An Administration of Violence and Its Tools of Authoritarianism

It has officially been one year since the beginning of the second Trump term. Almost immediately, the administration dismantled global public health, including sexual and reproductive health. Gender equity and LGBTQI+ health and rights, especially transgender health and rights, have been consistently attacked. Jessica Mason Pieklo sits down to talk with us about the administration’s recent strategies of authoritarianism, and what to continue to watch for.

In January, the Supreme Court heard arguments to a case challenging Idaho’s and West Virginia’s ban on trans girls playing sports. At its core, the cases ask the legal question as to whether categorical sports bans based on gender identity violate the Equal Protection Clause and Title IX of the Civil Rights Act. With this month marking Roe v. Wade’s decision anniversary, fears continue to grow over access to mifepristone and telehealth. The concept of fetal personhood is being brought into legislative sessions all over the country, while birth control could be a new target.

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Transcript

Jennie: Welcome to rePROs Fight Back, a podcast on all things related to sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice. [music intro]

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Hi rePROs. How's everybody doing? I'm your host, Jennie Wetter, and my pronouns are she/her. So, y'all, I just feel like there is so much happening right now, and one of the big things is the administration announced a really expanded version of the Global Gag Rule. I could talk about it in the intro, but it's one of those things, like, I think we're gonna need to do a deep dive on it. And so, instead of trying to get y'all to understand it in like a two-second clip in my intro, let's just turn to we'll do an episode on it as soon as I can get some people on [the podcast] to talk about it. So, hopefully very, very soon. And then we'll do a fuller dive into why this is so terrible and so bad. But so, let's turn to something brighter, and it's something I think I didn't talk to y'all about, but so last year I took two big fun trips. My mom and I did a Viking cruise exploring the British Isles, and then I went with one of my aunts and two of my cousins and did a tour of Italy. And I really love taking pictures. It's something I really enjoy. I got a really nice new camera this year before the first trip, and I took so many pictures on both of the trips. And so often, like, our pictures just live in online albums, or I have like an aura frame that I have a number of my favorite ones loaded on to. But so often, we don't, like, print out a bunch of pictures anymore. So, anyway, my mom really what she does after she takes big trips is she'll put a photo album together on Shutterfly and get it printed out, like a photo album, like a little book. And so, she put one together for our trip to the British Isles and a trip, the trip I took to Italy. And so, she took all of the pictures that I took and my cousins and my aunt took and put them into an album of our trip. And so I got them at when I went home for Christmas, and so I have been really been enjoying having like a physical thing to look through and like remember the trips, and so it just made me really think that I that's something I need to do more of is put like photo books together on Shutterfly or something, and this isn't not sponsored, this is just what I happen to use. Marking all of these things, so they're just not this online album that I never look at, but I have the thing on my bookshelf. So, I know actually many of you probably don't know this, but I have- this feels weird to talk about. So, if somebody were to tell you to, like, picture a beach, can you, like, see it? I can't. Like, my brain doesn't work that way. When I dream, it's, like, narrative. I don't see pictures; I can't do imagery in my head. And so, it's nice to have that thing to look at so I can see the images from my trips again. I don't know. It just feels extra special since I can't reload them by just trying to bring them up in my head. So, I think I'm going to take some of my online albums that I have and put some more books together so that I have ones of all my favorite pictures I've taken. Like I said, I really love taking photos, so I have some really great shots that shouldn't just live online. I should have physical copies of. So, that is something I'm looking forward to doing is starting to put some of that stuff together and getting them printed out so that I can enjoy them in ways that I can't when they just live online. So maybe that'll be my new little cozy distraction that I do while all the chaos surrounds us. So, I think that's like the big thing I've been thinking about. I've just really been enjoying those little photo albums. They've made me happy. With that, I think I want to turn to this week's episode. It's a little longer again because seriously, you can't put Jessica Mason Pieklo and I in a call together and not have it go a little long because I always love talking to her about honestly anything. So, we have a great conversation today. It's a little wide-ranging talking about the SCOTUS cases from when you hear this two weeks ago that looked at trans girls playing sports. We talk about one year in and the Trump admin and the Roe v. Wade marker that happened. That was also last week when you're hearing this. Yeah, so it's a little all over the place, but it is a wonderful conversation as it always is when I get to talk to Jessica Mason Pieklo with Boom! Lawyered Podcast and Rewire News Group. And with that, let's go to my interview with Jess.

