Underground Workshop: Outright Vermont staff finds motivation in community and hope 

Outright Vermont provides support to queer/LGBTQ+ youth from around the state. Photo courtesy of Outright Vermont

Rose Howell is a student at Burlington High School working with the Underground Workshop, a network of student journalists partnering with Community News Service.

“The world can be pretty crappy … so what we do at Outright, and what community and queer joy can offer, is like an antidote in a space where it’s OK to be yourself.”

Courage Pearson is the director of organizing at Outright Vermont, a queer/LGBTQ+ advocacy, education and community-based center. They work with a team of five staff members who focus on supporting youth through leadership development.

Outright was established in 1989, and they use a plethora of outreach methods: queer community-building spaces, summer camp, educational resources and more.

Pearson has been working at Outright for five years, but they have been involved in different activism roles for much longer. Their first experience of advocacy occurred when they were in elementary school in the 1980s. 

“We found out in fourth grade [that] we weren’t getting [standard] grades anymore. And I was pissed,” Pearson said. “So me and my friend got a petition together in a classroom, and we delivered it to the teachers and so they decided to continue with [proficiency based] assessment, and they went back to grades. So we got both!”

Pearson was raised in Rhode Island and graduated from Smith College, a women’s college, in 1995. After becoming conscious of themself as a transgender and non-binary person, they realized right around that time that they needed the queer community. 

“When I came out as a teen, it became really clear to me that I needed to advocate for myself,” Pearson said. “I needed to find community to end [things] that were both causing me harm and my friends harm.”

Since Pearson’s fourth grade petition, they’ve worn many different hats as an activist. Prior to moving to Vermont, they worked for the Alternatives to Violence Project in the greater Philadelphia area from 2001-2005. 

The Alternatives to Violence Project uses a training model that can be used in high conflict situations, but it originally started in prisons in 1975. One moment working there was Pearson’s most impactful experience as an activist. They used to help run non-violence training in prisons, where they would co-facilitate workshops with men in prison for life.

“I was facilitating an activity where people were role-playing doing a sit-in. But in the middle of it, I thought to myself, if this actually happened in this prison, these men would be in solitary confinement,” Pearson said. “It made me realize just exactly how privileged I am.”

Pearson continued working in Philadelphia as a farmer educator, a social change facilitator and a conflict mediator. They originally moved to Vermont in 2013 to feel connected to a farming community and then switched to nonprofit work. 

Pearson said they wanted to be part of the solution, not the problem, which is why they applied for a position focused on helping youth. 

“[I felt like] I could contribute to the continuation of social change movements and the continuation of queer joy [through Outright] … because I believe in young people, I trust in their brilliance, and I’m willing to do the work to help facilitate the learning that’s needed,” Pearson said.

While Pearson has focused on cultivating queer joy, they have also dealt with the negative effects of activism, such as repercussions to mental health. 

They are especially frustrated with how embedded fear is in decision-making. Pearson said it can be isolating to have to confront that fear a lot. 

They added they are really grateful for their team and the dedication they have put into including young people.

“So often, marginalized folks [and youth] get things done to them,” Pearson said. “I feel proud that at Outright we’re really trying hard, and of course we’re messing up, but we’re trying hard to shift away from doing things to [people], to doing things with/for [young people], moving towards partnerships across generations.”

Pearson feels that students have made a particularly significant impact through Act 127. That legislation, which states that all single-use bathrooms have to be unisex, was conceptualized by students at Leadership Day, an Outright event. Pearson also mentioned how youth have facilitated trainings for school staff which taught them how to help queer kids feel more included. 

Additionally, Outright has three youth-oriented annual statewide events. Leadership Day gives students an opportunity to speak out at the Vermont Statehouse, and share what they want to change in schools. There’s also the Gender Sexuality Alliance, in which GSAs from all different schools come together to talk about their clubs’ goals and projects. The last event of the year is the Youth Summit, which is all about celebration. There have been marches, talent shows and prom-style parties in the past. 

Another youth opportunity is the Youth Organizing internship, which is a program for students to learn from the folks at Outright and weigh in on their projects. 

One of these Youth Organizers is Avery Cochran, a senior at U-32 High School who started about two years ago.

As one of 12-15 youth organizers, and as a part of the Youth Power Education group, the job has a challenge-by-choice model. They meet weekly, with additional campaign meetings as needed. Cochran is also part of Seeking Social Justice, a club at their school. They have presented at inservice meetings about queer education as well. 

“[I got into activism] because I think it has to do with helping everybody collectively make the world a better place. And doing things for other people makes you feel better about yourself,” Cochran said. “It’s sort of like doing something for my younger self who doesn’t feel the way I do now. I was a lot shyer and didn’t feel great about my identity then.”

While activism is affirming and makes you feel like you’re making a difference, it can negatively impact mental health, Cochran said. 

“People get riled up and then relax a bit as we become more immune and unfeeling towards acts of violence and hatred because it’s just so common in our world now,” Cochran said. “It disheartens me to see people tired, I guess. It really is exhausting to do this work, because it’s sometimes hard to see the change.”

But they urge people, and specifically youth, to remember that every speech made, email sent and flier put up raises awareness. 

Cochran became more invested in activism because of exposure to other advocates. They attended Outright’s annual Leadership Day prior to really coming out and starting more activism, and hearing the speeches folks made and the queer joy there was so impactful, they said.

Recently Cochran also co-organized a walk out for Palestine to raise awareness. They admitted to being worried it wouldn’t garner enough support, but using social media and word of mouth resulted in 100-200 people attending.

While Cochran works hard advocating online and off, they’re able to balance activism with the rest of their life by incorporating it throughout their education and work. They work at Outright and have an independent study at school related to activism. Their schoolwork focuses on three skills, including facilitation, which is a big part of youth organizing at Outright. 

Cochran’s goals are to continue presentations with elementary educators about queer spaces and figure out what role they want activism to play as they move forward in their school career.

As for Pearson, they are looking forward to Outright buying a camp property. 

“We’re going to be offering a beautiful land-based project to welcome queer and trans and allied communities and create spaces for queer trans youth to thrive,” Pearson said. 

This story, one in a six-part package on student activism, was produced during the recently completed school year.