The Road to Progress: The Intersection of State Policies on Gender Race and Reproductive Rights

Michelle: Hello, everybody. Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome to the road to progress, the intersection of state policies on gender, race, and reproductive rights. I'm going to be your facilitator today for this amazing panel discussion. But before we get into the amazing people we have, I first want to kind of ask y'all where y'all are coming from. So, my name is Michelle Slaybaugh. I am the Director of social impact and strategic communications for SIECUS, Sex Ed for Social Change. And I am coming to you live and directly from Texas. Yay. So we want you to go ahead and drop into the comments where you are coming from. Okay. And tell us why you're excited about this conversation. I know for one thing, I'm here representing, because we got a lot of work to do, and one of my jobs is voting yes. That, too, is a Black job. So we are excited that y'all are here. We are excited to have you, and we are going to be talking about real issues. But we want to let you know now that if we see disparaging comments, racist comments in the chat, while we do encourage dialogue, if it becomes harmful to presenters to other people, we will be removing you without warning. So just want to give you a heads up on that. In addition to that. We want to let you know that after this live event, this will be posted online. And if you registered for this event, you'll be getting an email with an incredible resource guide that will follow up on the topics that were discussed today. So, again, I see the comments going wild. We're so happy to have you here, and I am going to go ahead and start. Start this conversation. Okay. So, over the past several years, we've seen numerous attacks on abortion, access, sexual health education, public education, and libraries classrooms, and attacks on our LGBTQ youth. This moment is critical in determining the future of these rights. And so, SIECUS, in collaboration with the Guttmacher Institute decided to put together a conversation. What was a simple dream of bringing together intersecting social justice experts to discuss how we move forward and how we fight back against attacks. And we are so happy to have all of you here. So, when it comes to presenters, we have some incredible presenters. And the way we're going to go through this conversation is each one of our presenters is going to give you a play by play on various topics, from the socio political landscape to what types of trends they have been tracking. And we encourage you to ask questions in the chat. We will do our best to address those in. In real time. And if they don't all get answered, we will try to hold some time at the back end of this discussion to be able to address as many as we possibly can. But I also want to encourage those of you who may have insights, information, or help to establish an understanding for somebody else that asks a question. Feel free. Drop that in the chat. Send the links. We really believe that together we're stronger, and so we want to hear your thoughts, your ideas, and your perspectives. So, first up the esteemed Candace Gibson from the Guttmacher Institute, who is the Director of State Policy. And before we switch slides real quick, Kojo that's our back end person. So shouts out to everybody on the back end doing production. I want to go ahead and run through the rest of the moderators. We also have Alison Macklin, who is the policy and advocacy Director at SIECUS Sex Ed for Social Change, and Sabrina Baeda. I hope I said that right. From PEN America, as well as Victoria Kirby, the Director of Public Policy and programs at the National Black Justice Coalition. Now, before I hand it over to Candace let me just let you know. Candace is an amazing individual who brings a lot to the Guttmacher Institute. And in her current role, she oversees the institute's work to advance evidence based and state level policies to secure sexual and reproductive health and rights. Previously she has served as the Director of government relations at the National Latina Institute for Reproductive justice, where she oversaw the organization's federal policy and advocacy efforts. Were super excited to have Candace with us, and we also are super excited that Alison Macklin, who is here at SIECUS as our wonderful policy and advocacy Director, who oversees how we move policy forward at SIECUS, looking to advance sex education. And here at SIECUS, we've been doing this for years, and so has Alison. She has 20 years working to advance sex education. And she actually helped author Colorado's Youth Wellness Act to ensure that all young people in the state of Colorado are able to access inclusive, comprehensive sex education. So welcome, Alison. And Sabrina Baeda is the Program Manager with the freedom to read at PEN America. She engages in research and awareness building around censorship attacks on public K-12 organization, especially as it relates to literature accessibility in libraries and classrooms. And last, but most definitely not least, Victoria Kirby York is the Director of Public Policy and programs for the National Black Justice Coalition. In her capacity, she is responsible for leading the organization's advocacy and action strategies to maintain the National Black Justice Coalition's position as its recognized public policy leader, especially concerning Black, trans, queer, nonbinary nonconforming people, families, communities, as well as their other multiple marginalized communities. So, now that we've got all that in. Okay, welcome to those of you who just popped in, I see we have quite a few people. So continue to let us know where you're coming from, what organizations you're with. And at this point I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to ask Candace Gibson, to, you know, speak to us a little bit about what's been going on. What is Guttmacher Institute starting to see from its mid year report? Can you kind of give us an overview of the key findings? From this year's Guttmacher mid year report and how they highlight the current state of affairs of abortion and sexual reproductive health services in the US.

Candace: All right, thanks, Michelle, so much. And I'm so thrilled to be in conversation with these amazing folks today. So in terms of, you know, before we go into the discussion around the mid year report, I think it's really important for the people who are joining this discussion today to understand that abortion access in this country before the Dobbs decision, was very much so, a patchwork system, right? So because of numerous state and federal policies that were really aimed at eroding people's access to abortion care, you know, individuals had to jump through hoops to get care and it was really dependent on where you lived, your source of insurance coverage, your income. And these inequities have continued to be exacerbated after the Dobbs decision. And most of these inequities really fall hardest on Black and Brown people, LGBTQ people, immigrants, young people, and other communities are marginalized within our healthcare system. So, for example, one of the things that we're seeing through some of Guttmacher's research on abortion care is that in 2021, in ten people were traveling for abortion care across state lines. Now, in 2023, we saw that one in five people were traveling to get abortion care across multiple state lines. And we actually saw that 171,000 people traveled across state lines for this care. And so you see some of the policies on this slide here, right? You have. If you have 14 states who have total abortion bans, right? 27 states that ban abortion care at some point during pregnancy, right? And so all of to say this, right, all this background is just one important context, right, as we think through of the state policy that we're seeing in this past legislative cycle. I think. Kojo, can you go to the next slide? All right, thank you so much. So for example, this is actually a screenshot of our interactive abortion map. This is a great tool for activists and other advocates in the field. And so we're tracking in real time these abortion policies as they're being implemented in the states. And you can see how abortion care in this country is highly fragmented. A lot of the states in orange, right, are most restrictive or, you know, have, like, total bans in place. The states that you see serve in purple, right, they're far more protective of abortion care. So you know, that being said now go into some of the five. Findings we saw in our mid year report. So no surprise, right? The opposition is only emboldened after Dobbs to really double down and attack people's ability to make the best healthcare decisions for themselves. On abortion alone, we saw 471 restrictive provisions introduced this year. That being said, though, right? Like that being said, at the same time, we saw that over 600 proactive provisions on abortion care were introduced this session. So, that being said, even though the Landscape is fragmented, this opportunity to advance legislation to secure and protect abortion care as well as other forms of sexual reproductive healthcare. And I know we'll go with that into. We'll go into more details later on in the conversation.

