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Episode 106 Refuse Fascism

Sun, 4/10 9:02PM • 33:58

Juniper Porter    00:00

What the GOP is going for, they’re testing the waters. This is only the beginning. This is the right wing’s test case to rollback things like Roe, to rollback the legalization of gay marriage, to rollback civil protections. There’s gonna be a lot to fight against. I want to see us build community. The more of us we have, the stronger we are. And if we stand strong now we have a chance of slowing it down.

Sam Goldman    00:42

Welcome to Episode 106 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 featuring stories of rising up, breaking the silence and sounding the alarm to mobilize people to act. First, you’ll hear from Juniper, an activist with trans resistance of Texas. Then we’ll share some highlights from the Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights nationwide protests that took place yesterday, and help you get organized wherever you are.

Sam Goldman    01:35

As we’ve discussed previously on the show, there’s a tsunami of anti-trans legislation sweeping the nation. Just this past week, the Alabama legislature voted to ban gender-affirming medical care to youth, making providing such care a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. This February Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued an executive directive ordering that the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services conduct child abuse investigations of parents who give gender-affirming care to their children. In Texas, right now, if you’re a parent who follows the guidance of the American Academy of Pediatrics to help your child get gender-affirming care that is “developmentally appropriate, non-judgmental, supportive and clinically safe,” you are deemed as committing child abuse. So if you give your child care, if you take them to a doctor and help them get care what pediatricians say is advised, you’re committing child abuse for which they and their doctors must be investigated, prosecuted, and punished.

Sam Goldman    03:36

Echoing SB8, the six-week abortion ban in Texas, Abbott’s order relies on vigilantism. It fosters community surveillance of families with transgender children by explicitly telling the public that they, no less than health care professionals, have a duty to report suspected cases of child abuse. The effects of this order were immediate, devastating, terrorizing for parents, for kids, and health care providers. Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, the largest children’s hospital in the country, stopped providing gender-affirming care.

Sam Goldman    03:36

So what do we do? Here’s a conversation I recently had with Juniper, an activist with Trans Resistance of Texas, a protest group fighting for trans rights and taking a stand against transphobia in Texas. TROT — Trans Resistance of Texas — and Tear It Up held a die-in outside the capitol building in Austin, Texas protesting the governor and Ken Paxton’s attacks on families with transgender children. They did this die-in March 31. Have a listen. On our show, we have been talking at length, but there’s much, much more to say about what we’ve been calling a tsunami of anti-trans legislation that is sweeping the country. I think that a lot of people listening, they feel trapped, and they feel hopeless. When I was scrolling social media, I saw Juniper and others participate in an action that gave me a little bit of hope.

Juniper Porter    04:31

I’m glad that it had that effect on anybody. Frankly, I’ve been mostly oscillating between depression and rage. I’m just a fundamentally anxious person, and if I don’t do something then I just melt down. I’ve lived here for almost 30 years and this is the worst it’s felt. At least when I was growing up they were pretending we didn’t exist. Now we’re under a magnifying glass. Forty bills last session. That’s why TROT exists. We formed the Trans Resistance of Texas as a pretty loose group of people who just got together to protest during the last legislative cycle and then on through the special session, because we had something in the ballpark of 40 different bills on the books, and only one of them made through, but one of them made through. And that’s what the GOP is going for. They’re testing the waters. They’re trying to find holes.

Sam Goldman    05:27

And so what bill went through in Texas?

Juniper Porter    05:29

That one was HB 25, to ban all transgender kids in sports. Basically, it specifies that in Texas, regardless of child’s gender identity, what’s been recognized by parents, doctors, that child has to compete in the gender category that they were assigned at birth. And that’s already having ramifications.

Sam Goldman    05:51

So what did y’all do? I think it was last week.

Juniper Porter    05:55

Our most recent action — that was actually one of many that we were coordinating with our larger partner Tear It Up with, we held a die-in on the steps of the State Capitol, maybe the first in Texas for trans rights specifically, and we had Dr. Lewis, there speaking, she’s phenomenal.

