Category: choice

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The End of Roe

When I saw the leaked draft opinion from Justice Samuel Alito, concerning the overturning of Roe v Wade and Planned Parenthood v Casey, on 2 May 2022, I was stunned, but not surprised. After all, my last post on this blog, just 2 weeks before was on the topic of Bodily Autonomy. Readers here know that I have always been pro-choice and I am consistently grappling with those who are not. Pro-choice seems like a pretty obvious way to be as it accounts for the life of the pregnant person first and foremost.

I am greatly disheartened by the trigger laws in individual states across the country, including my current (Tennessee) and former (Alabama) states of residence. In Let’s Talk About Tennessee’s Trigger Law, the Tennessee Advocates for Planned Parenthood blog does a great job discussing these trigger laws in general, as well as what could happen in Tennessee specifically if Roe and Casey are officially overturned. The Human Life Protection Act will set the state of reproductive justice in Tennessee, along with 12 other states that have similar laws lined up, back 50, but what feels more like 150, years.

As a person having lived the better part of 40 years in Western New York, I have resources that will allow me to visit the state if I ever need access to abortion care. But, unfortunately, I am among the few with this privilege. Many people who will need this healthcare do not have a direct resource in a state with legalized abortion. With the passage of the Reproductive Health Act (RHA), in January 2019, the NYS legislature “legalized all abortions up to 24 weeks of gestation.” (wikipedia.org) This also decriminalized abortions in the state as prior to the act’s passage, abortion was “included as part of the penal law under homicide, and could be charged as a criminal offense.” (wikipedia.org)

The Tennessee trigger law will do the opposite of what the NYS RHA did, by making “abortion not only illegal but also a felony.” (plannedparenthoodaction.org) This, as I stated above, will set the United States back in our struggle for reproductive justice, but we cannot give up. The people who fought for the initial right to choose and who won this right with Roe had to sacrifice a lot for the cause. We cannot let them nor the future of reproductive justice down by being complacent. We must stay informed and keep up the fight!

So, after my initial shock over the leak wore off, my next step was to get more information. My first love, after all, is research. It helps me to work through all of the emotions and channel them into action. This led me over to SCOTUSblog (an excellent source for all things US Supreme Court) for more information. In the weeks since the leaked opinion, SCOTUSblog has been tracking all the news on the leak, along with movement on the case itself, here: Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization and I strongly suggest perusing that archive. Knowledge leads to action, action leads to movement, and movements can change the world!

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Choices

You have two choices. Would you rather live in a Christian nation or a free country?

In a free country, you are free to be Christian, but in a Christian nation, only Christians are free. Let me rephrase — In a free country, everyone is free to be Christian or not, but in a Christian nation, only White, Protestant, cis, straight, affluent, men are free. Everyone else lives as beholden to that minority.

So let us rewind, for a moment, and talk about how we have always lived in a Christian nation, despite the founders supposed belief in freedom. White Protestant dudes have been running the show and oppressing everyone else, since they landed here, while they claim to be persecuted in America. The claims of persecution are merely a way in which to maintain their power over everyone else.

Whenever a man from this group is sad, we rush to make sure he feels okay. A good example of this was the #metoo movement and the backlash that followed. It mattered, for a moment, that women were calling out powerful men, but eventually the callouts turned back on the women. How dare they call out men. How dare they try to be equal. How dare they tell their stories of horror and make men uncomfortable.

When women stand up for themselves and call out men, a rush to check on the men is inevitable. Think pieces flow like rivers assessing the state of men in the workplace or men after harassment laws or the future of men. After all, checking in on the oppressors is SUPER important to maintain the order and we have been brainwashed to believe that even when they are fully and completely responsible for terror (slave masters, rapists, lynch mobs, supreme court justices, affluent movie execs with unlimited power) we still need to make sure that they are okay. We need to check in and check up on them. We need to coddle them. We need to feed their egos and let them know that we don’t believe ‘all men’ are bad. We need to make sure they are not feeling oppressed or persecuted. This is the beauty of minority rule. The White, Protestant, cis, straight, affluent, dudes have duped us all into believing that they should be prioritized. Even when they do the most heinous things. In the end, we all suffer in order to maintain the continuity of the freedom myth.

So, then, what can we do? How can we ensure the freedom of all moving forward? How can we turn the tide so that people will stop voting against their best interests? How can we make sure that everyone has an equal chance to succeed and that everyone is setup for success, regardless of their identity?

