on to record that Governor Ayotte received two anti-LGBTQ bills on her desk today. And as we'll talk about in the episode, uh, she has five days to take action. And so I did not want to wait until next week or next month for this episode to get to you. And in fact, multiple times in this episode, I will say, Well, whenever this episode goes live in the future, I hope there's good news. Well, I I don't know what's gonna happen. Uh because I'm telling you in real time that those bills are on her desk uh right now. I mean, assuming you're not listening to this i in the future, I suppose. But on Monday, June 15th, and when this goes live on Tuesday, June 16th, Governor Ayotte has those two bills on her desk. There are links in the show notes, the episode description about uh 603

— Pride, politics, and New Hampshire

Liz Canada 2:37

equality, about New Hampshire outright, about these bills. And as we talk about, it's also Pride Month. Uh, and I want to make sure that you have as much information as possible to take the actions we all need to take to support the LGBTQ plus community, including our young people in our state. Thank you so much for listening. Well, welcome to New Hampshire Has Issues, the podcast that dares to ask how proud should we be in New Hampshire? I am your host, Liz Candida, and joining me today is a blast from the past, fan favorite, the executive director of New Hampshire outright, Heidi Carrington Heath, and the executive director of 603 Equality, Aimee Terravecchia. You got it. We did it. Okay. Well, that took 20 minutes of the show. We went from a mini show to a how do we pronounce a name show.

Aimee Terravechia 3:30

You know, it I think you're doing a public service because there's so many people who struggle with it.

Liz Canada 3:35

Well, welcome to the show, Aimee. Welcome back, Heidi. Thanks for having us. Yeah, I'm so happy to be here. Heidi, you've been here before to talk about New Hampshire outright. Aimee, you're the executive director of 603 Equality. Why don't you start by just telling us about your organization and what y'all do?

— What is 603 Equality?

Aimee Terravechia 3:51

Happy to. So we are New Hampshire's only and first statewide advocacy organization fighting for LGBTQIA rights. Uh, which means that I have essentially been living in the state house uh since January. Um which yeah, yeah.

Liz Canada 4:07

Literally background. Here's the dog. Woof. Yes.

Aimee Terravechia 4:10

Yes. Uh but yeah, so we've been fighting to try and affect policy outcomes in New Hampshire. Make sure New Hampshire is a New Hampshire for everyone and not just a select few.

Liz Canada 4:19

It is such important work and it's been pretty hard work, I think, this past year. And for the past few years, frankly, it's been really hard here in New Hampshire. So thank you for all the work that you do. For both of you. Because Heidi, I'm sure it is hard for you as well and been challenging with what's going on in in New Hampshire and the Statehouse and beyond. So I'm hoping to start with a simple question. June is Pride Month. So what is pride?

— Pride as joy and resistance

Aimee Terravechia 4:50

I I can tell you what pride means to me. Um, but we can also talk about history and pride too. There's so many different ways to answer that question. Um, but for me especially, having spent January through May in the State House, pride is a very lovely uh vibe switch, you know, being able to be in community and celebrate and be among you know really affirming folks. That unfortunately is not always the experience that I have in the statehouse. So it is a very nice switch and it's a necessary way to like reconnect and re-engage with a different side of the work. It fills my cup, it brings a lot of joy. And obviously, the history of pride is a very political one too. So, like holding that duality of like the joy and the work that we have to do, I think it's a good reminder for me.

Heidi Carrington Heath 5:40

I generally make it a rule in my life not to have to follow Aimee Terravechia, and yet here I have signed my book up to now have to do that. So, yes to all of that. Um, and I will say, especially for us at New Hampshire outright, um, Pride is a really wonderful time centered on community and connection and joy. And it is a chance for our young people to get to see the big, wide community that they have who loves them and supports them and is fighting with them and for them, particularly so given the tenor at the Statehouse. I was with you, Liz, almost a year ago on the nose at this time of the year. We had just finished Pride and I was making some asks of you then that we'll likely make of you again, because we are back here in a very similar place where we were a year ago. And so it is more important than it's ever been for our young people to get to see and hear and experience what pride can be. Um, I always think of one of our dads at the first pride after his kiddo came out, held his kiddo up on his shoulders and said, Look around, these are your people. And that's pride. And as Aimee said, it is also political. It is our bold rebellion and act of liberation.

