Spoiler: Queering your understanding of reproductive justice is simple!
Reproductive justice is the right to have children, not have children, and to do so with dignity, freedom from violence, and freedom from discrimination. It is the understanding that queer, trans, and gender-expansive people have always been at the forefront of the many fights for liberation, especially reproductive justice.
We are fighting for collective liberation — hand in hand — against the same playbook crafted to steal our freedoms to be who we are and build the futures we deserve.
The fight for abortion access is not one separate from queer and trans liberation. These fights are about our fundamental right to our bodily autonomy. Our commitment to expanding and destigmatizing abortion care requires that we talk openly and often about everyone in our communities who needs access to the full spectrum of reproductive and sexual care.
The reproductive justice movement is an intersectional movement with the power to influence culture, and that culture influences practices in healthcare systems and policies created by lawmakers.
Just like abortion care, LGBTQIA+ care has also been ostracized from mainstream healthcare systems for the same ideological and political reasons, which is why queer and trans people are twice as likely to struggle finding medical providers in general. Doctors in some states (not including Texas, at the moment) can even refuse to treat LGBTQIA+ patients if they cite religious exemptions.
If we don’t use gender-neutral language when referring to abortion seekers, consistently uplift all people who can become pregnant, and normalize reproductive healthcare for non-binary and trans people, how can we expect healthcare professionals and lawmakers to do the same?
Abortion bans have a deep impact on queer and trans people. As extremists try to legislate trans and queer people out of public life, our choices about who we include and exclude in our movement have real-world consequences.
Using inclusive, gender-neutral language, like “people seeking abortions,” instead of “women seeking abortions,” when talking about abortion is just one way to ensure LGBTQIA+ people are represented in the reproductive justice movement and face less stigma when accessing abortion and all forms of reproductive healthcare.
When we use gendered language, we further marginalize LGBTQIA+ Texans who are already experiencing attacks on their rights in Texas and across the United States — including restricted access to abortion. We use gender-inclusive language to talk about abortion because not everyone who becomes pregnant or needs abortion care is a woman.
We share interconnected struggles, and we’re experiencing attacks on our communities straight out of the same authoritarian playbook: These attacks on abortion, queer, trans, and intersex rights are led by well-funded anti-abortion organizations like the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Heritage Foundation, and the Family Policy Alliance, who see this as part of the same fight to enforce their heteronormative, white, nuclear and able-bodied unit. Their plan leaves no room for anyone who does not conform to this oppressive view of families. These extremists view children as property — not individuals who deserve care, dignity, and autonomy, and deserve to grow up to live full, authentic lives.
It’s this ideology that puts youth rights first on the chopping block. In Texas, Senate Bill 14, a ban on gender-affirming care for Texas youth, is enforced through civil suits (neighbors criminalizing neighbors), just like Texas’ six-week ban on abortion, Senate Bill 8.
Texas even has a law requiring judicial bypass for minors (abortion is banned in Texas for everyone, but this was passed before the fall of Roe), to receive abortion care without parental consent.
AG Ken Paxton is consistently attacking providers of gender-affirming healthcare, just as he has and continues to attack reproductive health providers, like Houston midwife Maria Rojas.
Anti-abortion extremists have weaponized a Christian Nationalist version of religion to justify attacking all of our rights.
This Pride let this be a reminder that reproductive justice is the fight for the freedom to build the families and futures we deserve, and that our movements are stronger when we work as accomplices in each other’s interconnected struggles.