Sam Goldman    06:16

Was that the speaker that led people in saying that they were divine?

Juniper Porter    06:21

I think Dr. Lewis has a bit about that, but also, you might be thinking of Remington Johnson who spoke on March 13 at another rally that we helped organize. This was actually the third action that our members were involved with this month — in the course of roughly a month. This most recent one was coordinated with ones in, I believe, Atlanta, Boise, and Des Moines, with, again, that other organization called Tear It Up. We’re still putting that plane together as we fly it, but me and some colleagues from out of state are forming an organization in the style and structure of Act Up, hoping to use a lot of their same tactics to keep these kinds of issues in the public eye. Because I think HB 25 made some local news, and it started to get global news only during South by Southwest because a bunch of big names started to talk about it. So we’re trying to keep the world’s eyes on these issues.

Sam Goldman    07:21

Yeah, I definitely think you could see in the picture, I think, that the Des Moines action had a lot of Act Up energy. To picture anything at the time of Act Up for younger listeners, their slogan was Silence Equals Death. And while they were organized around AIDS, it was not even being spoken about.   

Juniper Porter    07:44

And it feels the same. When you see 40 bills on the books in one session attacking the same demographic, all of them aimed at kids, just about, and one of them makes the news because it passed.

Sam Goldman    07:59

Yeah, I think that a lot of what we’re seeing is around kids in particular. In Texas, I think this was passed, but correct me if I’m wrong, was at reporting parents who…

Juniper Porter    08:12

It didn’t pass yet. Where that is right now is the attorney-general and the governor each released statements indicating that, in their legal opinion, Texas law codifies puberty blockers and gender-affirming care for anyone over the age of 18 to be illegal and to constitute child abuse. They have immediately started investigations. There are several pretty reputable sources, but we’re getting word now that part of this directive indicated that there were not to be records of this — because they knew what they were doing was illegal and unconstitutional.

Sam Goldman    08:49

My understanding is that parents have already been reported.

Juniper Porter    08:53

Yes, there’s at least one family already having to deal with with a court case over this.

Sam Goldman    08:58

Can you talk a little bit for our listeners who may not understand why is this such a big deal?

Juniper Porter    09:05

Because this is only the beginning. This is the right wing’s test case, to roll back things like Roe, to roll back the legalization of gay marriage, to rollback civil protections. In fact, it was just yesterday or may have been last night, the lieutenant governor put out a public statement saying that he absolutely intends to try and push through our own version of Don’t Say Gay here in Texas. They picked this issue as a test case for all these other, even broader, goals that they have. That could be used because it’s, one, not broadly understood by people who don’t have direct experience, and two, easy to polarize people because of the inbuilt stigma. Anytime there’s an issue that revolves around childcare, you can start to really drum up the conservative base over it.

Sam Goldman    09:57

Meanwhile, what they’re inflicting on children — these Christian fascists — for children who already have the odds stacked against them.    [Juniper: Yeah]    As if adolescence wasn’t hard enough?

Juniper Porter    10:10

Right. I grew up trans in Texas in a really small county. My hometown was population 425. The county jail held more people than lived in the town, literally, by about 160. It was hard enough dealing with feeling invisible and like I didn’t exist, because nobody talked about people like me. In fact, I didn’t realize that being trans was an option till my mid 20s. I came out as a cis gay man, because that’s all I understood. I can’t even imagine having to grow up knowing that the state had deemed my existence to be illegal, and can’t even imagine. All the things I went through, I never imagined that I would live to see another generation that possibly is going to grow up with deeper trauma than I did from growing up queer in the late 90s and went through the Bush era in rural Texas, but that’s what we’re looking at.

Sam Goldman    11:03

It’s completely outrageous. I relate to what you were talking about a lot, the oscillating between depression and outrage. I think that anybody with a heart should as well. Can you talk us through a little bit about what is giving you hope in this moment; the actions that you’re taking, the community that you’re building, and what lessons you think others can take away? How would you want to see this replicate, maybe in other parts of Texas or elsewhere in the country.

