What’s Happening at Woodhull?: 

Upcoming Virtual Program on Consensual Non-Monogamy and Mental Health

Please join us on Tuesday, May 10 at 1:00 p.m. ET for our virtual program, “We Can Do Better: Consensual Non-Monogamy and Mental Health,” sponsored by MakeLoveNotPorn. In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month, we’ll explore the mission and vision of the American Psychological Association’s Committee on Consensual Non-Monogamy (@Div44CNM), with Drs. Apryl Alexander, Amy C. Moors, and Heath Schechinger. The discussion will be moderated by community organizer Chrissy Holman, with a Q/A to follow – ask live or submit questions here to this form. Please register for the program here! 

A Survivor of Violence and Her Sibling Share How the Legal System Punishes Them (Truthout) 

Ella Fassler highlights self-defense in domestic violence circumstances: “In 1855, a young Black woman named Celia was hanged for killing a white man who enslaved and raped her for years. Black women survivors who defended themselves during the Jim Crow era were put in carceral dungeons, according to historian Sarah Haley. Today, Black and other marginalized women are still being prosecuted for defending themselves against domestic and sexual violence. Leah Eggleson, a 22-year-old mixed-race survivor of domestic and sexual violence living in Washington State, faces a possible life sentence for defending herself against her abuser, who held her hostage, beat her and threatened to kill her for days.” Read more.

Kentucky Becomes First State to Ban In-Clinic Abortion, Forcing People Out of State or Online for Care (Ms. Magazine) 

Carrie N. Baker explains Kentucky’s recent abortion ban: “Kentucky has become the first state since Roe v. Wade in 1973 to effectively ban all abortion services in the state. On Wednesday, April 13, the Kentucky legislature overrode Democratic Governor Andy Beshear to pass a law banning abortion after 15 weeks and placing restrictions on earlier abortions that are currently impossible to meet. As a result, the two remaining abortion clinics in the state—Planned Parenthood and EMW Women’s Surgical Center in Louisville—ceased offering abortion services on Thursday.” Read more.

Why the Parental Rights Movement Is Making a Comeback (Rewire News Group) 

Jaclyn Friedman comments on the so-called parental rights movement: “Across the country, far-right political operators are exploiting this moment of educational desperation—and they’re using a familiar tactic. These bad-faith actors have pitted parents against teachers, keeping all of us distracted and shouting at our neighbors while they impose their radically retrograde agenda on public school students across the country. And they’re covering up for this naked campaign against young people by doing it under the banner of defending ‘parents’ rights.’” Read more.

Anti-Trans Laws Aren’t Symbolic. They Seek to Erase Us From Public Life (them.) 

Jules Gill-Peterson comments on anti-trans laws: “This year alone, over 200 [anti-trans] bills have been introduced in state legislatures across the country. Taken together, they aim to fully disenfranchise trans people from public life beginning in childhood. Many states have moved to ban access to basic education, organized sports, healthcare, bathrooms, and identity documents. Some, like Texas and Alabama, have taken the more extreme step of criminalizing medical care for trans youth, not only through legislation but administrative policy. These attacks will have a measurable and devastating impact on trans people’s quality of life from childhood.” Read more.

The Long, Scary History of Doctors Reporting Pregnant People to the Cops (Mother Jones) 

Cecilia Nowell discusses the history of doctors reporting pregnant people to the police: “Cases in which women are reported by medical staff for allegedly using legal or illegal substances while pregnant are common—whether they cause a miscarriage or not. Just this fall, a woman in Oklahoma (which has since passed a near-total ban on abortion) was sentenced to four years in prison for having a miscarriage. Prosecutors argued that the 20-year-old’s methamphetamine use was the cause, though a medical examiner testified there were fetal abnormalities that were likely to blame. In 2017, a 29-year-old California woman with a history of gestational diabetes and preeclampsia was 37 weeks pregnant when she started cramping. She went to her local hospital, where she had a stillbirth. Doctors reported her to local police and child services for using drugs—she was jailed two days later and is still fighting her case.” Read more.

Tess’ Take: The Right to Gender Affirming Care (Woodhull’s Sex & Politics Blog) 

Tess Joseph writes about the right to gender affirming care: “On Friday, March 25, after UT Southwestern and Children’s Medical Center shut down the Genecis clinic in Dallas, Texas, 850 signatories submitted a letter urging for it to remain open. Their letter is part of a larger outcry: hundreds of family members of patients and advocates for LGBTQ+ youth are pressuring the clinic to continue providing critical gender-affirming care to trans youth. Why did UT Southwestern and Children’s Medical Center shut down the clinic? The hospitals maintain that they stopped treatment access to new patients in late 2021 to increase privacy for the clinic’s current participants. Then UT Southwestern recently admitted that its decision ‘was made at least in part due to the changing political climate towards trans youth.’” Read more.

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