It’s okay to miss things
Vol 2, Issue 7: July 2022
Welcome back to the Lighthouse! In an effort to keep things more organized (since I always have a lot I want to share), I’ve added a couple of new headings/sections to the “Notes from the Lighthouse Keeper” section. One will separate out articles specific to reproductive justice, such as abortion-related news and information, articles about medical racism in perinatal care, information to help pregnant folks be as informed as possible on their options, etc. While Reproductive Justice overlaps with so many realms (housing, the environment, etc.), I’ll be focusing on things specific to reproduction here. The other new heading will separate Wisconsin-specific articles into their own section, in case non-Wisconsin subscribers want to skip over it.
This month’s newsletter is a bit of a longer one, but I’m trying to remind myself that it’s okay to share a lot here. I only do this once a month, so of course a lot of resources accumulate in my bookmarks in that time! I’m looking into additional ways to get information to people (more on that in the “What's Happening at Lakeshore Liberation?” section), but at the end of the day, people can choose to read what they want and skip the rest. The beauty of having a newsletter archive is that you can come back to it at any time, so there’s no pressure to take it all in at once. I’m trying to remember that in other aspects of life as well, since FOMO tends to hit me pretty hard. So let me say to you what I say to myself: it’s okay to miss things! We have so much capacity in life to experience joy and wonder and the depth of all emotions, and yet we have such limited time in which to do it all. Prioritize in whatever way works for oyu, and remember that if you find more time later, you can always come back to the things that didn’t make the cut the first time around.
And please remember, the COVID pandemic is not over! With the continued failing of our government to do anything meaningful to protect us, we need to continue pressuring local, state, and federal governments to act (including on tangential things like food access) and also continuing masking, washing hands regularly, staying up to date on vaccinations, and limiting unnecessary exposure to others to help prevent spread.
Sex Workers’ Freedom Impacts Us All
“Sex workers have long been aware of the dangers of digital surveillance and have been sounding the alarm bell with too few heeding their warnings. Perhaps now that others will be impacted, sex workers’ experience, expertise, and advocacy will be acknowledged and utilized to defend against the government’s encroachment on fundamental rights.”
Sex workers have always been on the forefront of defending bodily autonomy, but they’ve unfortunately been written off and ignored by the larger feminist and reproductive justice movements, in large part due to the Sex worker exclusionary radical “feminism” (SWERF) belief that sex work is inherently degrading/anti-feminist/oppressive. Although many people who consider themselves feminists today wouldn’t openly identify as a SWERF, considering how much their ideology overlaps with the anti-pornography Evangelical Christian right, SWERFs being positioned as experts on sex work (instead of actual sex workers) has impacted the cultural conversation to the point that their oppressive beliefs are unquestioned. As another article describes:
“SWERFs are indistinguishable from evangelical zealots, who also find our existence offensive, albeit for different reasons. Both SWERFs and evangelicals believe sex work must be eradicated. Both treat sex workers as subhuman, dismissing our voices unless we’re prepared to kneel and repent for our sins. Both view us as children incapable of making our own decisions and both view themselves as saviors, denying us our humanity while pretending to save it.”
And as sex workers have been warning for decades, this kind of paternalistic control doesn’t end with them (although it starting with them should be enough to make us care!). Because once you open the door to controlling what someone else does with their body, you can only enforce that through surveillance and policing. Long before abortion advocates were teaching us how to practice good digital security, sex workers were sounding the alarm that acts like FOSTA and SESTA were already changing the internet landscape to increase surveillance and, using vague rules, scare platforms into removing content (including tools that sex workers use to safely screen clients or, as we’re seeing today, information about accessing abortion) for fear of potential litigation. It’s time we truly acknowledge and understand the overlaps between reproductive justice and sex workers’ rights so that we can be truly robust in our efforts to protect bodily autonomy.
See also: The organization this article is from, Decriminalize Sex Work, does incredible work around sex workers’ rights. They have a newsletter that can help you stay up to date on decriminalization efforts, current issues facing sex workers, and recent wins, such as their article Former Sex Worker Prevails in Discrimination Lawsuit that covers how one woman who used to work in adult films filed (and won!) a lawsuit against the community college that drove her out. Her fight to stand up for herself and her rights as a former sex worker dragged her through absolute hell, but thankfully she won the case in the end! It’s despicable that anyone should have to go through this in the first place, but hopefully this sets a precedent to protect other sex workers going forward.
