Sam Goldman interviews student organizers of recent walk-outs in Florida against the new law excluding LGBTQ people from primary school curricula. Then, voices from the International Women’s Day march for abortion on demand and without apology including: Michelle Xai, Merle Hoffman, Lori Sokol, Kathy Najimy, Dr. Bruce Price, Beila, Betty, Araceli Herrera, Sunsara Taylor, Rev. Jacqui Lewis, and V (formerly Eve Ensler).

Translated remarks from Araceli Herrera: “I was raped. I suffered for years. I was made fun of by people, by my neighbors, by my family. But the worst people were the ones that made the laws that prohibits abortions. And today I’ve stopped crying. Today is the day we begin to take to the streets and scream loudly. I have the right to choose! I have the right to have an abortion! Because it is my life, because it is my body! Because we have the right to decide! It’s my choice! I won’t allow them to take it away. Women, raise your voice! Get into the streets! Starting today until the day of the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court decision that will affect our lives. Let’s get out and shout: we will not allow you to take away our right!”

RiseUp4AbortionRights.org is calling for meetings next weekend to organize for more emergency mobilizations; find out more at riseup4abortionrights.org.

Connect with the movement at RefuseFascism.org and support:

Venmo: @Refuse-Fascism
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Web: donate.refusefascism.org

Music for this episode: Penny the Snitch by Ikebe Shakedown.

Episode 102

Refuse Fascism Episode102

Sun, 3/13 7:03PM • 46:52

Oliver  00:00

It began when I was scrolling through Instagram and I found the hashtag group #DSGWalkOut and I saw a bunch of schools in Flagler County doing it and I thought no one in my county had been doing it yet. I knew that this is something that we had to make happen, because there’s so many people in the generations before me who fought so hard for our right to not be silenced and to just exist, and it is our turn to continue that. All in all, it’s the principle behind erasing our existence to younger kids.

Sam Goldman  00:45

Welcome to Episode 102 of the Refuse Fascism podcast, a podcast brought to you by volunteers with Refuse Fascism. I’m Sam Goldman, one of those volunteers and host of the show. Refuse Fascism exposes, analyzes, and stands against the very real danger and threat of fascism coming to power in this country. In today’s episode, we’re sharing interviews with high school students who led walkouts in protest of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill in Florida, along with highlights from the March 8 International Women’s Day protest in New York City, organized by Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights.

But first, let’s talk about some developments from this past week, as they relate to the rising fascist threat and the importance and impact of standing up against it:

We see a wave across this country of the deputizing of the fascist base, imbuing them with the power of law enforcement to terrorize their neighbors. While we’ve talked about it on the show previously, in Texas with SB8, we also want to note that we’re seeing this in Florida in a blatant fascist move of the Florida GOP as they passed a bill to form an election police force.

Returning to Texas and SB8, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that abortion providers’ lawsuit against Texas’ ban on abortion at six weeks of pregnancy, SB8, cannot proceed. SB8 remains in place in Texas for the foreseeable future. For the over 6 million women in Texas, Roe v Wade no longer applies. This has been the reality for over six months. In Missouri, two bills were introduced this week, endangering women and abortion rights. One seeks to block women from leaving the state to get an abortion and the other aims to make it illegal to get an abortion if the patient has an ectopic pregnancy. Those pregnancies are non-viable, and the number one cause of patient death in the first trimester.

I wanted to share some essential analysis from author, journalist, and historian Annika Brockman. She tweeted “If you think this is where anti-abortion legislation will stop, you have not been paying attention. If you think this is where anti-trans legislation will stop, you have not been paying attention. Repeat with anti-public education laws, voter suppression, criminalizing protests. There is no imaginary line that they won’t cross. They know they don’t have a majority and they don’t need one. But to ensure white Christian patriarchal dominance, in spite of shrinking numbers, more and more draconian laws will be passed in Republican legislatures, establishing political and cultural dominance.

Regaining spaces they feel they have had to cede since the 60’s is the aim. Don’t underestimate the ferocity with which this movement will try to establish this. They feel that their back is against the wall. If you find yourself thinking: “Well, that’s a bit far-fetched,” or: “They won’t cross that line,” remember, all of the norms and lines that have been shattered in the last year alone. If you think they won’t go that far, you have been fooled, lulled into security. That institutions held was a horrible take after Biden’s election, and it is an even worse take now.