Jennie: Hi, Jess. Thank you so much for being here.

Jess: Thank you so much for having me back. It's always such a pleasure.

Jennie: I'm really excited to talk to you. There's like a hodgepodge of things going on that we need to check in. I mean, honestly, there's like a gajillion things we could talk about, but like we'll narrow and focus on the ones most relevant to this podcast. Let's start with the Supreme Court. There was a big case around trans girls playing sports or cases. Can you tell us about that? We haven't, we didn't do a pre-episode on it, other than maybe when you and I talked before the SCOTUS' term.

Jess: Yeah, you and I chatted about these cases a little bit because at the time we didn't even know if the court was gonna hear both or what was gonna happen. So, in the middle of January, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that was challenging Idaho's ban on trans girls playing sports and West Virginia's ban on trans girls playing sports. And, you know, what to say about these cases? Collectively, they ask the legal question of whether or not categorical bans on trans girls playing sports that align with their gender identity and if those violate the Equal Protection Clause, and Title IX of the Civil Rights Act. And Title IX is the federal law that grants equal opportunity in education on the basis of sex. And it is a part of a series of federal statutes that were designed to address segregation in public spaces like education. Title VI is a comparative statute that addresses equal opportunity in education on race. They were passed together and are often not discussed together, but I think it's important, given what these cases pose a threat to, to start to stitch those statutes back together. So, these cases, like I said, involve categorical bans on trans girls. And I think it's important to point out that these are bans on trans girls, not bans on trans boys, for example, trans girls participating in sports. And in the oral arguments, we heard a lot of concerns from the conservatives about protecting women's sports, protecting women's spaces, competitive disadvantage or advantage based on physical difference. And all of it led to an exchange that was so alarming, even Amy Coney Barrett stepped back and said, what are we doing here? So, in the conversation about sports, there was a lot of gender essentialism. Are men stronger? Are men faster? Are men more competitive? And when you're talking about something like football or hockey, sure, maybe there are some differences between women and men in terms of physicality. The law already contemplates how to address that, right? We got that. That conversation then led to okay, well, if we start mandating sex segregation in these places, where does it stop? Do we then get a boys-only chess club? And the attorneys defending the state bands out of Idaho and West Virginia said, you know what, maybe we do.

Jennie: And like honestly, that's not hypothetical, right? Like, I feel like we have heard some of the governing chess bodies talking about this. Or isn't there even… did a ban go into place?