What's Happening at Lakeshore Liberation?
For the longest time, I’ve been trying to find a good way to share resources on the Lakeshore Liberation website that would serve as a “quick access” to the many, many resources I have saved for all kinds of topics. The idea of trying to maintain a website page of links sounded daunting and inefficient, though, so I’ve been scouring the internet for better ideas. And I finally found one! I’m still working on getting it ready, but the solution I found will essentially let me share bookmarks organized in folders (similar to any browser’s bookmark functionality) via a single link to each collection/topic. I have to play around with it more, but I may even be able to embed it onto the site directly. This will make keeping resources up to date and adding new ones much easier, so I hope this will be a helpful tool! If there are specific topics you’d like to see resources for when I roll this out, please let me know!
What’s Going on within Reproductive Justice (NEW)
Here’s everything you need to know about abortion funds, post-Roe is a good primer on abortion funds, especially if you’re new to them and what they do.
Pregnancy, parenthood, and prison: the right to choose where autonomy is elusive explores the ways in which abortion has never really been accessible, even before Roe fell, through the lens of what incarcerated folks have experienced. It also looks at what it’s like for pregnant incarcerated folks when they give birth, which brings its own set of challenges and indignities.
When “Six Weeks” Is Actually Two: Understanding Periods Is Essential to Fighting Abortion Bans was written last year when S.B. 8 first went into effect in Texas, but the information is still relevant. If you’re not familiar with how pregnancy is measured (i.e. using the date of the last menstrual period, which isn’t when conception happens), this will explain it! (And if you still have questions, reach out — I’m happy to chat!)
Is it legal to access abortion pills through the mail in Wisconsin? I couldn’t tell whether to put this here or in the next section, but I landed with here. It has some good “where things stand now” information.
Speaking of abortion pills, Why Are We Restricting the Abortion Pill to First-Trimester Pregnancies? The answer certainly surprised me!
5 People Share Why Their Abortion Was Beautiful was a response to an earlier piece that Rewire News shared in 2020 as well. I think it’s worth checking out both, because while I don’t agree with some of the generalizations made in the first piece, I think there is room for multiple views of abortion by those that have them. That said, I really loved the response piece and appreciate all of the people that contributed to it.
How Long Is Normal Labor? explores the mismatch between the evidence on how long the average labor typically lasts and what care providers believe is “normal” and how this mismatch impacts the use of interventions. Remember, interventions are not inherently bad, but they bring additional potential risks (and potential benefits), and if you are looking to avoid any or all of them unless medically or psychologically necessary, understanding what is typical is helpful for making those decisions!
Speaking of interventions, My C-section Was Fine, Actually is a short article from Erica Schwiegershausen (an editor at The Cut) about her experience with a cesarean birth and how they don’t need to be treated like a scary “worst case scenario.” Some of what she points to — aka how many books, documentaries, websites, etc. treat cesarean birth as something to be avoided at all costs — is a big reason why I think it’s important to talk about why the US cesarean rate being high is considered an issue, and it’s not just because “c-sections are bad.” As I said before, no intervention is inherently bad, it just becomes an issue when people are coerced (or even outright forced) into interventions, given outdated or not-evidence-based information that sway them (including not fully explaining the benefits risks, and alternatives to all options), and treated like they don’t have the right to make decisions about their own body and birth.
What’s Going on in Wisconsin (NEW)
Unclear state laws leave Wisconsin health care providers unsure of reproductive care shares what Wisconsin providers are grappling with the new complicated gray areas of providing reproductive care and how its affecting patients. A related article, 'Emotional turmoil': Wisconsin mother shares her struggle in getting care for her miscarriage, gives more insight to the perspective of someone dealing with these consequences, even in cases of pregnancy loss.
Wisconsin Supreme Court allows sex trafficking defense in Chrystul Kizer case, which will hopefully help her finally get free. Gross to know it was a 4-3 vote, though.
‘When it’s rigid, it breaks’: How federal rules and market dominance fueled Wisconsin’s baby formula shortage shares additional insights into the baby formula shortage, especially how it ties into WIC.