If this is the point of view political analysts take, it shows one thing and one thing only — that they have no idea what’s going on in the American right. This is not just one warning sign. Hundreds of oppressive laws have been introduced in state legislatures, and many of them will pass. Think they won’t come for contraceptives next? Terminating ectopic pregnancies that will otherwise kill the pregnant person? Think again. Oh, and speaking of ectopic pregnancy, here’s Missouri today making my point for me. This will cost lives. The anti-trans bills will cost lives — lives of women, pregnant people, LGBTQ kids, teenagers and adults.”

You’re gonna want to tune in next week when we’ll be running an interview with Annika, so make sure that you hit Follow/Subscribe so that you get the show as soon as we upload it. In related news, Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston announced it would stop administering puberty blockers and other drugs meant to aid in gender-affirming care for youth. Citing a recent attorney general opinion and Governor Abbott’s directive that followed, Idaho’s House, taking inspiration from Texas, just passed HB 675. It passed by a vote of 55 to 13. If this becomes law, it would make providing gender-affirming care to trans teens in Idaho a felony with a life sentence.

Thinking about moving out of state with your trans teen to provide them with care? Well, that would be a felony as well. This is fascism, folks. These fascists, yes, were voted out nationwide and these policies are massively unpopular, even in the states they control. Yet, they’re steamrolling their agenda forward. You might be wondering, how are they winning? Because let’s be real, they are winning. Well, because too many of us have been led into passivity, conciliation and accommodation.

That’s why today we’re featuring segments that show us a glimpse into puncturing that atmosphere, that atmosphere of passivity, conciliation and accommodation. The Parental Rights and Education bill aka “Don’t Say Gay” bill is set to be signed by Trump protege, Governor Ron DeSantis, and the Fox News chyrons on loop tell you: “Liberals are sexually grooming elementary students.” Before we talk about the kids’ heroic resistance to this, we want to touch on what this bill actually means and why it matters.

Let’s start with what it is not. It is not a sex education bill as the Nazis in Florida like to call it, because it doesn’t actually address instruction on any sexual activity. It prohibits instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity, singling out certain families and kids is off limits for classroom discussions. It is important to note that no opponent of the bill sought to expand sex education to primary school students. They sought merely to ensure that LGBTQ people and their families could still be discussed, books can be read, conversations can be had and not erased. For that, they were voted down by what some still call “conservatives”, every time.

The bill prohibits those discussions in older grades as well if the state deems those conversations not “age appropriate” or “developmentally appropriate” for students, in accordance with state standards. Florida’s sex ed law already is vehemently anti-LGBTQ, requiring teachers in HIV AIDS education to specifically encourage heterosexual marriage. I’m going to read a section. This is section 2A, “Teach abstinence from sexual activity outside of marriage as the expected standard for all school aged students while teaching the benefits of monogamous heterosexual marriage.” Clearly, even though this isn’t a sex ed bill, they do need a total overhaul of their sex education curriculum. 

This law, the “Parental Rights and Education bill” illustrates what kind of “greatness” these fascists are talking about when they say Make America Great Again. Their vision of greatness is white, patriarchal domination, and the goal of this bill is to erase what they see as a major deviation from that. The immediate implication of this bill is to make school even more unsafe for LGBTQ students in middle and high school, 52% of whom, according to the Trevor Project, already experienced bullying and 42% of whom seriously consider suicide.

If DeSantis signs the bill, which he is set to do, it would go into effect July 1. In Florida, thousands of students in over two dozen schools participated in walkouts; acts of nonviolent civil disobedience. Now let’s listen, learn, and join with two of them. Fiona and Oliver, high school students who organized walkouts, sounding the alarm on the danger posed by the “Don’t Say Gay” bill in Florida.

Sam Goldman  08:55

So Fiona, you are a high school student, a junior at a school in South Florida and you organized a walkout at your school. 

Fiona  09:05

Yeah.

Sam Goldman  09:05

Why? Why did you organize a walkout?

