Vermont man fighting back against fines totaling $1,200 over stickers opposing trans ideology
A Vermont man is fighting back against $1,200 in fines he incurred after publicly posting stickers opposing trans ideology.
"Reaching for my kind of radical training, if you can't get the word out through the media, then there are other means, and 'stickering' is a very popular, commonly used method in Burlington," resident Bill Oetjen told The Christian Post in a phone interview.
Oetjen, who explained that he comes from the political Left and was once an activist sympathetic to local Antifa, said he was recently served with three $400 citations from the Burlington Police Department for plastering local utility poles with stickers urging the defense of "women’s sex-based rights, spaces, and sports."
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"No one was ever born into the wrong body," another one of his stickers proclaims.
Oetjen said he was moved to post the stickers after witnessing transgenderism being pushed on young students when he worked as a substitute teacher in local public schools.
"At around the end of 2018, I was a substitute teacher in the Burlington schools," he said, adding that he substitute-taught in every grade.
Oetjen said when he was teaching, he noticed "more and more of these kids starting the medicalization, going on puberty blockers," and that transgender ideology was "becoming an obsession to them."
Oetjen recounted that he personally witnessed a guidance counselor presenting kindergartners with the "Genderbread Person," a cartoon gingerbread man that features in some public school curricula and suggests children can be born in the wrong body.
"[That] to me is a religious belief, and obviously harmful," he said. "I was thinking, 'I don't know if I can stay with this teaching racket because I can't justify helping facilitate this process.'"
Oetjen said after he started going public on social media with his opinions against transgender ideology, his opportunities to substitute teach evaporated. After he began his stickering campaign, he said he was targeted by local activists who left a pocket holster next to his vandalized car, stalked him online, and pressured the local government to go after him.
The Burlington Community Justice Center also reportedly contacted him regarding the stickers in a call he characterized as "creepy," noting that they told him they knew what he was doing and that it seemed the call was on speaker phone with several people listening in. He denied involvement at the time, fearing potential legal repercussions.
The Burlington City Council passed a resolution in March condemning anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and "aggressive stickering near our schools and six other public spaces," also noting that "Burlington Parks and Public Works staff has worked hard to come up with a plan for addressing and tracking hateful stickers in our parks and on other city-owned property."
Oetjen said officers arrived at his home last month to deliver three $400 citations reviewed by CP for alleged "graffiti and defacing property" and gave him 21 days to pay the fines, which he is now fighting with the help of attorneys who are working pro bono because they see his case as an issue of free speech.
Neither the Burlington Community Justice Center, the Burlington Police Department, nor Democratic Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger responded to The Christian Post's request for comment regarding Oetjen's claims.
Oetjen, who said he has "renounced" Antifa and its tactics since they have allegedly gone after him, added that "ordinary folks" he often speaks to also find transgender ideology "insane" but that many are afraid to speak out.
Oetjen said his intentions with his stickering campaign were to let average people know that they are "not alone in questioning trans-cult orthodoxy," that "wokesters cannot completely control the narrative," and "to prompt conversation among those who are reticent to broach the topic."
"Courage calls to courage," Oetjen said. "And if people can stick together on this, then the left will destroy itself over this. But people have got to feel safe to stand up."
"I'm a stubborn guy," he added. "And if anyone tells me, 'These are the things you must not say, you are you are prohibited from questioning this orthodoxy,' I'm the guy who will say, 'Well, no, you're going to hear about it a lot.' And I'm going to question it loudly and publicly and relentlessly because you told me I can't."
