Mad Pride 2022: Vermonters labelled 'mentally ill' demand justice in 1st Burlington march

Vermonters who have been labelled "mentally ill" by society — who identify as mentally disabled, neurodivergent, mental health service users or psychiatric incarceration survivors — will be marching to celebrate their identities, build political power and end discrimination on this year's Mad Pride Day.

The march will be Saturday, July 16, in Burlington. Participants will gather at the Hood Plant Parking Lot at the corner of King Street and South Winooski Avenue before 12 p.m. Starting at noon, the march will go down Church Street to Pearl Street, and then to Battery Park, where speakers, poets, musicians and food vendors will be active until 3 p.m.

"People with mental health challenges, or a history of mental health challenges, don't have any political power," said Wilda White, Mad Pride organizer and founder of the Poultney-based organization MadFreedom. "An event like this is meant to be able to mobilize people."

Mad Pride is organized and run by a coalition of Vermonters who identify as "mad" — a term that reclaims "madness" as a cultural and political identity, rather than an illness that needs to be cured. Mad identity is related to the social model of disability, which views disabilities not as limitations in of themselves, but as characteristics that society places limitations on through discrimination.

Discrimination against mad-identified people occurs in the healthcare system, as well as in the areas of employment, housing, mass incarceration, police violence and more, White said.

For example, people categorized as "severely mentally ill" comprise 6% of the general population in the U.S., but 20-25% of the homeless population, according to a 2009 report by the National Coalition for the Homeless.

Mad Pride is about "making sure that we have equality in our entire lives, not just within the mental health system itself," said Sarah Launderville, executive director of the nonprofit Vermont Center for Independent Living, a sponsor of the march. "Like, I can share my story and then go get a job, and keep my job. And I can be a parent and not lose my kids because of my psychiatric disability."

Co-sponsors of Mad Pride include the anti-coercion nonprofit Vermont Psychiatric Survivors and anti-homelessness nonprofit Pathways Vermont. Both organizations advocate for peer support models of mental health care, in which people with shared lived experience mutually support one another.

Origins of Mad Pride

The first Vermont Mad Pride march was held in Montpelier in 2016. It was held again in 2017, 2018 and 2019, but put on hold during the onset of the pandemic. This year Mad Pride is back — and will be held in Burlington for the first time.

Mad Pride is a global movement that dates back to the political organizing of the 1960's and 70's, according to historical archives by Oregon Health & Science University. Grassroots organizations including the Mental Patients Liberation Front of Boston, Insane Liberation Front of Oregon and Mental Patients Alliance of Central New York emerged around issues of patient self-determination and autonomy.

In 1981, the Central New York coalition held their first demonstration outside the Willard Psychiatric Center in Ovid, New York, carrying signs saying “Forced Treatment is Torture” and “Stop Forced Psychiatric Treatment,” according to the nonprofit MindFreedom International. The protest was held July 14, a reference to the day French revolutionaries stormed the Bastille prison in 1789, freeing prisoners who included psychiatric inmates. The day stuck and became a focal point for Mad Pride demonstrations ever since.

While this year's Vermont Mad Pride will take place on July 16 to align with the weekend, its press release acknowledges Bastille Day as foundational to the march.

Marching against discrimination

Vermont Mad Pride distinguishes itself from "traditional anti-stigma events" by focusing on the material consequences of discrimination, such as unemployment, White said.

Of the 12.8 million adults who are unemployed in a given year, 3.1 million — about a quarter — were labelled as having a "mental illness," according to 2008-2012 data by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.

Unemployment is often faced by people who are ready and able to work but discriminated against on the basis of their mental health, Tilburg University professor Evelien Brouwers wrote in a 2020 article. Brouwers cites a 2010 survey at King's College London of 500 British employers — a third of whom said their company takes a "significant risk" when hiring employing people with mental health challenges.

"The reason we want to get rid of discrimination is so people can live lives of their own design," White said. "And people can flourish, and people can live without coercion, and people can live with equality under the law."

People with "untreated severe mental illness" constitute one-fourth of all people killed by police and one-fifth of all people in jail and prison, according to a 2015 report by the nonprofit Treatment Advocacy Center.

Contact April Fisher at amfisher@freepressmedia.com. Follow her on Twitter: @AMFisherMedia

This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Mad Pride Day: Vermonters labelled "mentally ill" demand justice