Recognizing Henry Berg-Brousseau

Floor Speech

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Ms. BALINT. Madam Speaker, I just want to start by giving a heartfelt thank you to my colleague, Morgan McGarvey, a dear friend whose family has become close to my family. Our wives have become close.

It just means so much to me to be standing here on the floor of the House. It is a place where I never thought I would be in a million years not just because I am a child of an immigrant and a working-class mom but because I am a gay American.

I knew at 11 years of age that I was gay. I also knew that it was not something that was accepted by my family or my community or my teachers or my friends, but it didn't matter. That is who I was.

I also knew that my calling in life was to alleviate suffering, first as a teacher--I taught middle school for many years--and then as a State legislator, and now in Congress. That has been the through line of my life. It is using whatever position of power I have in order to alleviate suffering in all its forms.

Madam Speaker, I just want to tell you what it is like when you know at 17 years of age what you are called to do, and you do not see a path to do it, not only because I had nobody in my family who had ever run for office, but it was because as a gay American I knew the world had not changed enough for me to be able to safely run for office.

Even when I decided to run, it terrified my parents. They did not want me to be so public about being not just gay but having a family, a wife and children. Nor did they want me to open our lives up to the world to say: This is what a family can look like and not just survive but to thrive.

For the first few months when I was elected to be a State senator, my dad would start almost every single phone conversation with some version of: Have they vandalized your house yet?

Have they slashed your tires yet?

Are you getting a lot of hatred?

I would say: Dad, if I am getting that, I am not going to tell you because I don't want you to be worried.

Even today, I have to remind them constantly: Don't read the comments. Do not read the comments on social media about me because you will not see me reflected in those comments, and you will feel so heartbroken that your daughter, who is finally doing what she was always called to do, is going to be on the receiving end of hate. For what?

For standing up for marginalized people in my community. Sometimes that is members of the LGBT community. Sometimes that is the rural poor in my community who need me to stand up for them. Sometimes that is people of color who are being discriminated against or just regular families who can't put food on the table or pay for affordable housing. I would be a target for doing the work of an elected official, not because I am doing my job poorly, but simply because of who I am.

Madam Speaker, I will tell you who I am. I am a very proud American citizen who contributes deeply to her community, her State, and her Nation.

That will never matter to some people. All they will see is that I am a gay American and, therefore, I am suspect and not to be trusted.

I have to tell you, Madam Speaker, this is the greatest honor of my life to be here in Congress. I never thought that I would get here.

It sickens me to my core when I sit in committee hearings or I listen to discussions on the floor and people say things about me and my community that are not just rooted in ignorance but often in hatred, distrust, and fear.

It doesn't have to be this way. It really doesn't.

Madam Speaker, in your communities, regardless of your Congressional District, you have gay Americans and trans Americans. They may be in your family, and they don't feel comfortable telling you because they know how you feel. They see your votes and they hear what you say about us on C-SPAN.

Morgan just gave voice to something that is at the heart of it for me and my constituents which is: Where is your love?

Where is your compassion?

I have had the opportunity to talk to two different sets of parents of trans kids who have come to the Capitol to say: Our own government is talking about our children as if they are demons and as if they are monsters. They are dehumanizing our children, and they are blaming us, the parents, saying that we are terrible people because we love our children, we support our children, and we want them to get the care that they need and that they deserve.

They said in both these meetings: We need you to speak for us because we are not in those rooms and we are not in those Halls when people are saying not just insensitive things but cruel things and uneducated things about our lives.

We have people in our LGBT community who are thinking of leaving their home States right now because they fear for their lives and for the lives of their children. It is not hyperbole.

Yesterday, I was at a leadership meeting for some young people who had won a wonderful award. I went to speak to them, and afterwards one of the moms came up to me. She gave me a hug.

She said: You don't know what it means to my kid to see you here as an openly gay woman serving in the House of Representatives.

She said: I am fearful for her, not because I don't love her and support her, because I do, but I fear because of the hatred that she receives on a daily basis.

She said: Not just from the community, but from elected officials.

As Morgan said, these are children.

Almost every week I have families come to visit me in Vermont. Some are parents of trans kids, some are parents of gay kids, and some are just parents of kids who want to be part of something powerful like elective government.

I can't tell you, Madam Speaker, how proud I am every time they say to me: I am so glad that I voted for you. I am so glad that you are sticking up for all of our kids.

They say: That gives me hope for the future that we are going to ride out this backlash.

What we see right now is what we saw when I was a kid, and instead of being on the receiving end, instead of it being about trans kids, it was about gay kids, and we were the bogeyman.

I hear some of our elected officials on TV talk about how they are protecting families by passing legislation like ``don't say gay.'' This is absurd because these kids in Gen Z are so far ahead of us. What they see are people and not labels.

I think about my own family. If we were not in Vermont, if we were in Florida or in Texas or somewhere else where people are passing these ridiculous bills about ``don't say gay,'' my own children would be in school being ashamed or being made to feel ashamed of their family.

This is about real people. This isn't about some slogan.

Madam Speaker, it shouldn't be about playing to your base so that you can raise more money or drive people to the polls because you want to make them fearful of Americans who are just living their lives. That is all they want. That is all I ever wanted.

It is Pride Month, and we threw a big party in Vermont last week for pride. One of the young men who helped me organize it told me that the day before this event his car was completely and totally trashed and vandalized. It had hateful homophobic messages all over it.

I was so frustrated and sad that this was how we were ushering in pride. Even more than that, I hated that I could sit with him and say: I have had the same experience. I had to have my car repainted because someone decided to scratch ``dyke'' into the side of my car.

So I was grateful that I could sit with him, and I thought: Have we learned nothing?

Just the other day in Vermont a poet was harassed at a poetry reading because he is a man of color and he is gay. They basically chased him out of a poetry reading because somehow his poetry was going to be so dangerous for the people of that town.

We are talking about ideas.

Why are we policing ideas?

We have seen this before.

So I am here today, Madam Speaker, because I want you to know that pride is about going through the hard stuff too. It is about not glossing it over with rainbow flags, parades, drag queen story hours, and the things that are celebratory--yes, they are--but it is also about acknowledging that some people are trying to drag us back. They are trying to erase our experience, our identities, and our families.

I could not be more proud to not just represent my community but also all of the Vermonters who support me, who elected me, and who said: Yes, yes, we see the work that you do. We see the compassion that you bring to your work, and it doesn't matter to us that you are a gay American. You are the right person for the job.

I need my colleagues here to understand that this is about real people. It is about real families. It is about promise and possibility. It is about every single kid believing that they have the right and opportunity every other kid has. It is about how families feel regardless of what their family looks like that the government is not going to come after them and infringe on their personal freedoms.

Pride is a month about freedom, about living your life true to yourself and to have a heart wide-open to the world and inviting other people in to celebrate.

We should have enough room in our hearts. We should make enough room in our hearts. We should be driven by compassion, love, empathy, and basic human dignity.

That is why I am standing up today.

Madam Speaker, I love Representative Morgan McGarvey, and I thank him for his leadership.

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