Michelle: Thank you so much for that. And next up I'm going to take it a step further. I think somebody did ask about a one in five statistic, so we're going to drop that information into the comment section. But now I'd like to bring up Miss Victoria to discuss how this bleeds into the work of nonbinary and trans folk. If we're seeing that there are restrictions on abortion and access to healthcare in this current socio political climate, what forecast threats to these services are hitting hard in the LGBTQ community? Can you speak to us a little bit about that?

Victoria: Certainly. First, thanks for having me. In the National Black Justice Collective, incredibly excited at the energy folks who joined already throwing in comments and questions. Please continue to keep that up. What we know and as our good ancestor Audre Lorde shared with us, when they come for one of us, they come for all of us, right? We're not all free until all of us are free. This battle to retain autonomy is something that the reproductive rights, health and justice movements have been talking about for decades. We're telling you all, they're trying to overturn Roe. They're trying to help. They overturned Roe. Right? We're seeing so much of what has played out over the last 50 years in reproductive rights, health and justice spaces play out across so many other communities. And also, we also see sometimes the exclusion of LGBTQ and same gender loving people. In those conversations. And so that's what I wanna really bring our attention to in this discussion. For one, as we continue to fight for reproductive rights, health and justice, it has to have a trans-inclusive frame. And sometimes even our friends have to be reminded that when we're talking about trans inclusive reproductive healthcare, we're talking about the fact that trans men also need abortion and contraceptive care, reproductive health care, that nonbinary people, people assigned female at birth who are not don't like myself, don't necessarily feel well suited and in the gender binary as it's constructed when you look at trans women and others who use reproductive healthcare treatments, particularly gender affirming care, in the form of hormone therapy, there's a lot at stake for the trans community and other communities that are part of the LGBTQ family. We have seen across the country the banning of gender affirming care, especially for our youth, by people who have no idea what we mean when we talk about it. Largely for most young folks, this is the ability to name themselves, to dress for themselves. Sometimes it includes reproductive access around hormone therapy and a number, a handful of instances may include some other kinds of medical procedures that help people to live into who they've always been. We've also seen, on the positive side of sexual reproductive health care the repealing of HIV criminalization laws. We want to see more of that happening while also advancing access to treatment and prevention medications, where we see tons of money coming from the federal government to help do just that. We've not seen as many states and local health centers be able to access those funds. And so we want to make sure that people have autonomy in that way as well, to be able to protect themselves and others and to be able to live long, healthy lives. We also see a need for more reproductive healthcare research, period. But also research that includes and centers Black women and Black LGBTQ and same gender loving people often the result, when there is research, it often skews mostly to impact of White women or White people assigned female at birth. And so we want to ensure that that research is much more inclusive and disaggregated data that advocates like ourselves can use to help further the cause. We also continue to see massive discrepancies when it comes to disparities when it comes to Black maternal and gestational carrier health. And some of that is tied to this last priority around the need for culturally competent and humble healthcare providers, insurance, and institutions. We see that 90% of deaths that are caused during and shortly after childbirth are preventable, which means there are things that we can do in the process of care to ensure that more Black and Black LGBTQ folks aren't dying simply because we choose to bring life into this world. I know we're gonna have more time to talk when we get to Q&A but this gives you just a little bit to whet your appetite.

Michelle: Thank you so very, very much. Victoria and as we continue this conversation of what healthcare looks like and what access to care looks like, I think it's really important, especially for us here at SIECUS, to help people understand the importance of an education. So now we're going to go to Alison. And, Alison, I am hoping that you can help us frame how these things are interconnected.