Juniper Porter    11:34

We’ve had an outpouring of support that — I don’t want to say that I didn’t expect, because I’ve been in and out of activism long enough to know that I’m not alone — but it can feel that way, especially in Texas. A lot of this is a reaction to overturning a lot of things that I didn’t expect we would. At the time that I came out, I didn’t dare hope for the things we’ve already achieved. A lot of this is just backlash, it’s the pendulum, and if we stand strong now we have a chance of slowing it down. The other thing is the kids are all right. This next generation is more engaged with civil rights and unionization than I think any generation in my adult life. So I do still have a lot of hope, even if it’s hard to hold on to.

Sam Goldman    12:19

You did this die-in — I haven’t seen another one like it in the state of Texas — for trans rights. It doesn’t mean that there hasn’t been…

Juniper Porter    12:19

They tend to not to be documented here, generally speaking. A lot of organizations have to walk a very tight line, so even when a lot of our allies are kind of hands off about these kinds of actions and protests. That’s the whole point of our organization being someone who can be the megaphone without compromising our existing position.

Sam Goldman    12:49

What kind of action do you hope that people are taking, and what do you want to see in Texas or elsewhere across the country?

Juniper Porter    12:58

Well, not strictly related to our movement, but everyone should unionize. In terms of our organization, we’ll be taking stuff directly from Act Up’s playbook, bogging down call lines, additional die-ins — this is probably not our our last one. It was timely, but we also want it to open up the same way I Act Up did. I believe their first documented action was a die-in. Things like handing out pamphlets to the staffers of right wing offices, setting up call banking.

Sam Goldman    13:26

There’s no right or wrong answer. I’m just curious as to what you see is needed.

Juniper Porter    13:32

As much as anything, I want to see us build community. The more of us we have, the stronger we are.

Sam Goldman    13:37

For people who are in Texas and want to connect with your movement, how can they do that?

Juniper Porter    13:45

I believe we are going to, as far as outreach goes, begin to operate as a component, sort of a local wing of Tear It Up. They’ve got their own webpage. We have a whole system put together now to bring people on board. One of the other goals of Tear It Up is we’re currently building, basically, startup instruction packets so that people can start their own local chapter in their town or whether it’s Austin, Texas, or Albuquerque, New Mexico. If they have the want to, we will provide them whatever resources we have. The web page is the best place to start for our organization.

Sam Goldman    14:24

Great. Well, we’ll definitely link that in the show notes.

Juniper Porter    14:27

Oh, and I guess other places. TROT’s Twitter page and Tear It Up’s Twitter page are both good places to start for right now because the web page isn’t fully polished up yet, so we’re basically taking contacts anyway that people want to reach us.

Sam Goldman    14:42

Great. People should definitely check that out. Is there anything else that you want people that aren’t in Texas to know about what’s happening in Texas?

Juniper Porter    14:52

We’re in for a tough couple of years. This announcement that the lieutenant governor put out is actually for the 2023 cycle. So, we’ve got everything that just happened; they’re almost certainly just going to retool all of these sports bills. I wouldn’t be surprised if they try an adult bathroom bill again, because I’m pretty sure one just passed. I believe it was Arizona or somewhere, so I see no reason why Texas isn’t going to revamp that. The last time they tried was in 2017. There’s gonna be a lot to fight against for the foreseeable future basically.

Sam Goldman    15:28

There’s a lot to fight against and there’s a lot of people to fight alongside.

Juniper Porter    15:33

A lot to fight for.

Sam Goldman    15:34

Yeah, exactly. I am glad to have met you and to know that there are people in Texas against a lot of odds, standing up and fighting back. I want to thank you for taking the time to chat with me, and thank all the people that you’re working with that are so bravely stepping out there. We need more people with you, so, again, people should should join up and check out the show notes and link up with them. Thank you so much.

Juniper Porter    16:06

Thank you. Thank you for reaching out and taking the time. I really appreciate it.

