Transgender activists allowed to disrupt detransitioner awareness event at Vermont State House; sergeant in arms forces everyone to leave rather than just disrupters

On March 12, 2025, the organizations Vermont Family Alliance and SpeakVT hosted an event at the Vermont State House to promote awareness for people who have detransitioned. The groups had previously reserved the room to hold the event and give a presentation. Parents Defending Education saw the reservation form for the room and can confirm the groups had claim to the room for 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. for that day. However, a group of people who support gender ideology were allowed to barge into the room and cause disruptions to ensure the event never occurred.

The crowd appeared to consist of shirtless men wearing clothing such as tutus and pink sequins hats yelling and preventing the groups from carrying through with their event. The sergeant at arms eventually cleared the entire room as the issue continued to escalate, rather than clearing just the disrupters out of the room.

Libs of TikTok shared additional video of the event on X. The Vermont Daily Chronicle also covered the story. The news outlet explained: “Biological males wearing women’s clothing sang and danced from the moment the 1 PM event started, and continue to do so until everyone was told to leave after 1:30 PM.” The news outlet then continued to explain regarding the sergeant in arms: “When asked why she didn’t first ask the disrupters to leave, she told VDC that it’s a public room and both groups have the right to be there.” State House Police reportedly confirmed that the transgender activists were not asked to leave.

Vermont State Rep. Mari Cordes appeared to know about the pre-orchestrated disturbance beforehand and wanted to help build support for it with other representatives. In a Facebook discussion for planning, she stated: “I’m a legislator trying to gather support from within the statehouse – where is the dance party? On the lawn?” In another post promoting a disruption of the event stating “push back against transphobic bigots,” Cordes stated: “The official Legislative Room Schedule has the detrans group (Vermont Family Alliance) scheduled in Room 11 on 3/12 from 8:45-9:45 am. The Daily Chronicle has them being here from 1-3pm.”

Vermont Senate and House Democrats also put out a statement on March 12 attacking the groups that attempted to host the detransition awareness event. The letter was signed by Vermont Senate Majority Leader Kesha Ram Hinsdale and House Majority Leader Lori Houghton. They specifically mentioned the name of Vermont Family Alliance and appeared to support the disrupters.

Here is the official joint statement sent out by the two groups who had reserved the room for their event.

On a related note, in 2023, the Essex-Westford school district in Vermont denied a request to add Detransition Awareness Day (March 12) to the school calendar—administrators and school board members claimed that “centering transitioning gender as damaging does not align” with the district equity policy and “can be hurtful to transgender people and youth.” We documented this example of viewpoint discrimination in Essex-Westford, VT here.

The disruption in Vermont is not the first time a similar event has occurred this year. On January 22, 2025, Alpha News reported that “protesters crashed a Minnesota House committee meeting” the day before. The protesters attacked Republican members of the House for not supporting gender ideology. The disrupters in Minnesota were also spurred on by a Democratic member of the state House, Leigh Finke. She stated on Bluesky: “The MAGA MN COUP continues! show up and let the Republicans know that these fascist tactics are not welcome!”

To see our gender tracker to see which school districts around the country have written gender policies that encourage or require staff to knowingly deceive parents about their child’s gender identity at school, click here.