Allison: Thanks so much for having me. I'm so excited to share a stage with all of you. Kocho if I could actually have you go to the triangle slide, that would be helpful. I just want to set the stage a little bit around how education policy is set up in the United States. And forgive me if this is something that you all are very familiar with, but sex education policy aligns with other education policy in the sense that it is a very local issue. So at the federal level, we have various major guiding principles. For example, the Civil Rights Act which created the office of Civil Rights for Schools. We also had the Title IX, which recently was just expanded to protect for LGBTQ+ individuals. So there are some federal laws and policies and guidelines that influence how things are happening at that local level. But by and large, education policies and sex education policy is really determined at that local level. So when we saw the Dobbs decision, which was another major federal ruling, while it related to. Specifically to abortion, it has had a cascading effect on sex education and policy at that state level. And we saw a huge influx then of attacks on not only sex education, but education writ large. So attacks on you know, and dividing up concepts around sex education. So things that are taught within sex education. So, for example, diversity, inclusivity, acceptance, and respect for LGBTQ+ individuals recognizing that there are cultural differences and that people have different backgrounds, recognizing there's different religious ideologies that people have that are playing into their lives. All of those intersections were the floodgates were really open for attacks. So we could go back to that first slide now. And one of the biggest things that we saw this past year is really that. So we saw. We tracked over 800 bills. And that is because sex education is so intersectional, because there are so many components. Sex education often is thought of we just teaching about the act of sex and reproduction. It is so much more than that. So this is not the sex education of 30, 40, 50 years ago. Sex education today is really inclusive. It is built on a scaffolding framework that starts in kindergarten and then builds throughout a person's educational experience. So in kindergarten, just like with math, we're teaching really basic information, teaching information about, you know, what are proper terminology, for example, or respecting boundaries and respecting bodily autonomy that those are speaking up for oneself and advocating for yourself with friend groups. And then those types of common and basic skills are developed. And as the child matures, built upon with more increasing information that is age appropriate for the development of that child. So we have a whole bunch of bills that we're looking at then. We're looking at you know, anything from restrictions on trying to restrict excuse me dress codes, for example, within a certain or restrict certain ability for people to wear their hair in a certain way in a public school setting, all the way to the actual sex education bills themselves. So out of those 800 bills that we tracked, there were only 150 that were actually specific to sex education. And this was actually a record breaking year. So while we have suffered from. Since dobs on these attacks from the regressive community we are seeing that we have a record number of positive sex education bills. And that's because we know that 84% of parents in middle school, of middle school children and 96% of parents in high school students want their kids to have sex education. They know the benefits, they know the intersectionality of it, and they know that it's so important for setting them up for a lifetime of success. So people were fighting back. This year, we saw 65 really positive sex education bills. We only saw two regressive sex education bills enacted compared to seven progressive sex ed bills. So that's really great. People are recognizing that these attacks need to stop, recognizing and seeing that we are more. Unified around the subject matter than anything else in this country. And our success rate of trying to enact proactive bills is going up. So while last year it was 13%, restricted bills were passed, this year only 9%. But we do know, and as Victoria was just talking about, they were still able to act at least 43 restrictive bills that impacted LGBTQ individuals. And this is really you know, we've seen a very targeted attack, specifically in schools around LGBTQ+ young people. Some trends that we're seeing and that we're, you know, we're really looking towards, or we saw this year in sex education from a negative perspective, is this meet baby Olivia type of bill. We saw 15 of those introduced across the United States, and that's a little bit jaw dropping because a. It's. The playbook has been revealed very clearly. But this is really an attempt to co opt good sex education for the intentions of purporting a certain ideology or a certain belief. And really what it is is anti-abortion rhetoric and it's misinformation and disinformation. And so we had one of those bills pass last year in North Dakota, and then again this past year, so, sorry, 2023, and then one in 2024 in Tennessee. And so that's what the type of trend that we're seeing now is that you know, while we're used to the regressive minority really trying to attack sex education from the perspective of saying, okay, well, let's change this how people access it. Or let's say that a certain organization can't come in and teach sex education. We're used to those kinds of attacks. But the meet baby Olivia Bill Washington. Different in the sense that it is really working to co opt what's good sex education and say, like, okay, we'll do sex education, but bring in this. So, just as we saw in the eighties with the push for abstinence only until marriage education, we know that that is overwhelmingly not popular. And so this is another devious attempt to sneak in some of that type of legislation.

Michelle: Thank you so much, Alison, for really kind of giving us that scope of the importance of sex education. And speaking of sex education and education in generally I now am going to invite Sabrina to talk to us about what's going on in education. Right. And what is actually happening. I know here at SIECUS, we absolutely believe that sex education is an upstream approach to being able to make impacts on some of these social justice issues. But if we're restricting education generally, how do we keep that momentum going in this kind of sex ed as an upstream advocacy approach? And I think, Sabrina, you are the perfect person to talk to us about the CRT. CRT and book bands and the trend of those. So can you provide our viewers with an overview of, like, the legislative attacks on critical race theory and the rise of book bandst and how these efforts are really impacting education and equity in our schools?

Sabrina: Yes so absolutely listening to the other speakers, this is just so related, the intersectionality that whether it's banning bodily autonomy or banning an autonomy of the mind, which is kind of the connection that I'm making here because that's what's being taken away. It's resources, it's information. It's anything from sex ed to representative literature. I've been tracking this, and PEN America has been tracking this since 20. 21 And just last fall, we saw 4000 instances of book bans. The previous year was 3600. About. So we've already seen more bands in one semester than we've seen. And maybe if you're asking, what about the entire last school year? Were currently doing those counts right now, but it's going to go up significantly. Something else with this is there's this perception that it's only happening in certain states and certainly a state like Florida. Im from Florida. I live in Michigan now, but I am floridian. I grew up in Florida. It breaks my heart to see what's happening there with book bans, but also what's happening there with access to healthcare that's already been talked about. But this is. There have been banning activity recorded in 42 states. That's most states in the country. So this is still happening everywhere because, as Alison discussed, so much of education is at the local level, which means things can happen in red states and blue states depending on what's happening in blue districts and red district depending on what's happening in that community. And with that, we see a lot of hyperbolic rhetoric. Youve maybe heard of the porn in schools argument talking about, especially sexual education in schools. But they're also using that argument for LGBTQ+ content. They're using that argument. They are sexualizing Black and Brown bodies. We're talking about some books that are in high schools that are meant for young adults, but we're talking about picture books. They did that to Penguins. Two penguins who raised an egg together. They're sexualizing in this way. So we've seen that both in language, but we've seen that in legislation, and that becomes a huge, huge problem. And with that, it's always the same communities that are targeted, again, speaking to the importance of the intersectionality of this issue. They're targeting books that have LGBTQ topics, in particular, trans identities. They kind of put hypervisor, symbolic language around LGBTQ topics. They don't even pretend with trans identity. They think that that in itself is enough to justify a ban. So we really have to be helping our trans folk who are being really targeted in the education system, whether it's healthcare or just information. This includes also BIPOC characters and stories and themes of race and racism. This idea, they're calling it divisive concepts. They're calling it anti CRT. They're putting soft language around it to justify erasing representation. And with that, they're also taking away sexual education. And something that's really sinister is information or stories with sexual violence. They're claiming it's sexual or it's porn. And they're miscategorizing what is violence in stories that are empowering to survivors. And they're saying that that isn't appropriate in somewhere like a high school when a lot of students in those situations want that information for themselves, for their communities. Recently what we've seen, too, is arise. I know Victoria mentioned Audre Lorde, quote, when they come for one of us, they come for all of us. They're also targeting books by women and nonbinary authors specifically. So this is. Yes, they're targeting these marginalized communities, but what's next? They're going to target women's bodily autonomy, women's stories, women's voices and speaking a little bit Michelle, to the anti CRT and the divisive concepts really, this started as group activity. It started at the local level. Maybe you've heard of monster liberty or these other parents rights groups. And they wanted to they were combating this idea that there's laws out there that say that students can't be made uncomfortable by talking about race and racism in our country. Everyone should be uncomfortable talking about the history of racism in our country. But that's a real thing that happened. But they started using these keyword attacks both in the local level, but then in legislation, they started banning things like, there's a woke concepts law in Florida. They started, I've seen gender fluidity being tossed around a lot recently. That's their new buzzword and it's very vague legislation that they are not explaining to anyone on the ground how to implement it. And basically they're creating an environment of censorship where educators, administrators and those at the local level are somehow tasked with following legislation they may not believe in, they may not understand. But they are the ones who are going to have the onus of responsibility if something goes wrong. And the state is not taking any responsibility for defining that. So it's really created a hostile environment for students, for teachers, for librarians, everyone. I think you're muted, Michelle.