Sam Goldman    16:11

The fascist Republic of Texas is moving fast and furiously to lock in place Christian fascist domination of the state, beating down any form of opposition and challenge to    their role in mobilizing mobs of vigilantes to enforce it, hunting out, silencing and persecuting their opponents. Their ambitions don’t stop in Texas. This fascist offensive must be met now with massive growing opposition. All of society needs to rock with refusal. Yesterday, I joined with hundreds of people who took to the streets in over a dozen cities to fight for abortion to stay legal in this country, as the Supreme Court of the United States is poised to take away this fundamental right to abortion this spring. Listen to this from CBS LA:

KCBS, Los Angeles    17:06

Activists nationwide and right here in Southern California gathering to speak out for abortion rights.

KCBS, Los Angeles    17:11

CBS news’ Michelle Gile shows us one of the biggest local rallies that took place today. [Chanting in background: rise up for abortion rights] Women and men passionate about choice and abortion rights marched up Hollywood Boulevard Saturday afternoon. [Rally speaker: What if here is where the line is drawn?] The group Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights held protests in several cities across the nation, including LA. They set up in the heart of Hollywood to spread the word about what they call the erosion of reproductive rights and potential criminalization of abortion in many states.

Protester    17:46

It’s actually shocking because I’m from Mexico. So we kind of see the United States as a more progressive society, especially California.

Protester    17:54

There are certain people that are just very greedy for power and they want to tell other people what to do and that’s not American. We should have the freedom to do what we want to do and a woman should have a basic right to do what she wants to do with her own body.

KCBS, Los Angeles    18:06

All eyes are on an upcoming Supreme Court ruling regarding abortion. Mississippi passed a law prohibiting abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy. A court ruled it was unconstitutional. An appeal is now before the Supreme Court.

Protester    18:21

The Supreme Court is currently deliberating on a case, Dobbs v. Jackson, in which they were explicitly asked to overturn Roe v. Wade. This decision is about to come down in either late May or early June.

KCBS, Los Angeles    18:34

Meantime, LA City Council President Nury Martinez has just introduced a motion in support of Roe v. Wade and abortion rights for all women. She told colleagues that Los Angeles stands with and for women. If LA City Council President Nury Martinez’s motion passes, staff will begin to determine how Los Angeles can respond to a possible increase in demand for abortions locally. In Hollywood, Michelle Gile, CBS 2 news.

Sam Goldman    19:02

While we are still getting in reports and combing over footage, one thing that was noticeable across the country was the number of youth who participated, including those who had never been to a protest in their life. We just had to share these two clips from high school students, youth organizers. First, you’ll hear from an organizer in New York City and then in Berkeley, California.

Bella    19:28

My name is Bella Kraus. I’m a student and youth organizer with Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights. I’m 15 years old and I’m furious. I’m angry at the state of the world that has been left to my generation. Currently the Supreme Court is poised to strip people with uteruses of their constitutional right to an abortion. And you know what? You know what we’re gonna do? We’re gonna fight back. We will not stand for this and we will not be silenced. We will not comply when our futures and our dreams are under attack. We have power as a movement, and we need to organize together and follow the lead of women in Colombia, Mexico and Argentina. 

Together, we will fight and together we will make them listen to us. We have been silent for too long. We need to hear every single one of your stories, every single one of your ideas and every single one of your voices, because in this fight, we all need to be heard. Right now, I’m calling on the youth to stand up because these are our futures, our hopes and our dreams that are on the line. We are done accepting that, and we don’t have much time. A decision will be made sometime in late spring on whether or not to overturn Roe v. Wade. So, we must be relentless and we must keep up this fucking fight. If you’re angry, let me hear you. Abortion on demand and without apology.