Fiona  09:07

Well, I was really upset and kind of just frustrated that these bills are being passed in different states and especially in Florida. Now this “Don’t Say Gay” bill is being passed. I think it’s really important to stand up against these bills, because how negatively they’re going to affect our LGBTQ community — really everywhere, but especially in Florida. I know that it’s really important, to really just stand against that when you have a chance to. I have the privilege to go to a school where I was able to set up a walkout, and teachers there were really great and let us walk out and didn’t really give us any grief. It was really great to be able to kind of show our support to other students and stand in solidarity with them.

Sam Goldman  09:46

Did you feel like you got a lot of support from people’s families, from teachers? What was it like?

Fiona  09:53

I wasn’t able to specifically give an announcement to my school, but I was able to send out an email to students that I knew would be allies and/or were part of the LGBTQ+ community. I started the Gay-Straight Alliance at my school, so I sent out a text with my group. I thought, honestly, that it was going to be like 10 of us, but — I go to a very small school, so I thought it was gonna be a small show, but — we actually got close to 100 students to show up, which is very big for our school. It was a big turnout. A lot of people we didn’t expect to be there were there. It was a great turnout compared to what I thought was gonna be there. Yeah, a lot of teachers did show up, and one of our teachers actually spoke in the middle of it, and he showed us support. It was really great.

Sam Goldman  10:35

What do you think made it so that not just the usual suspects came out? I remember organizing walkouts back in the day, when I was in high school, and there’s frequently like, “I have class, I have work to do, I support you but my studies are important” kind of thing. What do you think went into the fact that so many in your school, but also across the state, students walked out? Why do you think that is? It was beautiful, and we need much, much more of that. What do you think the factors are that we should pay attention to? 

Fiona  10:35

I’m not exactly sure. I think it’s something about when multiple people are there and are starting to walk out, and just that pull that you get, like I’m doing this, you know, this is something that is important to me, or it’s important to people around me that I know that are my friends. I know a lot of allies showed up that I didn’t think would, but I think that there’s a lot of kids at my school that really do need that support, and other kids are willing and ready to walk out with them and to give them that support.

I think that’s also not just my school, but a lot of schools around Florida that were doing the walkout is that community of LGBTQ students and their allies that are really just ready and wanting to oppose these bills that are really harmful, and to show that support to other students and to kind of create that community. Thankfully, in my school, we didn’t have any pushback, but I know a lot of schools did have that pushback. So I think that the kind of community that was brought together within those walkouts to show support to each other isn’t very important.

Sam Goldman  12:08

It’s wonderful that your school and community were supportive. I’m wondering what you think the impact of this bill that is going to be signed by DeSantis? What impact is that going to have? Reading some of these terrible articles you know, one of the things that got slung at you high school students was, What are they doing? It won’t even affect them. It’s in the primary schools. What effect do you want people, not just in Florida but across the country, to understand what impact these bills will have?

Fiona  12:38

Don’t get me wrong, there’s definitely a group of kids at my school that did not show up for reasons. But, you know, I think that the reason that we’re all doing this, the reason we’re all standing up against this, even though it’s “not gonna effect us” is that it would have affected us if we were little, and it did affect us, because I didn’t grow up with LGBTQ stuff. I didn’t really even know that was a thing until middle school. So I think that the more representation we have, the better, because there’s going to be a lot of kids that grow up to realize that they’re a part of the LGBTQ community. And the sooner they have that representation within books, within teachings, within history is so important, no matter what age.

We were taught that like “Oh, crushes…” like I was talking to my friends and one of them was like: Well, why does it matter? Like, why should little kids know about this? And I’m thinking to myself, well, we knew about heteronormative things like we were taught — like, oh, my gosh, do you have a crush on that boy, or like it was like your boyfriend? In third grade. So, what’s the matter with giving that representation to a minority group of LGBTQ students in normalizing it? I think it’s really, really important, especially the young kids.

Sam Goldman  13:45

Yeah, it’s talking about erasing the existence of a whole group of people, pretending that gay people don’t exist and gay teachers don’t exist. For somebody to not even be able to talk about their spouse is really frightening to me, or you think about those primary grades where children learn about families and identity. Yet so many families would not be seen, would not be talked about, so many books with critical lessons — not just lessons about the different types of family that exist, but important stories that should be told, kids wouldn’t have access to. What are the implications of that? That we would accept a whole group of people to just be deprived of their right to exist.