Michelle: I absolutely was muted. So thank you for catching that. So I am at this point, we're going to bring up all the panelists, and let's get into the legislation. You've all kind of identified what we've been tracking, and I think, Sabrina, you bookended that section very well by talking about this targeted legislation. So let's talk about the impacts that these pieces of legislation are creating harm for the communities we're all here to serve. So I'm going to start with Candace, and then I'm hoping we can kind of just have an organic conversation when it comes to the Guttmacher Institute and the policies or the legislation that we are seeing, what are y'all considering the. What are you considering the significant increase in anti-abortion less legislation? We've seen what's most concerning? What are the trends that kind of are keeping you up at night? Keeping Guttmacher staff up at night? And how are these laws impacting access to sexual and reproductive health?

Candace: Thanks so much, Michelle. And, yeah, there's so many things to keep us up at night anymore. So I think in some of the trends that we found during the state legislative session, I'll really focus in on the attacks that we're seeing that are targeting young people and their access to sexual reproductive health care, because I think there's such a great through line here of what Sabrina and Victoria and Alison have all talked about so far. So for example one trend we're seeing is abortion support bans. So these are bans that make it difficult for adults to help young people access abortion care either by helping them travel, helping or facilitating any way to getting this abortion care. You know, these bans would pretty much, like, hold adults criminally liable or civilly liable if they're acting without the parents consent. Right. And so this is already troubling, right, because young people face a number of barriers to abortion care already, right. We already have parental involvement laws on the books. And so these are the. Is just, like, one more obstacle for them getting that care. And I think what's harmful is that we already. We already know that, like, in terms of Lisa Guttmacher's data, right? Like, some of the barriers. That's, you know, some of the specific barriers that young people face. So, according to our Abortion Patient Survey now, before. Before the fall of Roe, we found that 54% of adolescents delayed their expenses or sold something to cover the cost of their abortion. And 66% of adolescents report that someone had driven them to a facility to get care. Right. So these abortion support bans are just going to make it even far more difficult for young people to get this care and also for the adults in their life and their support networks to help support them. And I think the damage is done once you start having these conversations, right. Because then people are more scared about helping others out in their community, particularly young people. And so I'll just say legislatively, right? Idaho first enacted this legislation in 2023. It was blocked by a judge. And four states this year introduced legislation. Those states were Alabama, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Mississippi. And Tennessee was the only state to enact their legislation and it's likely to be litigated. So I think that's one really disturbing trend. But we're seeing these attacks in other areas, too. There were eight bills introduced in six states that would require young people to obtain parental consent or notification for contraception. And I think, speaking to Victoria's point earlier, right. That we also see that over. I think now, at this point, we have. Over half of the states have some restriction or ban on gender affirming care for young people. Right. And so in all the states that have a total abortion now, those 14 states also have bans and restrictions on gender affirming care. And so we're just seeing how the opposition is using their playbook from abortion to really attack other forms of needed health care and really chipping away at people's rights to bodily autonomy, particularly for young people.

Michelle: Yeah, that's a. That's a really great point. Like, they're just. It's wash, rinse, repeat, wash, rinse, repeat. And to that point Candace, Victoria, how. How are these attacks showing up, these legislative attacks showing up with the uptick and surgeons of the anti LGBTQ legislation, especially those targeting trans communities, as Candace kind of just highlighted?

Victoria: Yes. I mean, we began ringing the alarm on the mental health crisis for the Black youth, but in particular, Black LGBTQ+ youth. Since 2018. We co authored a report with the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation annual legislative with the Congressional Black Caucus foundations. I'm thinking about ALC next week. Their mental health task force. That document you can find on our website began the charting of these data points that showed an increase in youth suicide attempts by Black women and girls, especially our girls and completions by Black boys over the last 20 years has just skyrocketed. And since we've seen these anti LGBTQ attacks that really started in full around 2015 with the fight against Hero we were fighting for hero, but the opposition was fighting against the Equal Rights Ordinance in Texas in 2015, HB2 in North Carolina the year after, and then steadily, all of these other bills that have followed in the wake really surging over the last few years. And so it shouldn't be surprising that 49.3% of transgender youth included in a recent human Rights Commission report have reported feeling unsafe in school and in locker rooms. It shouldn't surprise us that we are at an epidemic rate of violence against Black transgender women in this country, not according to NBJC, but according to the American Medical Association. And we've since doubled and tripled the amount of Black trans women who have been been murdered since then. Right. Because of this environment that's been created to say that our bodies don't matter, our lives don't matter, and that if you shoot a member of our community today, tomorrow there won't be any kind of accountability for it. And so we are starting to see those numbers change as we're beginning to educate more people about ways to better prevent some of those. Those deaths. But our efforts are not helped by lawmakers who continue to use their platforms to alienate, exclude into, criminalize people from being able to live their lives as they are. And to the point made about criminalizing folks who are helping people get abortion care. We're seeing the same thing happen with gender affirming care where parents are being criminalized in this legislation, doctors are being criminalized in this legislation. And it creates an echo chamber that perpetuates the exclusion of members of our community to say, if you want to live as your authentic self, don't come into my doctor's office. Don't bring it up at home. It could put you in harms, could make your parents up for grabs from the state. And in the Black community, we have a very long history of our kids being forcefully taken from us without good reason. And this is just a furtherance of that same trend at the intersection of gender identity, and expression. And so we're continuing to sound the alarm. We recently released a report called Black Facts that was done in partnership with the other organizations and the LGBTQ movement. Currently led by Black executive directors, presidents, and CEO's that looked at. What are the top issues that the broader Black community wants to throw down on when it comes to the issues that have a disproportionate or disparate impact on Black LGBTQ folks? In the top three, the first one was mental health for our youth. The second was HIV AIDS access, medication treatment prevention and access. The third was around violence. And when we look at all three of these areas, there are attacks on autonomy that lead to all three that are areas where we can certainly do more to help change things at the community level, at the interpersonal level, familial level, but most certainly at the ballot box. However, whoever you vote for, and also ensuring that we have a pro autonomy majority in state houses and state senates across this country where we can stop these bad bills from coming. And yes, you can go to nbjc.org/blackfacts to get more information about the data set that I was just referencing.