Bomb threats, canceled events, empty schools: How a bullying probe paralyzed a Wisconsin town’s democracy is a breakdown of what has been happening in Kiel, where anti-trans bigots took out their frustration with students being held accountable for their actions by doing what they do best — getting violent and spreading misinformation about what happened. Anyway, protect trans kids.
As the headline states, State and federal officials eye removing more derogatory names at Wisconsin sites. It’s definitely the least we could be doing and certainly should have happened sooner, but at least it’s happening.
What I've Been Reading:
There is no ‘return to normal’ for disabled people in a pandemic, and we need to stop listening to Capitalism’s “get back to work at all costs” garbage.
Brittney Griner asks Biden to help get her out of Russia in handwritten letter, because she is still not free, and people in power don’t seem to care.
Black gun owners have mixed feelings about the Supreme Court's concealed-carry ruling, and this article does a decent job of breaking down some of the reasons why.
Libraries must stop pretending they can be neutral about human rights is a good reminder that, “We cannot ‘both sides’ human rights.”
X: A Novel is the first fiction book I’ve read in a while, and I didn’t really remember what the description was that I had read before pre-ordering it by the time I had it in my hands. I ended up absolutely devouring it, and while it may be a tough read for some (especially folks that aren’t into kink), it was one of the best books I’ve read in a while. It’s Been a Minute even did an interview with the author, and that was really good, too!
What I'm Watching:
Like many others, I have fallen for The Bear. If you haven’t seen the hype about it yet, it’s a new show on Hulu that follows Carmy (played by the incredible Jeremy Allen White of Shameless fame), a fine-dining chef who comes home to Chicago to take over his brother’s struggling sandwich shop after a family tragedy. I won’t give too much away, but there’s been a lot of talk about how accurate the show portrays kitchen life and the incredible stress of working with food. It’s stressful, beautiful, heart-breaking, amazing. The characters are super interesting and feel like they have so much more to share in future seasons, and I can’t wait to see how it continues to unfold.
What I'm Listening To:
Code Switch has been featuring School Colors, a 9-episode series about what happened when a school district in Queens was selected to be part of a process to create a diversity plan. What ensued was…wild, to say the least.
Places to Donate To:
If you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while, you’ve probably seen me share a number of fantastic articles from Prism. Their work is incredibly important, being one of the few liberation-oriented publications whose organization is made up of, “journalists, truth-tellers, organizers, and justice seekers committed to delivering in-depth and thought-provoking news and analysis.” And it shows. But to keep going, they need donations to fund the work they do. If you can, consider donating, either once or by becoming a monthly donor.
For the past four years, a group of amazing people have been researching community abortion care in the USA and Canada to better represent what community-led abortion can look like. As they describe in the GoFundMe, “The research documents over 100 community-led abortions from seventeen North American providers and collectives. It reports outcomes of various methods, including misoprostol-only, herb-only, extractions and combination methods.” To get this information more widely available (outside of academic journals, which they have been in but aren’t the most accessible to people), they need help fundraising for a website, zines to distribute, and more!
Project SAFE is, “a grassroots, direct-service and peer-based advocacy organization of: women, non-binary, gender non-conforming, and trans people in Philadelphia’s sex trade [that provides] women and femme-centered services with a focus on women working and living in the street economies in Kensington.” You can donate to their work via MightyCause.
I recently had the pleasure of chatting with the Executive Director of MPower Alliance, an organization that provides support to birth parents who have placed children for adoption. In recent years, they’ve been working hard to become a more inclusive organization, shifting from a focus on birth mothers only to birth parents of all genders and addressing the underlying conditions and systems that can push people into placing children for adoption (or having them forcibly removed) against their will. They do really amazing work to help people get the support they need, but as with most organizations trying to fill a gap this wide, they can always use financial support via donations!
The Black Sex Worker Collective has a number of ways you can support them, either by donation of money or materials, travel miles, etc.
Donating to Birth Center Equity will help fund BIPGM-led birth centers across the country!
Reyna is a 19-year-old trans girl that is fundraising for medical procedures as well as living expenses and stable housing! It hasn’t gotten much attention, so help is appreciated (as well as sharing)!
Questions? Comments? Suggestions?
Feel free to share them below or contact me directly.