I think that is something that everyone should pay attention to, because as important as it is that it is stopped in Florida, it is something that we’re seeing spread. Georgia, I think, is next on the list. So I think that the work that you and your friends did was really important. I think you gave a lot of heart to people who think that they don’t have to take a stand; they don’t have to put anything on the line. I’m wondering what you think  are the next steps. What are the kids at your school saying that the next step should be, or other students maybe not at your school, things that you’re hearing about in terms of what’s next in this fight?

Fiona  15:04

Just to play off of what you just said earlier, I think it’s really important for me to say: What example is that setting for little kids and for their parents? They’re not seeing their parents being represented in these critical learning ages. What example that sets for them, and whether or not their parents are LGBTQ or not, what example does that set for them personally? It makes them feel like they’re not okay. Like they’re not normal. I think that is very dangerous.

But to your next question, I think my school is gonna plan to do the Day of Silence in April, which is, I believe, just a full day of silence. Then we break the silence at the end of the day for a rally in which we share how our experiences in the LGBTQ community have been, or like harassment, things that have been within our community. I’m not sure what the next step is, honestly, besides doing little things like that, because it’s such a big task to take on. I think that if we keep doing what we’re doing, and we keep standing up against these unjust situations, then we can get a long… get a far, far, long way. But yeah, I just hope that the kids that were part of these walkouts continue to set up these protests and resist against these bills.

Sam Goldman  16:12

Do you have any closing words for adults? What are you hoping people that are done high school — what do you hope people will be doing after watching what you all did?

Fiona  16:23

We’re here. We’re going to continue to stand up for our rights and stand up for what we believe in, no matter how hard it is, because we’ve seen this in so many different examples in different places, no matter if it’s climate change, no matter if it’s women’s rights, or now LGBTQ rights, we’re always going to fight for what’s right and fight for what we believe in. I also think if you have children, you want to love your children and you want to let them know that it’s okay to be yourself. It’s important to be taught these things in primary years. Let them be normalized and let them be represented, no matter what age they’re at. And yeah, I just hope they know that we’re here, and we’re ready to fight for what we believe in. 

Sam Goldman  17:04

Well, thank you so much, Fiona, for sharing your time and your perspective with us. We need to join you in the streets. We need to join you. Everyone listening needs to have the backs of all the students that stepped out, including the students that were in situations where they’re facing consequences unjustly for raising their voice, and we can’t wait to see what you do next. So thanks again.

Fiona  17:27

Thank you so much.

Sam Goldman  17:29

I am excited to talk to another high school student from Florida that organized a walkout at their school. Today I’m talking with Oliver. Oliver is a sophomore in high school in Seminole County, Florida. They participated — they didn’t just participate, they helped mobilize their classmates to walk out in protest of the Don’t Say Gay bill in Florida. So welcome, Oliver. Thanks for coming on.

Oliver  17:58

Thank you for having me.

Sam Goldman  17:59

So let’s start with why did you decide to organize a walkout at your school?

Oliver  18:05

It began when I was scrolling through Instagram, and I found the hashtag for the #DSGWalkout, the “Don’t Say Gay” walk out. And I saw a bunch of schools in Flagler County doing it, and I thought no one in my county had been doing it yet. I knew that this is something that we had to make happen, because there’s so many people in generations before me in our community who fought so hard for our right to not be silenced and to just exist, and it is our turn to continue that. I understand some of the arguments against the bill. All in all, it’s the principle behind erasing our existence to younger kids.

Sam Goldman  18:38

Yeah, I think that’s a really good way of putting it. I was talking to another student who organized walkouts at their school. We were talking about erasing the existence of whole people and whole families and the consequences of what it means to be denied that you’re even human, that you’re even part of reality and the consequences that has for children, for adults, for whole families and for society at large. I’m so glad that you organized this. It was so heartening to see. I’m wondering how did you organize the walkout? What kind of things did you hear from other students who participated just give us a little bit of a texture of that experience?

Oliver  19:24

I found the statewide walkout on Instagram. That’s where I’m most active on. I know that’s where most of the people who I’m connected with at my school are active on. So I made an account to make a post, because I know that posts on Instagram can spread like wildfire with sharing them to your stories. So I made a post with all the information and times about the walkout. I also made another post making a disclaimer about how we had already discussed heavily with our administration about it, because the process behind it started with me finding it and wanting to do it.