Michelle: I mean, thank you, Victoria. I mean, just a ton of negative things are coming out of these pieces of legislation. Not surprising at all. Alison you know, how does sex ed play into this? And the restrictions of young people being able to access sex ed because of state level legislation doesn't give them that opportunity. Aside from things like mental health, which Victoria brought up, and Candace seeking support to get care when needed, what else is going on?

Allison: Yeah, so I don't know if it's possible to get the slide up around of the map, the grades for sex education. But the definitely want to highlight that there's probably, you know, you all are probably hearing some trends that are happening. So when we look at the US Sex Education Report Card that SIECUS recently put together, we have you know, rated every state, given them an a plus, a b minus, c, et cetera, go and on and on based on content of what they're teaching, but also based on policy, primarily policy. And so where we see really blue, bright blue and even darker blues, we know that some sort of sex education is happening. We can't, you know, again, it's very localized but we also can see some trends where we see f's happening. So Florida was famously mentioned as one of those states where there's bad things going on across the board. So across all of. The areas that we have been talking about. And so we really do believe that sex education is an upstream approach. If people are getting sex education, good sex education, in this scaffolding approach that I talked about earlier, which is that K-12 framework we know that we are addressing many of these social inequities that have been addressed, that have been talked about today, that people are learning about respect, people are learning about diversity and inclusivity. People are recognizing that we all are different and we all come from different backgrounds and we all have the right to live in an autonomous way in this country. And that's really the foundation of our freedoms. And so it's not surprising that we see these types of attacks because when we know that sex education is overwhelmingly supported in this country, I mean, we can't even get 96% of Americans to agree on an ice cream flavor. But the best ice cream flavor is. So when we have something that is that popular, the opposition has to get really strategic in how they fight back. And so I already talked a little bit about the Baby Olivia [Act]. But really, these little kind of digs into what makes good sex education is then setting up an erosion of good sex education from happening. And as Sabrina mentioned, this then falls on teachers, it falls on administrators to really figure out what is going on because some of these policies are so vague or so pointed. So we see some that are some tactics that are very broad language. We see some tactics that are very specific and targeting certain grades, for example, or certain topic areas. And so when that is happening and teachers are just trying to do their jobs and teach who we see missing out then are the young people. And so often what we'll see is just an abandonment of sex education and completely unless there's a law in place that is mandating sex education must be taught.

Michelle: As a former educator, Alison, I really appreciate, again, the idea of what sex education can do. And I think even though I was a sex educator in schools, I saw the proliferation of young people and their teachers, the counselors, trying to grapple with all of these unanswered questions and not knowing how to get the answers. So when we see, you know, more legislation that attacks public education, okay. And stresses teachers out. Sabrina? You know, with all of.

Sabrina: These things. Can you give us your professional opinion on what the long term implications are and how it impacts the educational equity for students? I mean, it has a huge impact. And one of the questions that we may be asking ourselves here is the role of sexual education, the role of sex in books in a public school environment. And I think study after study shows that having. That knowledge is power. This is not picture books that have sexually explicit images. These are YA books. These are adult books in some cases, that are present in sometimes middle, mostly high school classrooms because those resources are necessary. So I will say with this panel sitting here, I think we can. We probably all agree sexual education is important for youth and some them appropriate aspects. So how does it affect them to not have that? Well, it's one. It's representation, too, because it's all intersectional, right? Like, whose bodies are being attacked, whose sexual education is being attacked, marginalized groups. That's who's being attacked. It's LGBTQ stories. It's BIPOC stories, themes, characters. Its books about race and racism. But this idea, this kind of attack on sexual content, both in sexual education but also sexual experiences, it is pointed. I can say that from the research, because the diversification of school libraries is a recent concept, making sure that there's representative literature for the communities that these libraries are serving. That's a somewhat recent concept. Since 2020. Before then, too, there are many organizations doing that work, but especially since 2020 the Black Lives Matter movement started. That movement was a catalyst for diversity across different groups, not just Black communities, which we should be thankful for, but that also came with a huge backlash against that content and they started with book banner, started with an anti CRT argument that was okay, wasn't super popular. Then they started an anti-LGBTQ attack that was okay, but still wasn't very popular because it was transparent. It was hateful. You could still see when they got to the anti sex porn in schools argument, that's when it really caught fire because they were using this kind of rhetoric to be able to take away books for students, and they were camouflaging it, essentially, in this other aspect. But when you think logically about the books that they're attacking, when you think logically, some of them have our classics. Toni Morrison, who has been in schools for decades, why, all of a sudden, 2021? Is Toni Morrison being doubted as a classic in high schools for students to read? It's not. You know what I mean? It's not just the sexual violence in the book. It's the fact that a Black woman author wrote that book. And that's what we've been able to prove at PEN America with the statistics of the content in the books that is being attacked. But I've seen it. On the actual challenge forms, I read what people say about these books, and it is as heinous as we're thinking. And what's important to keep in mind there is that there are students. This is a mirror to students. This is something that students see themselves. So when these topics get attacked, when these experiences get attacked, whether it's experiences of sexual violence, whether it's your experience as an LGBTQ individual as a BIPOC individual, then that sends a message to the student of intimidation that you are not allowed, that you are censored, that you are banned, and your experiences are banned in this community. And that's why being very vocal about this, it is students livelihoods at stake here. And that's why we have to be able to get through kind of that. The weeds of, like, oh, the sexual content. We might be kind of uncomfortable, understandable, but at the same time, it's so much bigger than this. And they deserve the knowledge. They deserve to have the stories that are going to allow them to critically engage, and they deserve to do it. An environment with teachers and librarians who are trained professionals and have been doing this for decades without a sudden book ban crisis.