Step one is to stop believing the persecution myth of the White, Protestant, straight, cis, affluent, male minority. In a free country, individuals are able to practice their religion or not practice religion at all, without fear. In a free country, White supremacy is not a driving force and class solidarity can make change. In a free country, we can live our lives without fear of oppression from Christians who believe they are on a mission from g-d. In a free country, we each have autonomy and we can make decisions about our bodies without the opinions of religion destroying that freedom. In a free country, BIPOC people can live without daily fear of violence, terror, and potential death.

America should be a free country. Not a Christian nation. Christians are welcome to practice freely, in their churches, without persecution, but so are Muslims and Jews and Hindus and Atheists and all other forms of spiritual practice or abstention from those practices. All religions are welcome and no one practice takes precedence over any other. This is true freedom.

But when have we actually been free? From the moment the pilgrims landed here and began annexing land by slaughtering aboriginal people, this land was not free. From the moment the ships started arriving with enslaved people to work the land and be treated as less than human, this land was not free. From the creation of a document that was supposed to give equality and justice for all and left out people of color and women, this land was not free. Even in the midst of eight years with a Black President, this land was not free. As long as this land is run by the minority, who seek to deny rights to everyone else in favor of their own freedom and supremacy, this land will not be free.

We can only make this land free by voting and marching and demanding that we are all equal. That the majority of us want to see a future that is better for everyone, not the small few who hold power. I mean, that future will also benefit the minority, but not at the expense of the rest of us.

We cannot be free as long as we have an autocrat in office.

If you sit out the election or you vote for Trump, you are allowing the persistence of a Christian nation where the smallest minority of people will ever be truly free. And, most likely, you are not one of those people. So why would you vote against your own interests?

Don’t believe the lies and fake promises of a wannabe dictator. Vote for Biden/Harris. Vote for Democrats down the ballot. Vote to save our lives because another four years of Trump in the White House is not just an inconvenience. It is a nightmare. It will be the end of democracy as we know it. And not for the better. We do need to upend the system in real ways, but not through a dictatorship. We need to make the promise of the people real. That we control our futures. That this land truly is OUR land. And that with our votes, our voices, and our dollars, we can make it equal and just for all.

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Dudes and Women’s Rights

Why do dudes think they have any claim to women’s rights in the United States?

I am in a cafe in Alabama and The Dudes Sitting Across From Me are two White, straight, cis dudes of means in their late 20s. They are discussing choice. Yes, choice. Women’s choice. I was hoping that they would be pro-choice because the cafe I am sitting in is pretty hip and progressive, but no – they are talking about how happy they are about the Alabama laws that have recently been passed to restrict abortion to 6 weeks. They want it to go farther and hope that abortion will be eradicated eventually. They look like two young dudes would, sitting at a table in a cafe, talking about the future of what women have the right to do with THEIR bodies. But they have thoughts on choice – something that has NOTHING to do with their own bodies. This surreal to me. How can their opinion mean anything at all?

Now don’t get me wrong – this is not a conversation you will solely hear in Alabama. I have been sitting in cafes in Buffalo, NY where I have heard dudes having similar conversations. The movement to take rights away from women is national – international even. Women have been consistently and constantly fighting for a little more power in the world while dudes are working to take those rights away.

The people that I take issue with, as much as the dudes, are the women who have stood, and will continue to stand, by these dudes even at their own detriment. The women who voted for Trump. The women who don’t believe other women should work outside the home. The women who think that women without children are horrible people. The women who see those of us who would choose to end a pregnancy as murderers, rather than women taking care of our bodies based on decisions we should be allowed to make for ourselves without state or federal intervention.

But let’s get back to the dudes. You may ask why The Dudes Sitting Across From Me believe they can STILL oppress us, even after 100 years of women having the right to vote. You may wonder why they think women of colour should have even fewer rights than white women. You may be confused about why dudes think that we as a civilization should continue on this patriarchal path. The answer is simple: fear. They are afraid because they can see that straight white dudes of means are quickly becoming a minority. So they gather and make their MRAesque plans for the future and devise schemes to keep the women down. A matriarchal society scares the shit out of them and they are doing everything they can to keep us from rising up as one.

And here is the key – women from all parts of this country need to stick together no matter our backgrounds or political affiliations. We need to vote as a bloc in this next election to oust the misogynist-in-chief from office so he can’t do 4 more years of damage to our FREE nation. We still haven’t seen full freedom for women and, most especially, freedom for women of colour and lgbtq+ women. If we don’t work to change the trajectory of the political system we will never see these freedoms. We will lose more and more freedoms steadily each day – eventually leading to that future dystopia people love to read and write about and watch on television, but don’t truly believe could happen.