The first thing I did was speak with my administration because I knew I needed to work really well with them in order to make this happen peacefully and work well. They basically said: We’re not going to encourage it, but we won’t stop you. I obviously went ahead and did it. So I made the post and I posted my own story. A lot of people in the queer community at my school follow me. They started reposting it and it just spread. I never got a full understanding of how many reposts it got, but it did get over 400 likes. My school, it’s a big school, but still, the fact that so many people saw it just it made me really proud of us as a community.

So once that spread, on that same account, on the story, I wanted to make sure that enough people would show up. I was so worried that just 10 of us would show up at the spot at the time. There’s not much you could do with 10 people, but at the end of it, I was able to get about 60 people to say: Yes, I’m definitely going to be there on the pole. In the end, when the day came and the time came, we did it in the courtyard, and there’s a concrete amphitheater, and by the time I’d gotten out there a bunch of people were gathered in front of there. I have to say over 300 people had come out to participate in a walkout. 

Sam Goldman  21:05

That is so awesome. 

Oliver  21:07

The part that made me really proud of us was the fact that it wasn’t just kids using it as an excuse to skip. Everybody there was actively, like positively, participating and encouraging one another and just being overall super supportive. The fact that the entire thing was 100% peaceful and was really productive made me so proud of us, not just as a community, but as a school. As students who are younger, we can still prove that we have a voice in our numbers.

Sam Goldman  21:35

Yeah, and those numbers being visible. I think that there’s so many people who stand against the “Don’t Say Gay” bill and bills like it, but if they aren’t visible and they aren’t in the streets and they aren’t projecting that LGBTQ people exist and matter, and we’re not going to allow this to be silenced, I think that our numbers don’t matter if we’re not visible, and we’re not heard.

Oliver  22:01

I think a large important part of it, too, was the fact that it wasn’t just queer people out there. There were a lot of straight allies. For me personally, there was a surprising amount of cis/het (cisgender/heterosexual) people there. I know so many people who are like the straightest people you will ever meet, but they were there supporting. So it wasn’t just queer people who were seeking for a voice. It was our allies and the people around us who care about us as well, speaking for us.

Sam Goldman  22:21

Yeah, and that’s exactly how it should be and what’s needed. It’s really important to hear that. Did y’all do chanting? Did you march? What did it look like? You gathered in this amphitheater. You discovered that it wasn’t 10. It was like 300 of y’all. What did you do? 

Oliver  22:38

Well, some people had gathered a little ahead of time, which is good, but I showed up there and because I organized it, I had to speak first. I had an idea of where it was gonna head. So I started it, and I swore I stood in front of those people and I was this close to passing out. It was terrifying, but I did a little speech  being like, thank you all for coming. I explained what the bill was and then I continued to talk about why it was harmful, and that we need to prove that we’re young and we can’t be silenced. I already had a few people lined up who wanted to speak, either with their own stories or their own background on it, so there was a ton of us. It was difficult to get quiet, but it happened and we were able to speak out to the people about it. We had multiple people who did speeches. There was someone who wrote a really powerful spoken word about it, and there was a few points where there were chants happening, because we were super hyped about the fact that so many people were there to support. There were chants happening. There were speeches.

Sam Goldman  23:33

What do you think that people need to understand about this bill that they may not understand?

Oliver  23:39

I think a large portion of why I believe it is so harmful is that this bill implies that the queer community is something that is harmful and needs to be hidden. Growing up, I knew so many people who were so hateful to people like me, because they didn’t know we existed until they were older, and they were so hateful. I was so alienated. Now that they’re older and they are knowledgeable, they are some of the kindest people I’ve ever met. So I think that knowledge is power, and hiding us from younger generations until they’re older, when they’re older and they find out about us — cause they’re gonna find out there’s no keeping that from happening — they’re gonna find out that gay people exist, and when they do find out — they’re going to think: Oh, this is something you were hiding from us, which means that there’s something bad.

Having this hidden means that we’re something bad that needs to be hidden, or weird that we shouldn’t be shown to younger kids. Because on the bill, it says that it will be put in curriculum until they’re “age appropriate.” What about people loving other people is inappropriate? A large misconception about people who are for the “Don’t Say Gay” bill is they put heavily on the fact that they think it’s about sex. It’s not about sex. It’s just about normalizing the different dynamics between people.