Candace: Yep.

Michelle: If y'all are. This has been so powerful. If y'all are just joining us now, welcome, welcome, welcome. We are here discussing how there are so many layers to the attacks on our freedoms and what we need to continue to fight for. So we've heard a lot, and so, for me, it's always, so, what. What now? And I want to ask y'all, where do we go from here, and what should we be doing to get involved? So that's kind of the theme, and then we're going to open it up for questions. As I've mentioned previously, we're doing our best to catch as many of the questions as possible, but we want to make sure that we can kind of talk about how now do we move forward? So, again, Candace, we're gonna. We're gonna go back to you, and. And really let's highlight what do we do and what are the opportunities. So how can people advocate and supporters utilize the findings from the mid year report to push for better policies? And how do we come together to mobilize to combat these restrictive legislative trends?

Candace: All right, thanks, Michelle. And I've just been loving this conversation so far. I just. I'm always. I'm just always so happy when I'm ever in the room with, like, Victoria and Sabrina and Alison. And also you, too, Michelle. So I think in terms of, you know, where, where do we go from here? Right. So first of all, with like the midyear trend report, I think, right. There are some states that have banned abortion, like Idaho and Tennessee, where actually advocates were able to secure wins on contraception and maternal health. Right. So one off, I think this really speaks to the fact that I think there is sometimes this discourse amongst, especially. Know, in my two cent amongst professional advocates about what's happening in certain regions of the country and writing them off. First of all, we can't do that. Secondly, like, there has been advocates who've been laying the groundwork for all of these wins, right? And so again, it speaks to this need of really investing in these states long term, not right, and not just an electoral cycle. I think, you know, secondly, too especially with some of the studies and data we're finding from the Monthly Abortion Provision Study, it really speaks to the community support networks and people's resilience to get the abortion care they need. So I think individuals can still donate to abortion funds. We know that abortion funds also at this point, they're also in a precarious situation where funding is not sustainable. Theyre having to make cuts. And so really supporting those abortion funds is another way to really I think to engage in this conversation on abortion care and sexual and reproductive health care. And then I think finally, too, I think from the broader sort of level, the right has shifted the Overton window of what's possible. Right. And I think we've seen this for decades of like, what is actually, you know, of what's possible for some of the agenda that they're pushing. And so I think we, as a left, right, and as, you know, and the larger public, we, we need to act as if our issues are connected because we know that they are. The right has been doing this for decades. And so, you know, we also just need to meet this moment and act as a unified force.

Michelle: I mean, I couldn't agree with you more. Okay. A hashtag ain't gonna do it. Put your money where your where your focus is. So a dollar here, $5 here. And it's not just to abortion care. It's also for sex ed. It's also for National Black Justice Coalition. It's also for PEN America. We cannot do the work without your financial support. Okay? And let's be clear. No one gets into nonprofit to get rich. Probably why they call it non profit. So, that being said, Victoria, what we got to do to mobilize to protect our BIPOC, trans gender nonconforming and gender same loving folks out here.

Victoria: Yes. I'm gonna bring up another quote from Auntie Audre. Right. Our silence won't protect us. Right. We saw this with the book band fight initially in, like, the fight against critical race theory in the months that it first started kind of cropping up in Virginia and what, 20 the election in 2021. People were like, oh, that's so silly. That's going to go away quick because CRT isn't taught, you know, and K-12 like, this is, that was just an election year thing. Like, it won't go away and then it's going to go away. And then we saw, like, the proliferation of it everywhere, right? And so we can't be silent when these. Things are happening, and either do to pull from what Candace said, we can't write any place off. And we also can't assume that there's any place that places that we expect things like this not to pass won't be able to pass them if we are not loud about our interests. So we do have to fight back. Double down on that. We have to be ready to vote, and that means everybody. I don't care if you've been voting since Eisenhower. Everybody needs to verify your voter registration status. There's so many people who've been taken off the rolls, and some, we can't even figure out what the reason was for. Like, they've been voting consistently, like, they don't meet any of the measures that folks say. This is why we cleaned our roll. So everybody needs to double check so that you don't have problems on election day. Make sure your information is up to vote, no matter who you choose to vote for or the issues you choose to vote for on the ballot, or we have to be ready to organize and we have to be ready to advocate. And that is not just on social media. While that is important that's also showing up to hearings and committee meetings. I had a volunteer who saved their lawmakers in their phone on speed dial, like their office numbers, both district and in the capitols, whether it's state capitol or DC, so that anytime an issue came up, they were ready. Oh, it's Wednesday at noon. That's my day each week to contact my lawmakers office is to sound off on what I care about. And I'm like, yeah, we all should be doing that. Let's sound off together. Because when there's silence or there's not a lot of noise, they think they can get away with things like this. And even folks who are in districts that they should not be able to get away with things are able to move things without lack of energy and pushback. So be ready to vote, be ready to organize, be ready to advocate, and call folks out who are choosing to dictate instead of govern. Govern means hearing all of our experiences and moving forward policy solutions that are going to help all of us when they pass things like the legislation, we've been talking about their politics of exclusion, and that means they're not trying to govern for all of us. They're trying to dictate how they want each of us to live based off of how they think each of us should live. Right? So we have to call that out and name it. And I know many of you are already doing that. But let's ensure that we continue that fight through the election, but also afterwards, because advocacy and civic engagement is a 365 day, 366 during leap year kind of effort. And you can learn more about NBJC @nbjconthemove nbjc.org.