If we are not careful it can happen. As evidenced by The Dudes Sitting Across From Me in this cafe, and sitting in cafes all across this nation, plotting the end of women’s rights. They may not frame it that way but that is EXACTLY what they are working on. They think it is for the best, but it is only the best for them. Straight, white, cis, dudes of means. That’s it. The rest of us can basically go scratch in their estimation. They want the world to serve them.

If the rest of us stick together and do our civic duty in 2020 by voting for the Democratic candidate, we can show them that we are not here to serve, but to live in peace and harmony with one another and, in the end, to lead. What The Dudes Sitting Across From Me don’t want you to know is that they are quickly becoming a minority and that scares them more than anything. They don’t understand that we won’t treat them the way they have treated us for 300+ years. We will be fair when we are in power. That is the difference between us and them.

So who are The Dudes Sitting Across From You? Do you want to show them that the world is made for all of us? Then join us! Make this country a better place. VOTE for the Dem in 2020 and take the country back. We can repair the damage done, but only if we rescue the nation from the brink of another 4 years of disastrous leadership. Together we can make things better and move forward in a positive and hopeful direction.

Peace and happy organizing!

Chantale aka hippiegrrl

Links to visit:
Kamala Harris for the People
Elizabeth Warren
Julian Castro
Pete Buttigieg
Cory Booker

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Why I Vote

The day has finally arrived! Election day – the day that, as citizens of the United States, we get to vote. Voting is not something that has always been available to all of us. It took 94 years for black men and 144 years for women to win this right. It is a right AND a privilege and it should be something that every American feels strongly about doing. Unfortunately, the percentage of voters that actually make it to the polls is just slightly over half of the total population of eligible voters.

To be specific, 57.5% of eligible voters actually voted in the 2012 election (source: http://bipartisanpolicy.org/library/2012-voter-turnout/), which was down from the 2008 percentage of 62.3%. The percentage of registered voters who voted, in 2012, was at approximately 82%, but that number could be a lot higher if more Americans registered and felt the drive to exercise their rights.

What this all means is that just over half of the population determines who the President, Congress, and Senate members will be for the following 4-6 years. That is a sad state of affairs, considering how much struggle has gone into making it possible for each and every one of us to be able to have the right to vote.

So – if you are thinking of skipping the polls today it would be a travesty. Here are the reasons I vote – maybe you can relate to one (or several) of these, yourself. If so, please get out there and exercise your right to vote!

  • I vote for my niece and nephew, that their future lives might be improved by the leaders that we choose today.
  • I vote for my Nana, who was never able to cast her ballot for a woman candidate to the office of POTUS, and would certainly be overjoyed to see Hillary Rodham Clinton as the democratic candidate and 45th President.
  • I vote for my Grandma Kitty, who I hope would have been strong enough to cast her ballot for a woman candidate, despite the stifling influence of her familial hierarchy.
  • I vote for my Mama Kate, who although she was a conservative Christian, would have seen the value in a Hillary Rodham Clinton presidency and whom I believe would have set aside any religious zealotry from her pastor to vote her moral conscience for the good of the nation.
  • I vote for my Aunt, who lives under the haze of a patriarchy that has made her believe she cannot vote for any candidate other than a white male for the office of President. For her, I cast my vote to improve her world, even in the face of hatred and bigotry.
  • I vote for my great Aunt (and many other women in my ancestry) who had to endure the pain and suffering of a medical procedure that could have been made safe by legalization, and which, to this day, is still being attacked by a system unwilling to see the value in women’s decisions and grant women full bodily autonomy.
  • I vote for the women who came before me and passed away before 1920, who never had the opportunity to cast a ballot in any election in the United States of America.
  • I vote for the suffragettes that struggled to make this right available to all women; being beaten, arrested, and some even dying along the way.
  • I vote for the women in other nations that are still unable to cast a ballot in their national elections, that they may soon be able to do so.
  • I vote for the future of this nation, that all children regardless of their sex organs and gender presentation, will see themselves in our leaders.
  • I vote because I have to – because my life depends on it – because there is no other choice.

Get out there and vote!