Sam Goldman  24:54

I think that’s really important. This “othering” and this putting a group of people into basically a subhuman category is extremely dangerous and whether people are directly impacted or not, they should be part of the effort to sound the alarm on the danger that it poses to children in Florida, that it poses to LGBTQ as a class people across the state and across the country, but really that it poses to anybody and everybody with a heart for humanity. We need to be taking your lead, Ollie, and making a lot of noise and disrupting our usual routine and our usual lives to make sure that things like this don’t stand.

For too long, people have been silent and allowing things to go down, saying: Oh, this will never pass. Oh, this will never happen. Oh, they won’t go that far. As month after month, year after year, they actually do go farther and farther and farther. It was really a breath of fresh air to see y’all rise up and shake us awake a little bit. I know I expressed the appreciation of many of our listeners when I say how important what you did was. I’m wondering, what do you see as what’s needed now?

Oliver  26:05

Well, obviously, the bill has been passed. I’m kind of disappointed in Florida as a whole, that this was allowed to happen. I know that young queer youth, we spoke out a lot, and we did many peaceful protests, but there’s only so much that we can do, and the fact that the bill has made it so far, it’s disappointing to me that Florida is making this happen, and that there’s so many people who are filled with such misunderstanding and hate towards our community that they’re pushing for this to happen.

At this point, I know that there’s a lot of petitions going around to make sure that it gets stopped in its tracks. I really think that we need to continue this sense of community and unity between all the people who do stand against the bill, really, now of all times, to stand together and fight against it and spread these petitions and continue speaking out. If we give up now, then if this bill passes, then it’s going to start encouraging other states to do the same. If this bill gets passed, even if it is just this one bill, it’s still a giant step back. If this happens, and it’s always going to be one step forward, two steps back. It just sets the precedent for other homophobic and transphobic bills to be made and more restrictions towards our community being made.

We can’t allow that. It is silencing a huge group of people, especially in Florida, who do make such an impact on them as a whole. For example, in schools where teachers are queer. I know there’s so many people who that’s such a big part of who they are as a person, what shaped them growing up, who they are. That’s such a big part that they will have to force themselves to silence. That’s not right. We aren’t something that needs to be silenced. We’re something that’s completely normal. We’re like any other person, and we need to continue fighting to make sure that we are heard.

Sam Goldman  27:52

You are 100% right on that, and I think that needs to be joined with many, many other people, including people who aren’t students. Look, adults should have been in the streets. People who aren’t in schools should have been shutting cities down. I think that’s something that we’re gonna need in terms of the community and what’s needed. It’s going to be young people up in front leading this struggle, but there’s going to need to be a lot of people putting things on the line that have things to lose, putting it out there, and saying that they have students’ backs, and that we’re gonna fight this and we’re gonna fight to win.

Because as awful and horrific and really destructive as this particular bill is, it’s not happening in isolation. It’s happening in the same state where there’s voter suppression and a 15 week abortion ban. This is happening in concert with a lot of assaults on people’s most basic rights. It’s not only Florida. It’s going to need to take people in their numbers with determination and courage, really refusing to accept a fascist America. I want to thank you again for sharing a little bit of your experience with us, and we will continue to be rooting for you and can’t wait to see what you all do next. 

Oliver  29:08

Of course, thank you. 

Sam Goldman  29:09

That was Fiona and Oliver. Cheers to all the students who engaged in sustained walkouts against the cruel “Don’t Say Gay” bill. We should all join to defend all the courageous students who took action and, even more urgently, join them in the streets disrupting this march to fascism. People of all ages are needed now in the streets, uncompromisingly refusing fascism. 

Sam Goldman  29:35

Cutting through the nonprofit “strategizing,” the liberal hand-wringing and the Democratic Party downplaying, Whole Women’s Health, which provides abortion in Texas, Mississippi and other states wrote this on Twitter: “We have been fighting back against this ban for six long months, but the courts have failed us, our staff and resources are exhausted, the situation is becoming increasingly dire, and now neighboring states where we have been sending patients are about to pass similar bans. Where will Texans go then? The more states that pass these bans, the harder it will be for anyone in this region to get abortion care. SB8 is unsustainable and cruel, full stop. People in Texas deserve access to abortion care.”