Michelle: Absolutely. And you know what? I just want to kind of call out David, we love your question. Where are the men? We are wondering ourselves. Right. We want to make it very clear that we welcome all gender identities. Heteronormative, not heteronormative, but we do need more men in this space. We do need more voices. So that was a really great question that you ask. We are always looking. For more men to take up these issues in big voices, ten toes down, saying it loudly from their chest. But we have to remember that the history here in America has made it seem like these are just women's issues. Okay. We are not saying that they are just women's issues. This is an everybody issue. And we invite you to reach out to the Guttmacher Institute. If you work in an organization and can do some partner work like this, to create spaces like this, I'm sure that's the same for NBJC, and I know for SIECUS it's the same. And I'm going to assume at PEN America, it's the same. So I just want to say we want you here. We want all identities to be welcome, because we need to hear all the voices, we need to hear all the perspectives. And if we can get you energized to want to get into this work, well, we hope that we do, and we're more than welcome to have you think about how we might be able to collaborate. So, Alison, I mean, I could talk for hours about what we need to do to support sex ed, which is just starting with knowing your state policies. But what else would you advise?

Allison: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like I said, this is a local issue, so getting really familiar with what's being taught in the school that are in your community, what's being taught in the districts, what are the standards and the laws in your state, and that's a great place to start. But we also know that given the Dobbs decision, given the number of attacks, we need to remember that we are the majority. We all want this. Whether it's access to abortion, whether it's inclusion, whether it's access to information. This is. The majority of Americans overwhelmingly support these issues. So it is time to get loud, and it is time to get active. And it is really important that we don't be complacent, that we don't say, like, oh, that's never going to happen, because they are. Those things are happening. We have a playbook about what could potentially happen with Project 2025, and we know that that is already happening across at the state level. And so, really, all that's doing is saying, okay, so, now, if we have an opportunity to do this at the federal level and so on, that it's time for education reform. We have had momentous Opportunities in the history of this country to reform education for the betterment of students. That time is here. Again, it is obvious that we are at a crux that our education system is in a crisis moment, and it is time to get active. So to that end, we have positive legislation that we will be reintroducing in the next congress for a real education and access for Healthy Youth act. This is something that would I know. I think. Address a number of some of these intertwined and intersectional issues. We have a group of state policy folks who get together monthly to talk about how to advance sex education in the states that they live in. Sorry, my dog's barking. But really look at the local level and figure and realize that we are. While these people are loud, the opposition is super loud, as is my dog. So are those. We can be just as loud, and we are really the majority. And then I think, you know, reach out to Cicas. We are here to help you. We are here with technical assistance. We have a community action toolkit of how to get involved. Use our state profiles to help understand the format of sex education in your state and what's going on your state and use what we have to help build your talking points and your movement.

Michelle: Thank you. Thank you. Sabrina I'm going to take it back to you. Somebody is interested when we're talking about what can we do? Is there a way for the general public to be able to see the forms that come out around the book banning and am I saying that right? Maybe, but I'll let you kind of speak to that.

Sabrina: Yeah, just a brief overview, because I kind of tossed that term out. A challenge form is part of pretty much every library process where somebody can go and challenge a book availability in a library. You have these in public libraries. You have these in school libraries. That's always existed. Usually it ends up being before 2021 and ended up being a conversation, individual conversation a parent might have with their librarian or a teacher. Maybe there's an alternate assignment. Maybe the book is explained and the significance of it and that support that community, that communication was there. The problem we're seeing now is that that system is being abused by submitting maybe 100 challenge forms on a hundred books at once. The system was never meant to support that. It overwhelms librarians, it overwhelms teachers, where you have to review 100 books. And part of the kind of core of that is that the person is supposed to have read the book. If you're submitting a challenge form you have to know what you're challenging. Right. But book review sites online have created the ability for people to just go, have never engaged with the material. Pull a review from not an expert librarian, not necessarily somebody who's read the book often, someone who's, like, keyword searched the book and use that copy and paste. They can do that in a matter of minutes. It creates hours and so many resources that is taken away from schools. So with that, the challenge forms, though, oftentimes are very transparent about why they want to remove the book. Oftentimes very bigoted. Sometimes, yes, they're available publicly. Follow your education reporters, if that's a lot of times. Its actually education reporters who are getting this, because you can do public records requests on information in a public school system, it's different state by state. So I won't speak to how to do that. But if you google it, you should be able to find that. Or you can contact me separately. Pen America, we actually don't do that. We may get it from education reporters or just reporting in general when they publish it. Or we may get it from partners, but it's already publicly available. So we're actually. We have a severe undercount because I can't actually go and track every single book that's been banned. I Because it would be absolutely. I would have to do with thousands upon thousands of districts. So we rely on publicly available information, which shows it's already a huge undercount of what's actually happening. But we just want to show the trends, the scope of the movement. But speaking of, in talking a little bit about the advocacy work that we can do around this, we've talked about voting. We've talked about how you can get involved. And I would say go locally. Go locally and see what's happening in your community. Yes, local elections, but also go to your libraries, go to your institutions. Ask what support they need. If you are somebody who maybe is overwhelmed by the amount of badness going on right now you can make a huge impact on your local community, because guess what? It's really a minority of people who are making a huge negative impact in your local community. It really is a small group of people who are instigating these bans. So go be a voice for good. Go and put in a good word about. Thank you so much for having the pride display at the library, at the public library. Like, I love that librarians can take that, and if they have a challenge, they can say, well, I had five community members thank me for having that display and say it was important to them. So, yes, I got this one challenge, but we're in the majority. Sometimes we think we don't need to speak up when we agree with something. Speak up like we've talked about. Majority of Americans don't agree with book bans. Like any type of book ban. Yes. Even sexual experiences in books in high schools. And we saw somebody put in a classics list. Thank you. Of Romeo and Juliet. Of these books that have sexual themes. It is part of it, because that age group is experiencing this, and what better way to be able to navigate that but through a school environment where you have teachers, administrators, curriculum policy, state level, district level, hopefully some kind of guardian or parental support, rather than a telephone. A cell phone where you can tell maybe I'm older because I said telephone instead of cell phone. Cell phone where you can, like, where you're going to be looking for that information. No, we want to keep these books in schools because, yes, sometimes students are going to be seeking other sources, but we want to make sure the vetted sources with good information is available, and we want to make sure that communication. What I hinted at the beginning of this, that talking between parent and teacher and community, that is really what we've lost with all of this, is there's this antagonistic energy right now that teachers and parents are pitted against each other. That's never been a thing. No, we support each other. So if you disagree, great. Have a conversation with your teachers, with your education system, with me. If you agree, great. Have a conversation with everyone in your community around you as well.

