I Am a Transman and Last Week I Spoke Out for Abortion Rights in Front of the Supreme Court. Here’s Why.
Defending abortion rights and preventing manipulative restrictions on abortion access is something that will benefit everyone, including those in the trans and queer communities. The queer rights movement and the abortion rights movement have the same goals of bodily autonomy and having the freedom to do what’s right for themselves. That’s what is at stake in the Supreme Court for millions, including people like me.
5 Best Feminist Quotes You Missed From This Week, SCOTUS to the Silver Screen
Fortunately, Kierra Johnson of URGE: Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equity, was on hand at Wednesday’s rally outside the Supreme Court to give us these wise words inspired by Beyoncé. “Today is a call to get in formation,” Johnson said. “We want it all. We demand it. We deserve it. We got work to do so get out and slay it.”
What pro-choice and pro-life Protesters Were Saying Outside the Supreme Court Today
Kierra Johnson, executive director of Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity, worked the crowd with an address built around the hottest single dropped so far this year. “Has anyone heard the song—you might not have heard it—‘Formation,’ by Beyoncé?” Johnson said to screams from the crowd. “‘Formation’ is a call to and for the unseen, the silenced, the belittled.” She laid out a litany of demands the reproductive justice movement must make of political leaders: repealing the Hyde Amendment, ending laws that require parental notification for abortion, and instating nationwide comprehensive sex education. “This is just the beginning. But first, we must get in formation,” Johnson said. As for Queen Bey: “Next time, her ass will be here too.”
Saying Goodbye To Abortion Shame
“When I look at our activists, and at this new movement for safe, legal, and affordable abortion, I find myself in great company. We are injecting the unapologetic energy from the ’70s into the new millennium, throwing out the old labels and categories, and joining together in a movement of folks working to create a new narrative. We’re ready to say that abortion is a personal decision, but abortion is also a public good. The world is better when anyone who needs an abortion can get one — easily, affordably, without stigma, and free from political interference.”
The Facts Every Young Woman Should Needs To Know About Medication Abortion
Between pervasive abortion-related stigma and the sorry state of sex ed in our country, many young people don’t learn about contraception or abortion before they start having sex. Considering that seven in 10 youths have had sex by their 19th birthday, though, it’s critical that young women know what their options are should they experience unintended pregnancy, no matter what choices they ultimately make about their own bodies and futures.
43 Years After Roe V. Wade, Young Women Are Carrying The Fight For Abortion Rights
“We have a responsibility [as a movement] to make room for the people who want to talk about their abortions and give them that space free from stigma and shame,” Johnson said. “But we also have a responsibility of not putting on the shoulders of people who may not want to tell that story that somehow, they’ve failed the movement.” She added that there will people who don’t want to tell what might be a very personal story — and that’s okay. “For as many reasons as people want to tell their stories and how many of those stories exist, there are as many people and as many reasons for why they don’t want to tell them.”
Meet one of the litigators who will be fighting for abortion rights at the U.S. Supreme Court
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the biggest abortion case of this generation, a challenge to HB2, an anti-choice Texas law enacted in 2013. HB2 forces clinics to meet expensive and medically unnecessary standards, including turning clinics into “mini-hospitals” and requiring doctors to have admitting privileges at a local hospital. David Brown, a staff attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights, is part of the team fighting to end HB2 in what is the biggest abortion case since 1992. I had the opportunity to talk with Brown about the impact of this case and how the team is preparing for the historic legal battle ahead. Kristen Barton is 20 years old, a Texas native, and a student at Texas Tech University.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz Under Fire for Comments About Young Women
Kierra Johnson, the executive director of Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity, an abortion rights group, suggested young people view women’s health issues from a different perspective. “There is energy among young people around these issues — it just may not be happening in the way that Rep. Wasserman Shultz is used to seeing,” she said in a statement. “The young people that are drawn into this movement today don’t see reproductive justice as wholly separate from LGBTQ equality or from racial justice or economic justice or a host of other issues.”
Wasserman Schultz gets heat for calling young women ‘complacent’ on abortion rights
“Not only are young people engaged in pro-choice activism, but they’re embracing abortion as something positive. They are more unapologetic about it and are really frustrated with many politicians including pro-choice ones who let abortion be used as a bargaining chip in legislative negotiations,” said Kierra Johnson, executive director of URGE, a group that focuses on encouraging young people to advocate “reproductive and gender equity.” Johnson added that she thinks Wasserman Schultz was relaying an “urban legend.” “I don’t think the intention is to blame young people, but I do think … the rhetoric, unfortunately, feeds this issue that young people don’t care,” she said.
Reproductive Rights Alliance
“One of the things we don’t talk about as much in the reproductive rights movement — and probably not as much in the LGBT movement in a very big way — is that people also have the right to enjoy sex and their sexuality, free from coercion and violence,” Johnson adds. “Sex and sexuality are integral parts of who we are as human beings. We live in a society where discrimination runs rampant based on how people think or feel or judge based on sex and sexuality, which is a real impediment to people living healthy and happy lives. “We have to work together,” she continues. “Long gone is the time where it’s strategic to be siloed in our activism, or siloed in our understanding of what justice is and… Read more »