So what do we do? Let’s start by listening to highlights from the International Women’s Day protest in New York City organized by RiseUp4AbortionRights.org on March 8 International Women’s Day. In rallies and marches in New York and 12 other cities across the country, people declared their refusal to let the Supreme Court decimate women’s rights and gut or eliminate the right to abortion. This segment was produced by the RNL show and originally aired on their YouTube show. A link is in the Show Notes.

Michelle Xai  30:49

We’re here today with our sisters and brothers in Los Angeles, in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, DC, Detroit, Honolulu, San Francisco and Seattle to say: We refuse to let the U. S. Supreme Court deny women’s humanity and decimate their rights! Abortion on demand, and without apology!  

Merle Hoffman  31:15

Happy International Women’s Day! How many of you know that International Women’s Day was born in struggle? You have thousands of women marching down the garment district, garment workers asking, demanding for better working conditions for higher pay and the right to vote, the right to vote. So I do not see this as purely: don’t celebrate. I see this as a day for commitment and recommitment to what I consider the transcendent goal of the women’s movement, because the right to decide when and whether or not to be a mother is the front line, and the bottom line of women’s’ freedom and liberation.

Lori Sokol  32:13

[Reading from a statement by the author and feminist Gloria Steinem). Because the desire to control wombs and birth-giving is the very definition of patriarchy, power over women’s body has always come first. The morning after Hitler was elected, for instance, his very first act was to padlock the family planning clinics and declare abortion to be a crime against the state.

I also want to say it’s no coincidence I’m reading the statement from her because I actually — my path as a feminist writer now running a global news organization is because of Gloria and her writing, and the magazine that she started. Ms. Magazine, of course has saved so many lives through her words. But although, over the last few decades, I’ve been writing about feminism, it’s only been very recently, probably no more than a month or two ago that I said: If I’m going to follow people woman like her, I need to be out there in the streets, not just writing behind a computer and putting it out there. There is nothing like being out in the streets stepping up and standing up.

Kathy Najimy  33:32

We’re no longer gonna wait for permission to challenge oppressive religious beliefs and misogyny and horrific notions of controlling the very fabric of women’s destiny. 

Michelle Xai  33:45

I want to give a quick shout out. Right here we got a contingent from Harlem for abortion on demand and without apology!

Dr. Bruce Price  33:54

So, I remember George Tiller as my older next door neighbor growing up in Wichita, Kansas. And I remember the rage I felt when I heard that he was assassinated on May 31, 2009. In 2016, inspired by George’s life, I joined the board of directors and Trust Women. If he were alive today, I believe that in body and spirit, he would join us in the streets, these streets, to resist and defeat the current assault on women, to demonstrate in word and deed that every woman and every girl should have a future as full and equal human beings, and that indeed forced motherhood is female enslavement.

Bela  34:38

I’m fifteen years old and I’m angry. We are done being polite. We are done feeling hopeless and fearing that our right to abortion could be taken away at any moment. So let’s all keep up this fucking fight because it’s gonna be a long one, but it’s important. Abortion on demand and without apology!

Betty  34:58

[Singing] If one woman hurts. If one woman cries. If woman bleeds, Rise… up. Get up, stand up! Get up, sing up!  Get up! Change everything! 

Araceli Herrera  35:35

[Needs Spanish transcription]

Sunsara Taylor  35:40

It is possible to stop this fascist assault on women, it is possible. But it is not possible by constricting ourselves to choosing between candidates where one half of them are fascist lunatics who sometimes refer to women as host bodies, and the other half are led by a President Biden, who will not even say the word abortion. We cannot win by accepting defeat in advance. We have to be honest, this is what way too much of the so-called leaders of the so-called women’s movement have done already. They have accepted that Roe v Wade will fall and abortion rights will be gone.

No, this has to stop. Women are not incubators. Women are not property of the state. Women are full human beings. We have to go out today and going forward all of us here and wake up and organize and mobilize the one force that is powerful enough to stop this fascist assault, and that is the masses of people rising up in their millions, relentlessly again and again — filling the streets with our fury, shutting down the campuses and walking out, shutting down the freeways, taking over everywhere, again and again, and making clear to the fascists on the court and everywhere else that if they try to take this right away, if they try to slam women backwards their society will be prevented from functioning at all.

