Barre
Safe
Zone
Fallout:
Ayers
Rebuked

ccording to notes posted
on the Barre City
Schoolboard website, the

board members have rebuked the
man who removed a teacher’s
Safe Zone placard from her class-
room door (OITM, December,
2002). In a letter to David Ayers,
who maintained he would
remove such a placard again,
Dorothy Anderson wrote that he
must notify the school of any
future visits and check in at the
school office.

I The letter was read into
the public-record minutes and
was posted on the website as fol-
lows:

_ “Dear David:

“On behalf of the Barre City
School Board, I need to inform
you that taking the sticker from
a teacher’s door or taking any-
thing else from the school is
totally unacceptable and,
according to Police Chief
Trevor Whipple, could fall in
the category of petty larceny.
We are requesting you return
the sticker to the school. In
addition to this matter, your
action has sparked a debate
about the _teacher’s contractual
right to freedom. of individual
jconsciénce, as_soci'ation and ‘ ’
expression. Any objection you
-had tothe ‘posting of the_ sticker
should have been proc_ess'ed
through the ‘chain.o'f— command
l)feg'i«nriing. at theprincipal level.
3f6l_l.' §h_ould_not‘have taken it
ilvpon‘ yourself to make a deter-
lfiination as; to whether the
Sticker. was appropriate or not.
j'j:j.V , f‘B_ecause of these
¢Y¢r1‘ts,.the board has requested
i;ne.to tell you -that when you

 to visit Barre City
Eleinitentariy and Middle School,
}’,f>u«need to phone ahead and
schedule an appointment with
one of the principals and state
What business you intend to
conduct when you arrive. When
YOU arrive, you need to sign in.
lfyou do not follow these pro-
cedures and are found in the

building, we will notify the
police.”

Another -board member, Martin
PTFVQSI, “wished to add that at
this time it is not intended that
the sticker be placed in the
School and was only a return of
Property.” V

GLBTQ Concerns To Be
  Negotiated by Nurses’ Union

, BY PAT OSBORNE

fter last fall’s landslide victo-
ry in favor ofjoining and
being represented in negotia-

tions by a union, the gay and lesbian
nurses who work at Fletcher Allen
Health Care (FAHC) are looking for-
ward to gaining important legal pro-
tections.

The primary issue remains
patient care, first, last and always,
say the nurses who agreed to speak
on the record with OITM. But
according to Andrew Tripp, lead
organizer at FAHC for the Federation
of Nurses and Health Professionals
(FNHP), also on the table are con-
tractual clauses reflecting the nondis-
crimination policies now embodied in
the corporation’s employee hand-
book. The handbook, suggested
Tripp, is not legally binding, whereas
including the nondiscrimination poli-
cies as part of the contract would
give members of the nurses’ union
recourse to a specified and legally
binding grievance process.

Gender identity is not cur-
rently part of the FAHC’s nondis-
crimination policies, nor is the union
planning to add the phrase. “Gender
identity [discrimination] could be
grieved under other clauses,” said
Tripp, such as those preventing sexu-
al harassment and discrimination
based on sexual orientation. Tripp

also cited the union bargaining

team’s hope to include a requirement _ '

that FAHC provide a “respectful and
dignified work environment.”

The bargaining teams meet
weekly for negotiations, said Tripp.

‘Other nondiscrimination
categories currently in the handbook
that may be subject to the contract
negotiations include marital status,
pregnancy, and status as a military
veteran.

No other single issue unites
the gay and lesbian nurses at FAHC,
but some mentioned more subtle
concerns.

Suzanne Hall is a psychi-
atric nurse at FAHC. “The docs will
collect a history from a dyke or a gay
man and use sexual identity as part of
the assessment. [But] they don’t
specify ‘heterosexual’ when speaking
of straight women and men.” Hall,
who h’as.worked ‘on the hill’ for 20-
odd years, has helped to teach
decades of psychiatric residents and
interns how to abandon the assump-
tion of heterosexuality.

When lesbian or gay
patients are admitted to her unit, Hall
is often tapped to include them in her
caseload. She appreciates the matter-
of-fact acceptance of her sexual ori-
entation but doesn’t want it to limit
her nursing practice. “I’m a profes-
sional,” she maintains. “I’m good at
taking care of street people, too.”
And, of course, her taking the lesbian

- r

and gay cases allows other nurses to
avoid learning how best to relate to
these patients.

David O’Vitt worked at
FAHC as a pediatric staff nurse when
he adopted a newborn. He questioned
a short-term disability policy that he
felt might be discriminatory. To help
him cope with the adjustments com-
mon to becoming a parent, he
inquired about short-term disability,
an option that is offered to women on
maternity leave to extend the avail-
able time off. He was told that the
benefit was only intended for
women. He felt that the response was
discriminatory; however, he chalked
it up to gender discrimination rather
than homophobia.

Debra Kutzko is a nurse
practitioner who has provided service
to the AIDS community for over a
decade. She says she feels more
covert discrimination against her as a
Jew than as a lesbian.

Employees identify FAHC
as a gay-friendly environment. Linda
Klein has been a neonatal nurse prac-
titioner there for 4 years. She is out
to all the does, all her colleagues. “I
have absolutely zero concerns about
[discrimination].” James Lapierre
works in the MICU (medical inten-
sive care unit). By wearing a rainbow
stripe across the bottom of nametag,
he makes it possible for his patients
to identify him as a gay man. He says
it gives him another credential, simi-

lar to having “RN” after his name,
that will let patients from the queer
community know there’s someone
caring for them who might better
understand their needs.

Lapierre was interviewed
by Channel 22, the local ABC affili-
ate, about the inconsistency in the
Red Cross’s refusal to allow him to
donate blood because he is a man
having sex with men when his cre-
dential qualifies him to administer
blood at FAHC. James felt that he
was well supported by FAHC in his
decision to do the interview: the
institution allowed Channel 22 to do
on-site filming for the background to
the piece.

FAHC offers equal health
insurance and other benefits to
employees to cover their domestic
partners regardless of the employee’s
marital status or sexual orientation. It
also prohibits discrimination based
on sexual orientation as part of its
written employment policy statement.
GLBTQ nurses hope both policies —
and the inclusion of gender identity
and gender presentation — will be
incorporated into the union contract.

Kutzko was confident that
Vermont medical professionals and
the hospital administration are
unlikely to engage in anti-gay dis-

. criminatory action. “It’s Vermont,”

she concluded. V