Bi-Weekly Sexual Freedom Newsletter
Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Sharing Your Brilliance at the Sexual Freedom Summit

The Woodhull Sexual Freedom Summit will take place on August 6-9 and the call for proposals is now open. Hear from former participants and presenters why the Sexual Freedom Summit is so powerful and learn how you can be a part of it. As one former participant shared, “There aren’t a lot of spaces where I can connect with people who have the same values. It’s great to be in such an accepting environment.”
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The Injustice of This Moment Is Not an ‘Aberration’ (The New York Times)

As Michelle Alexander writes, contemporary injustice in the U.S. is far from an aberration: “The politics of white supremacy, which defined our original constitution, have continued unabated—repeatedly and predictably engendering new systems of racial and social control. Just a few decades ago, politicians vowed to build more prison walls. Today, they promise border walls. [...] We find ourselves in this dangerous place not because something radically different has occurred in our nation’s politics, but because so much has remained the same.”
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39 Abortion Stories Show Just How Important Abortion Access Is (Teen Vogue) 

Danielle Campoamor interviews 39 people who have had abortions, including Benny, who shares: “My abortion was freedom—whenever I think of it, I think of flying, of traveling, of experiencing new things, of falling in love, of living my life. I found out I was pregnant while I was in an abusive relationship in college. I was very well aware of how abusive and toxic my relationship was but I was not ready to leave. My abortion didn't suddenly make me feel ready to leave but it did give me a little light of hope that there wasn't anything tying me to this person.”
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Rape Culture, DL Men, and the Carcerality of the Closet (Wear Your Voice Mag) 

Da’Shaun Harrison reflects upon experiencing sexual violence in relation to their church’s views on sexuality: “I hadn’t been taught that boys could be raped, but I had been taught about biblical abominations. Through these teachings—that I would later understand to be the result of the socialization process—I knew that what happened between the two of us had to remain a secret. [...] I never processed it as rape. Instead, I processed it concluding that I was an abomination.”
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These sex-positive shops offer a refuge for marginalized people (Mic) 

Melissa Pandika speaks with Nenna Joiner, founder of a sex-positive shop in the San Francisco Bay Area, about how sex-positive shops can serve as a community resource: “After initially selling sex toys out of their car, Joiner opened Feelmore in Oakland in 2011 to heal themselves and their Black community from trauma, especially around kink. ‘That’s so connected to slaves, corporal punishment, and the military,’ they tell me. They wanted to create a space for themselves and other Black Americans to own their sexuality and discover what it means outside of slavery and building families, where they could ‘talk about the joys of sex like other communities.’”
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Illinois Is Changing Birth Certificate Process to Affirm Trans Parents (them.) 

A recent revision of the Illinois birth certificate process affirms trans parents should not be misgendered on records, an update in part achieved advocacy by and on behalf of Myles Brady-Davis, who is transmasculine and carried their child to term. While this progress is exciting, Wren Sanders emphasizes that there is more work to be done: “Beyond the bevy of issues associated with the lack of affirming healthcare for trans folks in this country—from insurance issues to discriminatory physicians—another, less discussed issue is the lack of information regarding trans folks’ experience birthing children.”
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Religious Exemption: Catholic Hospitals Are Barring Transgender Patients from Surgery (Bitch Media)

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops promulgates what are known as “Ethical and Religious Directives” (ERDs) to govern the health care that Catholic hospitals offer their patients. Leah Feiger examines the implications of the newest edition of the ERDs: “It is now almost impossible for transgender patients to seek referrals from doctors at Catholic institutions [...] Some physicians at Catholic hospitals used to refer patients to secular hospitals or clinics for reproductive care or gender-confirmation surgeries, but the updated directives now forbid such partnerships, requiring that all mergers or relationships with Catholic health facilities ‘must be operated in full accord with the moral teaching of the Catholic Church.’”
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