If we want an example of what can be accomplished by people who refuse to accept the unacceptable and who dare to go out and challenge others, look at the women of Columbia. Look at the women of Argentina. Look at the women in Mexico. This is why we wear this green bandana. If you do not know, those are deeply Catholic countries; very repressive states very patriarchal places where abortion has been criminalized for years right and sent to prison for miscarriages. But the women down there went in the streets, not once, but again and again relentlessly. Sometimes a million strong, and the wave this green bandana, and they kept coming back and they tore down those laws and they decriminalized abortion. Through their struggle, they made what everybody thought was impossible possible.

As we go out, we will find others who are like us, and as we do, we’re gonna open up the big questions of what kind of society do we live in that has put these fascist lunatics in power? Where does this desire to control women come from? And what will it take to end it once and for all? For my part, as a follower of the revolutionary leader, Bob Avakian, who is also the architect of the new communism, I will be fighting for what I understand to be true, which is the oldest patriarchy all this oppression all these centuries of patriarchal chains are rooted in this system, along with all the other forms of oppression of capitalism/imperialism. It cannot be ended without bringing that system down; without overthrowing it once and for all in an actual revolution. Until we do that, all this oppression will regenerate, just like the villain in one of those misogynist slasher movies; where you think he’s dead at the end and he comes back and he comes back. We have to bring this system down.

I also want to say a great strength of this movement is our diversity of views. We don’t all agree. We come from different perspectives shoulder to shoulder in insisting that women control their own bodies and lives. After today, we’re going to organize to bring more people out. April 8, we’re going to spread this green bandana into the workplaces, hospitals, schools everywhere, it will be a day of green. And April 9, we are coming back to this park thousands strong, and across this country thousands strong. And from there, we are doubling down and doing it again and again until we flood the streets and bring this society to a halt. Because they must not, they must not be allowed to shatter the lives of women and slam history backwards.

Michelle Xai  41:39

I want to give a big shout to our hermanos and companeras of Dominican Womens Development Center who showed up.

Rev. Jacqui Lewis  41:45

I’m here standing for Gladys, who was pregnant with four other children, working in a blue collar family, locked down, with not enough money to feed those four mouths, and keep up with her church chain and spouse chain, but still needed to have an abortion, but had to go to a back alley place to have one. I’m here standing for Gladys. How about you, are you standing with Gladys? [cheers]  If you can make a baby, you get to choose not to have a baby. 

V (formerly Eve Ensler)  42:43

I am sick of fascism and hate. I am sick of indiscriminate bombs falling. I’m sick of guns. I’m sick from the destruction of our precious Earth from pillaging and raping and spilling and ravaging and extracting of our forests and seas and land.  I am SICK of patriarchy! No one, no man, no church, no state has a right to tell me to tell you what we can and cannot do with our body. They cannot legislate what goes on in it. They cannot enter it without consent or meddle with it or determine what it needs.

This is my womb.  This is my vagina. This is my choice! Everyone does not want or need to be a mother. That dictum was created by patriarchs to keep women in their place, to mechanize childbirth, to use it as a form of oppression and suppression rather than a choice of love. The way we win is in the power of our love, in our unity, in our solidarity, in our sisterhood, our brotherhood, our bravery, our determination and in our numbers. So say it with me: Abortion on demand, and without apology! [repeats with crowd]

Sam Goldman  44:06

That was in order of speaking Michelle Xai, Merle Hoffman, Lori Sokol, Kathy Najimy, Dr. Bruce Price, Beila, Betty, Araceli Herrera, Sunsara Taylor, Reverend Jacqi Lewis and V, formerly known as Eve Ensler.  RiseUP4AbortionRights.org is calling for mass meetings next weekend.  In NYC, the meeting will be taking place Sunday, March 20 2:00 pm at New York Live Arts. Meetings we’ll be planning nationwide protests for Saturday, April 9 to keep abortion legal.

Again sign up at RiseUp4AbortionRights.org and follow @RiseUp4Abortion on Twitter. To learn more, for abortion resources, where to get an abortion including in Texas, and to get help including funding for abortions visit needabortion.org. And if you or someone you love is an LGBTQ youth, thinking about harming yourself, get immediate support, visit the Trevorproject.org where you can chat with a crisis counselor 24/7.  24 hours a day, seven days a week,  all year. It’s free. It’s confidential.

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Thanks to Richard Marini, Lina Thorne and Mark Tinkleman for helping produce this episode. 

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