Peace,

Chantale (aka hippiegrrl)

Looking for hope? Here it is: 2016 election forecast from fivethirtyeight.com #imwithher

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Organized Religion and Terror

On Friday, 27 November 2015, a gunmen entered a Planned Parenthood location in Colorado Springs, Colorado and began shooting. After killing 3 people and wounding 11 others, he was finally taken into custody and questioned. Over the weekend, much information has surfaced from his neighbours, former family members, and the general investigation. Of all the information given by these sources, one thing is abundantly clear, the man was on a mission fueled by the right wing in this country. His mention of “no more baby parts” proves that he was acting on rhetoric that has been floated by conservative Christians over the past several months.

Normally, I would say that this lone gunman was an outlier. That he was not indicative of the overall Christian religion. But in this case, he was acting on information that has been publically presented to be true. Over the course of the past several years, the right wing has systematically instituted ways in which the right to choose an abortion would be shut down. By passing laws to restrict access to women’s healthcare, attaching amendments to bills to defund women’s healthcare, and putting up multiple barriers through restrictions to women’s healthcare, the right wing in America has declared war on basic human rights for women. Conservative Christians have made it their mission to take away women’s rights in general and, most specifically, the right to decide what we do with our bodies.

Now, there are pastors who will say that the man that shot up the Planned Parenthood in Colorado was not a “real” Christian and that he doesn’t represent the Christian community, but he does. He is acting on information that has been supplied to him by Christians through the media. He has watched as pastors have condemned those that provide women’s health services. He has witnessed senators and congresspeople passing restrictions on women’s healthcare. He has believed the lies that have been told through multiple EDITED videos of Planned Parenthood staff that misrepresent the mission and purpose of fetal tissue donation. He has been duped into thinking that Planned Parenthood sells baby parts when these so-called “baby parts” are a figment of the collective Christian conservative imagination. All this information has flowed into this man and the outcome was horrific.

This is the fault of the right wing. This isn’t the fault of mental health or guns. This isn’t the fault of Planned Parenthood or any other women’s healthcare provider. This is the fault of conservative Christians that stand across the street from abortion clinics and other women’s healthcare facilities and scream at patients on their way in to be provided a legal service. This is the fault of conservative Christians that put up banners on college campuses to shame students into signing petitions against women’s healthcare. This is the fault of every single Christian that sides with the anti-choice movement. Organized religion has, indeed, propagated terror.

And in this sense, conservative Christians have allowed it to happen. Unlike Muslims, who are NOT responsible for the small faction of fundamentalists that propagate terror in the name of Islam, conservative Christians are at fault when it comes to these acts of terror against women seeking basic healthcare services. When the party line is anti-choice, this is what happens. So, stop saying that these “lone gunmen” are outliers. Stop saying they don’t represent all conservative Christians. Stop trying to distance yourself from them and stop trying to make them into mentally ill “activists”. Call them what they are – terrorists – and then call them out. Start teaching peace within the movement. Start working together WITH Planned Parenthood to create programs that allow for family planning to lower the number of abortions rather than standing in front of clinics and inciting violence. Start being the change you wish to see rather than the hatred that is spewed toward other humans. Start being Christian.

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What’s Wrong With Indiana?

This past week, in the State of Indiana, a new bill was introduced for consideration to again attempt to install the requirement of a transvaginal probe for women that are persuing an abortion. This is a travesty, considering it is an additional hurdle that needs to be overcome just to exercise the right to choose. Bigger than this, however, is this far reaching request; the State is seeking to institute this bill for women seeking RU486 as well. This drug, which is taken within the first week of a potential pregnancy, and most often as an emergency contraceptive after a sexual attack or mishap with contraception, prevents the woman from having to continue a pregnancy that is wholly unwanted. It assists the woman in not having to make this decision later in a potential pregnancy. Basically, it is a way to counteract an act of violence.

Counteracting an act of violence, in and of itself, is reason enough to not inflict more violence on the woman, via an invasive and unnecessary procedure. A farther reaching issue with this bill is the fact that it would require clinics that administer RU486 to change the structure of their facilities to accommodate these tests. If they cannot comply they must stop dispensing the drug, taking away a fundamental right of the women of Indiana. The right to medical care. The right to live autonomous lives. The right to control their bodies. The right to choose.

Turning back the clock on reproductive rights is not the right direction for our country to take and each time one of these unrealistic bills comes to the forefront, it proves that women’s bodies are still a battleground, even 40 years after Roe v. Wade. Hopefully, this ridiculous bill will not pass in Indiana, but we should be mindful of this and other bills like it and the ways in which lawmaker seek to continuously erode our rights.

One woman, one body, one right, one choice.

Yet another example of why we need the E.R.A. We need to enshrine reproductive rights in our constitution and give women the protection we need to make our own decisions, once and for all.