Michelle: Yeah, I really appreciate it. The conversations and starting them, having them. And one thing for me, be a storyteller. Tell your story. We all say. I may have said that hashtag doesn't get it done, but a hashtag with an actual story as to why access to sexual and reproductive health is important with a hashtag along with why it is important to protect and support our LGBTQIA+, BIPOC communities. Talking to the librarian, you know asking your school, you know, I like sex ed. I think it's really important. We are coming to a close of this. I think with the limited time we do have left, I would like to. I. I think we lost Alison, kind of ask you know, what's a way the general public can engage with each one of our organizations? So this is where I like to call it, the shameless plug. Plug us. Tell us what you have coming out, what products, what reports, what research and how we can get active with the organizations that are here. So, Victoria, you want to kick us off? And then we'll go to Candace.

Victoria: Sure. Folks will be in town for the Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Conference next week, if you'll be in Washington, DC. We'll have several activities throughout the week. But in particular, we have our reception Thursday night from six to eight. So if you want a very Black, queer, transgender, expansive, centered space, we are the place to be. You can learn more about that and other activities coming up at nbjc.org. You can check out our vote ready toolkit that I mentioned earlier. Uh Nbjc.Org Vote Ready Toolkit. There we go on the screen. Our Black Facts information. You can't run away from it once you hit our website, it's there, so please check that out. We have an action hub where you can send letters to your lawmakers state and federal, about issues of importance. And our policy agenda can also be found on our website along with many other resources. Our social media handle @nbjconthemove on Instagram, IG, Facebook, YouTube, and we are also on LinkedIn.

Michelle: Great. Candace, how are we getting involved with the Guttmacher Institute?

Candace: Oh, so many ways. So many ways, Michelle. So again, shameless plug for our website, guttmacher.org dot. We're also a number of social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. So there's definitely many ways to find all the data that you want. Sexual reproductive healthcare. In terms. Of our policy work, I will say so, you know, just uplifting. Again, we have our interactive abortion map, which we're tracking in real time, which policies are being in effect regarding abortion care. There's also our state legislative tracker and then also, too, our Monthly Abortion Provision Study dashboard is a great tool to find, you know, where individuals are going to travel for abortion care, where they're coming from. And all that data is visualized which is a very helpful resource. And I'll share that later this month. We will be issuing a policy analysis that's looking at the most recent data and how the six week ban in Florida has been affecting abortion care in that state.

Michelle: Wonderful. And to my trusty colleague, Alison, how can people get involved here at SIECUS?

Allison: Yeah, so, of course, our website, siecus.org, you can go there, you can sign up for our newsletter for communications, for to make a donation. Of course, we would love to have you follow us on Instagram. We've got some really fun socials out there. And we're on LinkedIn. And Michelle, you can tell people the handles, because I'm not as good with that. But really, we encourage all folks to get involved and get active and look at the resources on our website. We have a number of things that help people to talk about sex education, people to help people understand what sex education is when we're talking about it and really help to advocate. So we have a community action toolkit that you can find. We have a series of if thens that help to explain the ties between abortion and sex education. For example and we have a number of active state members through our sex education policy action council. So if you are an advocate in a state and at the local level and you're interested in getting some support on the work that you're doing, we are here. We are here to help you in that journey. And we have a number of over 30 states, excuse me, represented in our sex education Policy Action council who are here to help advance sex education at the local level.

Michelle: Kinds of options on how to get involved. And Sabrina, how do we get involved with pen America?

Sabrina: Yeah, so first of all, being here. Thank you. You took the first step, getting involved with pen America, and getting information is always the first step here. So penn.org, as you see there on the screen, is our website for all things pen America. So we do much more than book bans as well. But we also have a Book Ban Hub where you can find all of our reports on this. We're actually going to have a report coming out of later in the fall, so awareness around that would be one way. And end of September is actually banned book week, and we really. Encourage people to On our website, we also have our events calendar and we're doing this in our chapter city. So there's going to be events in California, in New York, and Michigan, Detroit, here, where I am, all over the country. But I also encourage you to look at other banned book events, to educate other people around you, and to look for local orgs that may need support. Yes, donate to pen America. I think we're going to have a cool tote bag in Barnes and noble or something. But also look locally at Florida Freedom to read project. In Florida, Texas Freedom to read project. Utah Reads in Utah. These key states that need your support, and they're doing really vital, local, more grassroots work. And so much of what they do informs us. Everything that we do is based on their needs and what their information they're giving us. So you may have somebody in your district with a group. Even so, I would say next step is look to see if you can support the public education in your own district or your own state. And then just keep abreast on the issues by keeping in touch with PEN through our socials. We're on x and Instagram and all of those. And just be aware of the reporting that we're putting out that hopefully is a good summation of everything that's happening in the country.

Michelle: Well, I just have to say this was incredibly powerful. I also want to thank all of our speakers. There is a huge amount of people behind the scenes right now that y'all cannot see who are sitting in on this chat. So I want to give a big special thanks to all of those individuals key shoutouts to Guttmacher and my fellow staff at SIECUS that kind of birthed this idea. There is a lot of work to be done, and we've given you a lot of opportunities to understand what is at risk, why we are so passionate about what we do. And I'm going to end with another quote from Audre Lorde. In our world, divide and conquer must become defined and empower. And it is my hope that we can all recognize that we are stronger together. And as long as we mobilize and as long as we keep talking with our full chest, change is going to come. We just cannot give up. So for SIECUS I am Michelle Slaybaugh, Director of social impact and strategic comms. I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you. And be on the lookout for that incredible resource guide that we will be sending out. So to everybody, this is the end. Thank you. Bye bye.