— The State House fight

Liz Canada 7:07

So all of that sounds wonderful and hard and beautiful and important. And what is going on in the Statehouse, friends? Because it feels a bit like uh uh maybe perhaps dare I say the opposite of all of that. So you've both sort of alluded to being there a lot, fighting for a lot of things. There's been an abundance of anti-LGBTQ bills this year, including, for example, bills targeting flags in schools. So, like, what is happening? Aimee, can you can you start by just explaining what the I'll bleep myself out. What the bleep is happening in the statehouse. You're you're not even bleeping yourself in post. You're doing it live. No, I'm doing it now, but the bleep is happening. That way I don't have to find the sound. Bleep.

Aimee Terravechia 7:54

That's great. Um, unfortunately, what's happening in the state house is is a lot of badness this year. Garbage. Um, we saw 22 anti-LGBTQ bills proposed in the New Hampshire State House. Yes. And that's double from last year. We had 12 last year that we were fighting against as an organization. Holy smokes. It's rough. It's rough. And um, sadly, a lot of them are like in addition to being discriminatory, just like wholly unoriginal too. Um, so like rinse and repeat legislation from last year, similar bills to what's going on this year, like six nearly identical bathroom and locker room bans, for instance. You mentioned a flag ban bill, lots of school censorship bills, a forced outing bill. The good news here is that out of those 22, there's only four left that we're really hyper focused on to try and stop. A lot of them have been defeated or have been, um, their harm has been reduced a little bit. So those four are the last four um for this session. So I'm hopeful. I'm I'm really proud of our community for showing up and testifying. Um, we've done a lot of really hard work together, and there's a little little bit more work left to do as we also celebrate pride.

— Bills on Governor Ayotte’s desk NOW

Liz Canada 9:11

Yeah, right. And right before we hopped on here to record, we just got word that the governor has two of those bills on her desk right now. So I'm not sure when this is gonna go live. I'm guessing it'll go live after she takes action because she has five days once the bills hit her desk. She has to take action in some way. Three choices she has. One is to sign the bill, turn it into law. That would be a bad idea. Two would be to do nothing and let the time expire and then it becomes law. Also terrible, shouldn't do that. And her third choice is to veto the bills. So within the next five days, she has to take one of those three actions now that those two bills are on her desk. So I hope, listeners of the future, that there's good news out there and that when I do my little voiceover, I can tell you that. That is my hope and dream for us in the future. Can we talk about what those two bills are? What what what are we dealing with here that's on her desk?

Heidi Carrington Heath 10:11

Aimee, I'll start and then happy to tag team with you. Um, currently on her desk is SB552, which is a nearly identical bathroom and locker room bill to what we saw last session. Listeners, you may remember the last time I was here, I asked the question, New Hampshire has issues, the podcast that dares to ask, who really gets to live free? And yet again, here we are looking at an almost identical piece of legislation. The good news is a very similar bills have been vetoed now two sessions in a row by two separate governors, including Governor Ayotte. And so we are hopeful that she will do so again and get back to the important business of New Hampshire. Aimee, do you want to talk about 464?

Aimee Terravechia 10:59

Yeah, happy to. Um, well, unhappy to. I guess that's the wrong terminal. But yeah, 464 is uh a bill that would make it harder essentially to enforce civil rights violations. So it increases kind of you know the barrier to both file a complaint and also the burden of proof. Thankfully, that bill has been amended. So it's uh it's a little bit um nicer, I guess, than the original version, but it's still something that we as an organization are standing against. We don't want to see anybody have a harder time bring forth a civil rights complaint and be able to see actionable steps taken to remedy that in the state of New Hampshire. I think that's just a bad, a bad choice and a bad look.

— More bills

Liz Canada 11:42

Very bad look. So those are the two bills that she has currently. And you mentioned that there are two other ones lurking out there. What are those two bills left?

Aimee Terravechia 11:52

There's one that's another identical bathroom bill to the one that's on the governor's desk right now. Um, and then there's a school censorship bill too, um, which is SB434. So SB434 is school censorship, and then HB 1442 is another identical bathroom bill. Boo censorship. Yeah, boo censorship. We're back to book bands. We're back to book bands, we're back to book bands. Just book bands, Liz. They've they've made it bigger, better, stronger, worse, I guess.

Liz Canada 12:19

This sounds like a horrible infomercial. But wait, there's more than just the book bands. Okay.

Aimee Terravechia 12:25

Yeah.