Student, Berkeley CA    21:16

Thank you guys. I’m so happy that we’re in this fight together. What is happening right now is a stripping of autonomy. It is dehumanizing and frankly, it is terrifying. Today we are here because we fundamentally understand something. Congress let us down. The Republican Party has let us down. The Democrats have let us down. No one seems to understand the weight that the Supreme Court decisions genuinely hold in Texas, Oklahoma, Idaho, Arizona, Indiana, South Dakota, Wyoming, Florida. This is an emergency and has been left up to us to fight to speak up and to take it to the fucking streets.

Student speaker    30:04

“This is a matter of such fundamental and basic concerns to women involved that she should be allowed to make the choice as to whether to continue or to terminate her pregnancy,” said Sara Weddington in Roe v. Wade. We fight for abortion to become legal once more, and the Supreme Court decision should not be overturned. I must say this goes beyond being just a fight with the afforded rights of the people. It is a fight against fascism. They are attacking the teaching of race, Black voting, they’re attacking queer folks, and they’re attacking our right to abortion. So today we march for health care, for autonomy and the right not to stay silent. We fight for the people and we fight against fascism. We stand with the women and with the people of the world. Thank you all for being here today. Thank you for the great people I’ve met, and thank you for making this happen. We continue this fight side by side.

Sam Goldman    31:24

For more on yesterday’s protests visit RiseUp4AbortionRights.org. The US Supreme Court is poised to take away the right to abortion this spring, likely in late June. This cannot be allowed. Roe v Wade is the case that legalized abortion in this country. Half of people who can become pregnant in the United States live in states that could quickly move to ban abortion if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. As the Center for Reproductive Rights shared, “Dobbs V. Jackson Women’s Health Organization marks the first time the court will rule on the constitutionality of a pre- viability abortion ban since Roe. The court’s ruling in Roe recognize that the decision to continue a pregnancy or have an abortion, which impacts the person’s body, health, family and future belongs to the individual, not the government. 

The State of Mississippi has asked the court not only to uphold its abortion ban, but to overrule Roe and find there is no constitutional right to abortion, by agreeing to hear this case in the first place about a ban that violates nearly 50 years of precedent. The highest court of the land has made it clear that the right to abortion is on the chopping block. And when they heard the case, they made their intentions clear going so far as to ask why abortion is even necessary. Never before has the Supreme Court of the United States taken a direct challenge to Roe. But now we have a Trumpified court stacked with Christian fascists in anticipation of the reversal of Roe. Women-haters in state houses across the country have swiftly joined in a Olympics of cruelty from 15-week bans in Arizona and Florida to an all-out ban on abortion at conception with felony charges for providers up to 10 years in Oklahoma, a state that has seen a surge of patients seeking abortion care. 

Since the six-week ban has gone into effect inTexas, further emboldened by the upcoming SCOTUS decision, states are proposing new restrictions and heavier criminal penalties on the abortion pill in Texas. In the Rio Grande Valley. Lizzelle Herrera was arrested and charged with murder for allegedly inducing her own abortion and bail was set at half a million dollars. While we are so glad that the horrendous charges were dropped, that she is out, and grateful for the Texans and others who helped make that happen, she should have never been arrested in the first place. Her arrest is a harbinger of what we are to see by the millions. If we do not stop this, it should lay to rest any illusion of a workable, livable post-Roe society, especially for women of color as horrible as it was before Roe. 

The truth is, if we allow Roe to be gutted or overturned, it will be far worse. If Roe is overturned 26 states could quickly move to ban abortion, impacting over 35 million women of reproductive age who live in those states likely to ban abortions. Like all the other abortion bans, these fall hardest on people who have already faced barriers in accessing health care due to white supremacy and other forms of discrimination. They are going to keep going further: bans with no exemption for rape, normalized criminalization for miscarriage, criminalizing abortion pills, passing a federal ban on abortion connected to enshrining fetal personhood. They’re going after birth control, if they’re allowed to do this. They’re going forward criminalizing medical professionals and pregnant people, going after sex education and more. Going after Griswold, Loving, Brown and Obergefell, dismantling privacy and equal protection, turning back the clock. For without abortion rights, there is no illusion of gender equality. They are not going to accept a patchwork of states where some areas of the country have abortion rights, and some don’t. 