Peace and keep up the fight!
Chantale

Links:
Indiana May Require Women To Have Two Transvaginal Probe Ultrasounds
How Republicans Quietly Mandate Transvaginal Probes When They Think No One’s Paying Attention
NARAL Pro Choice America
roe v. wade, 30 years later

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Why I Am A Feminist

I am a feminist because I believe that people of all genders are equal. All human beings, no matter what gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or creed, are equal. We all live on the earth and we are all homosapiens. We also all have to perform basic bodily functions, such as eating, sleeping, hydrating, and eliminating waste, on a daily basis. We all need food, clothing, and shelter to survive and we all need the interaction of other human beings in order to thrive. These are basic facts. They are not beliefs and they do not need faith in order to understand them. Human beings of all shapes, sizes, intelligence, and talent are equal. Our actions show us to be leaders or followers, innovators or users, but at the base levels we are all equal.

There is a book that exists that has many stories in it. Many people read this book and make decisions for their lives based on these stories. This is good in practice, for personal growth and development, but when this book is used to tell other people how to live their lives, this is where a line should be drawn. Inequality exists for many reasons, but the main reason, the first reason, is the ways in which this book tells stories concerning roles of the sexes. This book depicts a world where men are in charge and women are merely property. It pushes the ideals of patriarchy which have been detrimental to our collective consciousness. This is why we must set the book aside and enact laws from a state of equality. Pass amendments to insure that all human beings are treated equally under the law and follow through in maintaining these amendments. Women were not made fully equal by the voting rights that were won by those that came before us and fought with all their might to obtain, but by a constant daily struggle toward equality. This also includes the rights of non-cis people who are or will become trans gendered.

Time for a quick gender studies (yay sociology!) lesson: cis is a term used in gender studies to denote those individuals that have sex organs matching their gender orientation. Let me go back another step. The sex of an individual is determined by ones sex organs, the gender is the way they perform their orientation. Even easier, sex equals male/female/intersex, gender equals masculine/feminine/asexual. Sex is related to biology while gender is related to performance.

Example – I have female sex organs, I feel like a woman, I dress the way I want so sometimes I may be performing what society would deem masculinity, but overall my clothing is feminine. This makes me a cis female, meaning my sex organs match my personal identity. If I had female sex organs, but I felt like I should have male sex organs, that would make me trans, but not lesbian. I am only lesbian if I am also attracted to women. If I then go forth and have an operation to become a man, I would be a trans gay man. This makes sense in that they call the surgery reassignment surgery. This means that they are reassigning the sex organs from female to male or vice versa. This does not change the sexual attraction that an individual will feel. This is why we can definitively state that sex organs do not link to attraction. They do not link to gender. They only link to sex assignment and reproduction.

So now that you know what cis and trans mean, let me continue to explain why I am a feminist and will continue to be one throughout my life.

There are young women that feel like feminism is no longer necessary. We can vote and work and now we can fight in wars, so why do we need to keep fighting for equality? Well, it is simple really, complacency. If we put down the struggle and just live our lives, we will find ourselves back in the past quicker than we can blink. Once we settle we sign our inequality warrant. If we do not continue to look at sexism in popular culture, and critique it in order to end it, it will get more out of control than it already is.

This is where I live, feminist-wise. In the land of feminist critical studies. Watching movies and television shows and commercials, reading the latest literature, and then using my pen (or computer keyboard, I suppose) to fight the good fight against misogyny and institutionalized sexism. This may make me a pain to some or a thorn in the side of organized religion, but it is what I must do. Ministers speak of a calling that they have to do gods work, well this is my calling. I am called to right the wrongs of years of oppression by a system that makes us feel like everything will be okay if we just sit down, cross our legs, and shut our mouths. Well, I never cross my legs and I will definitely never shut my mouth. The struggle is long and difficult, but we can muddle through.

Thanks for reading this and please keep coming back. Without you, I have no voice. If you are interested in reading more about cis, trans, gender performance, feminism, and other good stuff, please click on the links below and sign up for some feeds. Information is the best defense against inequality!

Peace,
Chantale

appropriate links:

gender binary primer
who needs feminism? – yeah, that would be everyone
feminist majority foundation – the ms. foundation on the web
feminism in the 21st century – a little piece I wrote in 2003
Judith Butler on Gender Perfomativity – the mother of gender performance discourse
feministing.com – one of my favourite feminist places on the interwebs
sociological images – discourse and visuals
why i’m adding feminist to my online profiles