— The school censorship bill, explained

Aimee Terravechia 12:26

Well, what yeah, it's a far-reaching materials ban. So it's not just books, it's documentaries, it's it's curriculum, it could be a worksheet. Um, anything that could be introduced in the classroom or in a school library could be challenged. And the way that this looks in practice is, you know, say um there's a parent who doesn't want little Timmy to read something. Um, right now they can say, I don't want Timmy to have access to this material. The school's like, cool, we understand. That's fine. But this new bill, should it become law if little Timmy's mom doesn't want Timmy to read something? That starts a process that restricts access to that material for everyone in the school district. So my children would not have access. Your children would not have access.

Liz Canada 13:11

Where are those parental rights I heard so much about? I know. Okay. Yeah. Um, that sounds really, really terrible. So I mentioned the flag ban, and we're talking about this curriculum. So I guess perhaps a question might be if there's a rainbow flag or a book that includes a gay character, how likely is it that a student seeing that or reading it will become gay, would you say? Generally speaking, if you had to guess, are we talking like nine out of ten times? How likely is this gonna happen?

Aimee Terravechia 13:51

You

— The truth about rainbow flags

Aimee Terravechia 13:52

know, if that if that were how things would had worked, uh I would I would be straight.

Liz Canada 13:57

So Me too, Aim. We all would be. Me too. I think that's right. We all would be, yes, indeed.

Aimee Terravechia 14:03

I and I think you know, there's something to be said, like being able to see yourself represented in the media you consume, in the books that you read, in your community, in your classroom. Like those are uh such powerful things to build an affirming environment. And when you exist in an affirming environment, you know that you can show up as your authentic self. So, like, I know you asked that question to jest, but also like the the ability to show up as your real self is such a powerful thing. Obviously, there's there's going to be more people who feel comfortable to live a life outside of the closet, who feel comfortable to be authentic in their communities if we build affirming communities. That does not mean that they were not gay to begin with.

Heidi Carrington Heath 14:47

And Aimee, you hit on something that I think is really important there, which is there are folks who might argue, well, like what does a rainbow flag have to do with me and why is it in my kids' classroom? Or how necessary really is this book or this piece of literature? And the reality is it is critically important for the young person who might be LGBTQ or have questions about their identity. But I would suggest to you it's important for all of us because when we create welcoming and affirming spaces, all of us are more able to authentically be ourselves. All of us are more able to show up as who we really are. And that builds stronger, broader communities for every citizen and every young person, not just the young person who most needs to see those things.

— What LGBTQ families are carrying

Liz Canada 15:34

This feels really overwhelming. I'm gonna be honest. Feels like we're having some big fights in New Hampshire right now. What's the vibe for folks? Like we're on our little call chit-chatting. Perhaps our uh level of stress is higher than usual, but how is it how is it just just a touch higher than usual? What are you hearing from folks? So, Aimee, you know, you you work you're an advocacy organization that represents like the people of of New Hampshire. And Heidi, you work directly with families. What's the vibe out there? How are folks feeling with what's happening at the Statehouse, what's happening across the country, from the federal government, and in general this Pride Month. What's the vibe?

Heidi Carrington Heath 16:19

I would say, you know, in my arena, particularly for young people, they're always carrying it with them right now, even when they don't talk about it. I feel sure I said some variation of this the last time I was here, too. But there is a cost to our kids to swimming in these political waters when they are watching the people in power who are charged to protect them, whose number one job should be their health and well-being, debate their personhood in public, whether legislation passes or it doesn't. They swim in that water all the time. And so it's always with them. They're always carrying it, even when they don't talk about it, even when we as adults may think like they seem pretty okay. It's there, it's knocking around. And similarly, you know, we have families asking real material questions about safety and is it safe for me to continue to raise my child in New Hampshire? And these are folks who love New Hampshire, who've lived their whole lives here, who are building a stronger granite state, but they are asking real questions in this moment about what's the breaking point when I may have to make a different choice. And that breaks my heart. Um, and so pride this year, more important than ever, more important than ever for those young people to see big crowds of people who show up and say we love you and we're here to support you. And for those families, because it's hard work to be the parent or the caregiver of an LGBTQ young person when you too feel like your government is not doing the work that you hope that they will do to care for and protect the vulnerable.

