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A Commitment to the Queen City Connie Vetter, QNotes 2020 Person of the Year

BY CHrIS ruDISILL | QNOTES CONTrIBuTOr

Twenty years ago, Corretta Her last internship in the Scott King spoke to a crowd program brought her to Charlotte, at Ebenezer Baptist Church where she has “proudly” resided in Atlanta, Ga. while opening ever since. “I fell in love with the city’s Martin Luther King Day Charlotte,” remembers Vetter. “It observances. Remembering her just felt like home.” late husband’s legacy to service, Tailoring her practice around she urged a nation to envision a her strengths, Vetter focused society filled with compassion. on estate planning, family and

“The greatness of a community adoption rights and adult guardis most accurately measured by ianship. She focuses on the needs the compassionate actions of its of LGBTQ individuals and couples members,” she stated. and is an experienced mediator.

Each year, qnotes selects a She always has a personalperson or organization that is ized approach, something she benefitting the LGBTQ community calls a “client-focused practice.” through service or by breaking Vetter remembers a moment down barriers in the region. Many recently crying over a letter that have stepped up this year to sup- came from a client. While she port a community wading through may not be changing the laws like a pandemic and one can iden- she dreamed of as an early law tify numerous instances where student, Vetter is definitely helpcompassion has prevailed over ing people understand their legal despair. Yet, one person stood rights and protections. “I get hugs out, with years of service to the from my clients, and that’s not LGBTQ community and a sense of something a lot of attorneys get,” mentorship that’s now impacting reflects Vetter. the city’s leaders of tomorrow. She is a member of the North

Since coming to Charlotte in Carolina State Bar, Mecklenburg 1993, Connie Vetter has served in County Bar, National LGBT Bar nearly 20 community organizations Association, National LGBT Bar in a board or committee member Family Law Institute and is on the role, not to mention the count- board of directors for the Pauli less times she has volunteered Murray LGBTQ+ Bar Association. her skills as one of the city’s most In 2016, Mecklenburg County Bar recognizable LGBTQ attorneys. honored Vetter with the Julius

“Connie is more than just a pil- Chambers Diversity Champion lar of our community,” said Chad Award, something she points Turner, the president and CEO of out was as much for them as the Charlotte LGBT Chamber of it was for her. “That was them Commerce. “She has been an in- (Mecklenburg County Bar) putting tegral contributor to the progress their ‘money where their mouth and growth of our city.” was,’” says Vetter.

Vetter grew up in small farm She has also presented a numtown in Illinois before moving to ber of legal workshops on topics Ohio in her early teens after her ranging from LGBTQ parenting to father, a chemical engineer, had HIV/AIDS to transgender equality been transferred with his com- and LGBTQ diversity. In 2003, she pany. “We moved from my little presented on LGBT Civil Rights 1,200-person town to a suburb of at the National Conference for Cincinnati where there were more people in my high school than in the town I grew up in,” says Vetter. She remembers hating it at the time, but realizes now the abunAttorney and community leader Connie Vetter, qnotes’ 2020 Person of the Year. (Photo Credit: qnotes staff) Community and Justice and at the Civil Rights Youth Conference. A LIFETIME OF CHANGE dance of educational opportunities she would have there Before marriage equality, Vetter successfully helped get compared to those in her hometown. domestic partnership benefits for city and county employees,

She went on to Ohio State University and came out orders that were both rescinded after the 2015 U.S. Supreme in her senior year. After graduating with a Bachelors in Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage in Obergefell v. journalism, Vetter and her girlfriend at the time moved Hodges. Her professional skills proved beneficial and allowed to Boston, Mass. She got a job with the Bay State Banner, her an inside track to city and county attorneys. an independent newspaper serving the Black community Like many people, Vetter still remembers the moment since 1965. the Obergefell decision came down, as well as the time

“That was phenomenal — as a 22-year-old, white waiting when marriage equality passed in N.C. the year lesbian Midwesterner to be dropped into Dorchester and before in 2014. “I’ve marched in the streets, marched Roxbury … and be the only white face … was a wonderful in Washington, marched in Charlotte,” she says. “In my experience,” says Vetter. lifetime, we’ve gone from getting kicked out of the military

She then decided to go to law school with the idea of … heck, we’ve gone from it being listed as a mental illness, bringing cases that would change laws, or impact litiga- to where we are now — to our private intimate relations tion, similar to the work of organizations like the ACLU, being unlawful to not anymore.” Lambda Legal and National Center for Lesbian Rights. She has worked with Time Out Youth Center for She graduated from Northwestern University Law School years and was a board member of OutCharlotte from in 1993, and quickly realized that while the work of those 1995-1997. From 1997 to 1998 she worked as a hotorganizations was hugely important, it wasn’t her strong line peer counselor for the Charlotte Gay and Lesbian suit. “I don’t like litigation,” she says laughingly. “That was Switchboard. In 2007, she helped envision Charlotte’s going to be a big problem.” Lesbian and Gay Community Center and served on its Board of Trustees through 2009. She served on the Charlotte LGBTQ Steering Committee until earlier this year. From 2015 to 2016, she was a volunteer server at the Men’s Shelter of Charlotte’s First Sunday Dinners and has been part of the Pet Therapy Team at Carolinas Medical Center and Hospitality House. Vetter has also supported philanthropy in Charlotte’s LGBTQ community as a board member of The Wesley Mancini Foundation and on the annual meeting event planning committee for the Charlotte Lesbian and Gay Fund.

“I like sitting on boards of directors,” says Vetter. “I like doing what I can.”

Numerous honors include the Don King Community Service Award in 1999, the Righteous Woman Award in 2004 from New Life MCC, ACLU of North Carolina’s Sharon Thompson Award in 2013 and being named as part of “25 in 25” by the Charlotte LGBT Chamber of Commerce in 2017.

uPLIFTING THE COMMuNITY

Following a public outcry to the financial and organizational mismanagement of MeckPac earlier this year Vetter was able to bring the community together when few could see beyond the bitter entanglements that were quickly dividing a community.

William Loftin spoke to qnotes about Vetter’s leadership saying “You could not have honored a better human being.” Loftin is the former chair of Charlotte Black Pride and the current transitional chair of MeckPAC. He has seen firsthand the breadth of Vetter’s activism, philanthropy and “love of community.”

“As leaders, we sometimes allow egos and pride to get in the way of us truly reaching our objectives and uplifting the community,” he said. “Connie sees beyond all of that and, because of her humility and willingness to work across every divide, she will continue to leave a mark upon the many lives in the LGBTQIA+ community of Charlotte.”

Vetter and Bishop Tonyia M. Rawls recently resurrected the local Change Agents Lunch (formerly known as the “leader’s lunch”) and she has tried to create opportunities for members of the community to come together and talk.

Vetter served as co-chair of MeckPAC, then called the Mecklenburg Gay & Lesbian Political Action Committee, from 1999 to 2001 and again from 2003 to 2006. In 2005, she spoke to qnotes about the organization, “With hate groups ready to limit and take away basic human rights of LGBT citizens, we need to keep working to elect and educate local elected officials.” see Vetter on 14

Connie Vetter was the recipient of the Julius Chambers Diversity Champion Award from the Mecklenburg County Bar Association. (Photo Credit: Facebook)