If the Supreme Court overturns Roe, and decides there is no right to abortion, it marks a truly devastating milestone. It marks the first time in this country’s history that the court has taken away a constitutional right, this right which the Court has reaffirmed multiple times. The right to abortion is foundational to people’s lives for generations. And if it is allowed to be stripped away, it will do tremendous incalculable harm. This is a Christian fascist, theocratic women-hating movement, and their assault on abortion is a battering ram in a whole horrific program infused with white supremacy, American chauvinism, science denialism, and it is gaining grounds on many fronts. If it is allowed to win on this, it will give the whole fascist enterprise momentum to drive its cruel and brutal future forward. This movement is one that cannot be accommodated to, it cannot be appeased, and it will not stop until they have imposed their nightmare vision of the world on all of us or until they are decisively defeated. 

Only the people can stop this. We need to take to the streets and rise up for abortion rights, now. We must do what women in Argentina, Mexico and Colombia have done. For generations, abortion was criminalized in those countries. Then women took up the green bandana, through courageous relentless protests, they decriminalized abortion. We too must change what’s possible here through our struggle, show solidarity with our sisters in Latin America, mobilize growing numbers of people in a rising Green Wave that does not stop until we defeat this war on women. Abortion on demand and without apology needs to resound throughout this country. The reality that forced motherhood is female enslavement needs to be brought to life. There needs to be street theater that brings it to life. There needs to be social media campaigns, there needs to be actions that cut to the heart of what’s at stake. We need to rise up. We need to wear green. 

RiseUp4abortionRights.org has announced a National Week of action May 8-15. They’re calling on people to unleash our creativity, rage and power to wake people up in town squares on campuses, in workplaces and all across society, to the emergency facing women, to galvanize growing numbers of people to wear green for abortion, and join growing nonviolent resistance to stop the Supreme Court from taking away the fundamental right to abortion. This upcoming Saturday, April 16, join the National RiseUp4AbortionRights Organizing Summit. It’s on Zoom, taking place 3:00 pm Eastern Time, noon Pacific,    2:00 pm Central Time,    9:00 am in Hawaii. There’s a registration link in the bio. It’s an all hands on deck moment. Get connected, get organizing now. This week, spread the green and spread the word about the organizing summit. Spread it on social media posting videos to your stories with lots of green bandanas, stickers, chalking up your city and campus, getting green fabric and draping it from trees, in your parks. Place banners out your windows posters throughout your town. 

I want to hear your ideas when we need to reach the huge reservoir of people who do not know that we are weeks away from possibly losing the right to legal abortion in this country. So what are the bold, creative, disruptive, un-ignorable, line drawing, enough is enough, fury mobilizing actions that are going to draw people forward and help mobilize people help people confront and then act on what we face. So please, please, please think about it, and then send me your ideas. Send us your ideas. You can send your ideas to RiseUp4AbortionRights.org. You can do that by emailing [email protected]. Or write me personally [email protected]. Let’s wear green for abortion and fight for growing numbers, un-ignorable protest, massive resistance for abortion on demand and without apology.

Sam Goldman    32:26

Thanks for listening. I want to hear from you. Share your thoughts questions, ideas for topics or guests or lend a skill. Tweet me @SamBGoldman. Or you can drop me a line at [email protected] or leave a voicemail by pushing the button at anchor.fm forward slash refuse dash fascism. Want to support the show? It’s simple. Show us some love by reading and reviewing on Apple podcasts or your listening platform of choice. And of course, follow subscribe so you never miss an episode.    

Chip into support our pod and content creation to help people understand and act to stop the fascist threat. You can donate by visiting refuse fascism.org and hitting the donate button there. Thanks to Richie Marini and Mark Tinkleman for helping produce this episode. Thanks to incredible volunteers we have transcripts available for each episode. So be sure to visit refuse fascism.org and sign up to get them in your inbox each week. We’ll be back next Sunday. Until then, we refuse to accept a fascist America.