Aimee Terravechia 17:58

Echoing

— When the State House feels unsafe

Aimee Terravechia 17:59

everything that you have just said, Heidi, I think too, like we've we've spent the past five months inviting folks to come and testify against bills in the statehouse. And on one occasion, I have this like very vivid memory of this young trans woman coming to testify. And she was excited to be able to like speak. Um, you know, she got up, she said her piece, the committee not super friendly, some people in the room not super friendly. And afterwards I checked in with her in the hallway and she said, I have had such a wonderful experience in New Hampshire until I entered this room. Um and like, yeah, to like to see your elected officials, you know, create such uh an environment of divisiveness. Um, that's hard. That's hard to show up and see and hear. So there's definitely a heaviness that people are carrying with them, I think, 24-7, um, because of what we see in public discourse, what we see on news, what we hear about with legislative updates, and it does feel heavy and overwhelming. But pride also, in addition to being this joyous thing, like I very much see joy as this act of resistance. Like, yes, like that is that is a necessary part of the work. And being able to, you know, restore yourself, restore your community to come together and connect is really, really important. Having fun, laughing, like in spite of everything is so important.

Heidi Carrington Heath 19:36

We gotta

— Queer and trans people have always been here

Heidi Carrington Heath 19:37

laugh, folks. My God, yes. We gotta laugh. And like, listen, pride is our collective reminder that queer and trans people have always existed and always will. Like, no matter how much people in power may want that not to be true or maybe working against us, we have always been here and we will always be here. And so we are gonna show up big in joy and in community.

— How to take action

Liz Canada 20:03

Yes. All right. My last question for you is let's assume that this goes live after the first two bills have been acted on. What should someone do? They're listening to this episode, they've listened to Heidi's episode from last year. And if you haven't, it's an excellent sort of starter guide of like, okay, I don't understand why we're talking about this all the time. Can somebody explain it? That's the episode to go back and listen to. But what should someone do?

Aimee Terravechia 20:27

I I have a shameless plug, which is that you should sign up for our newsletter and and follow us on social media because I will put out action alerts about when people can affect policy outcomes. Um, I let people know too about the status of different bills and legislation. And we as an organization are working really, really hard to shed a light on what that process looks like. So people feel empowered to get engaged. New Hampshire's a weird wild west of a state. We have a very bizarre statehouse, but there's also a lot of points of access that not a lot of people know about. So, like there's a lot of opportunities to get engaged. And I don't want people to not recognize that they have power in this process still.

Heidi Carrington Heath 21:11

So I'm

— Be the safe adult

Heidi Carrington Heath 21:12

gonna plus one. Um, my good friend and colleague, please sign up for Six or Three Equalities newsletter. Great action steps for you to take. Please sign up for New Hampshire outright's newsletter, especially if you are an LGBTQ plus young person or young adult, or you are someone who loves an LGBTQ plus young person or young adult. We are expanding our programming and our supports all the time. And that will continue to be true. And I am also going to say, especially for those of us who are 18 plus in the room, please, please, please speak up. And please, please, please speak out. Our kids need to see you, our kids need to hear you, they need to know who the safe adults are in their community. Um, and they need to be able to look around and say, oh, before I ever entered this space, before I ever engaged with this person, they thought about me and they wanted me to know that I would be welcome here. I would be safe here. So please do that.

Liz Canada 22:13

We need folks to have conversations with one another. I know that it can be can feel uncomfortable. I know that you might not feel like you're saying the perfect thing, and that's also okay. We need to have conversations and not just let things be said without any sort of response. That is our responsibility as the grown-ups who care about these young people.

Heidi Carrington Heath 22:35

And I

— Learn something. Say something.

Heidi Carrington Heath 22:36

will say just shout out to my friend Kate, um, who has one of the things I said at the beginning of Pride Season was learn something. Like pick you have a question, you want to know more about something, yeah. Learn about that topic. Watch a reel, read an article, do a thing. Um, and she has been posting in her Instagram stories when she does that to help encourage other people to do the same thing. So I'll add that plug to learn a thing and then tell a friend about it.

Liz Canada 23:04

Learn a thing, say a thing. That's what we're asking for here. That's it. Well, thank you both for all of the work that you do and for going into that state house day in and day out, but also getting us all organized and understanding what is at stake and how we can get involved. So thank you both so much for everything you do for New Hampshire. And thank you for being on my little podcast. Thank you so much, Liz. It's been a pleasure. Thank you, Liz. I bet we do this again in the future, but I had to put money on it. And follow-up, what are straight people supposed to do this month?

Aimee Terravechia 23:42

I love the the question of what are straight people supposed to do this month, first of all.

Liz Canada 23:46

Stay indoors.

Aimee Terravechia 23:47

Yeah.

Liz Canada 23:50

Because it's hot out. That's all. It's just hot outside.