Jess: Yes. So, this is a very live debate that has been going on under the radar for most of us but is truly a canary in the coal mine moment. Okay, so the International Chess Federation has in place a ban on trans women participating in chess events that are women only. And women-only chess events exist because chess has been historically dominated by men. Not because men are smarter or better at strategy or can move the little chess pieces around more effectively than women can, but because they weren't allowed. It was no-girls-allowed, it was a boys-only club, right? And so, in the spirit of opening spaces up, there were programs and competitions designed to get more women into the sport. This got caught up in the trans panic. And so, now there is a ban on trans women competing in women's only, why? To what end? What are we doing here? And so, you know, if you have people in your family who are a little uneasy with the idea of trans girls competing on girls' sports teams. Maybe they're like, you know, soccer feels a little rough. Like, what do we do here? And it's not straight up bigotry, it's unease. People are learning into the space in some communities. I think suggesting that these bands are about way more than football or soccer or hockey. I mean, Becky Pepper-Jackson, who is the now teenage girl at the center of the West Virginia case, just wanted to run track with her friends. You know, this poor girl was admittedly not very good at track. She was not displacing, you know, tens and tens and thousands of, you know, student athletes in West Virginia. She was one trans kid who wanted to play a sport with her friends, and the West Virginia legislature turned its entire power on her all the way to the Supreme Court. So, I've been rambling, but my point really is for folks who are catching up on these cases, is that this isn't about sports. It's about reintroducing segregation into public spaces. And I can put some context on this. I'm almost 52 years old. In my lifetime, it was not possible for women to open bank accounts in their own name. They needed a male cosigner. In my lifetime, it was not possible for women to have their own credit cards. Title IX is one of the reasons why women have developed the level of economic independence that we have collectively. And it's still not at par with men. And I'm still talking largely about the gains of white women in this economy because what we know is Black and Brown women have made gains, but they have not made gains in the same way as white women. This conversation at the Supreme Court around transports and the role of Title IX in creating access to opportunity is happening at a time when over 300,000 women have been kicked out of the workforce as a result of Trump administration policies, where Black women in particular have been pushed out of the economy at the highest levels we have seen. There is a clear effort to resegregate the economy. And these transport cases are part of it, is the point that I'm making.

Jennie: Well, and you know, you talk about Title IX. In general, the gains that women have made and economic status, but you can also see the attacks coming in other ways, right? Attacks on birth control and access to birth control, whether it's through policy or the misinformation you're seeing online, attacking birth control as harmful and causing problems, like things that were so important for women making economic gains are being attacked.

Jess: Absolutely. And again, just to continue to, like, stitch the historical narrative, the legal precedent that made access to birth control possible for single women happens at the same time that Congress is contemplating and passing Title IX. So, this is part of the larger civil rights push in the late 60s and early 70s that really, really was about bringing racial and gender equality specifically into a national conversation. And it was happening in the courts, and it was happening in Congress, it was happening in state legislatures as well. There were states that had advanced policies, I'm thinking of, you know, my current home state of Colorado, where abortion was legal long before Roe, for example. So, those were active conversations. We are having active conversations about those same issues right now, except that it is in a backlash cycle. So, the active conversation we are having collectively as a culture right now is about a regression of those rights, is about rolling that progress back. And again, we're not talking, you know, hundreds of years. We're talking about, you know, 50, 60.

Jennie: Okay. I'm sure we can all guess, knowing this Supreme Court, but how did it feel like the arguments went? Do you come out feeling good or bad?

Jess: Honestly, so there's no good outcome in this case absent the Supreme Court, like, vigorously rejecting these bans, which we know they will not do. We know that because they already allowed gender-affirming care bans in the target minors in Skrmetti to take effect. There is an outward hostility and a misunderstanding of trans people by a large majority of the justices on the court. That said, I got the sincere belief that nobody wanted to be there that day during arguments making this case. And there are a couple avenues for a narrow ruling that would be devastating for the people. I mean, I need to be clear. Like, if the Supreme Court upholds Idaho's ban and West Virginia's ban, even if we're not talking about the immediate impact on a significant number of people, upholding the ban is an act of violence. It is endorsing a segregationist policy and one that we know will not be contained to those two states. So, with those qualifications, I do see the Supreme Court uphold, you know, crafting a narrow decision that is limited in scope to the cases and the people that were before them for that. We know the conservative legal movement has the next two, three, four, five, six, seven cases already in the legal pipeline. But we also know progressive advocates are really phenomenal fighters, and that there is an opportunity to right now use the courts as a means of harm reduction by delaying policy. And that's what we are seeing. We're seeing several advocacy groups take this tact. And so, you know, there is place for and space for advocates to still do what they need to do to protect rights and protect lives, even if the federal courts are a tool of authoritarianism right now, which they very clearly are.

Jennie: Okay. So that's the first bucket of things to talk about. The next one is we're talking on January 21st, and there's a couple big markers this week. It feels wrong calling any of them anniversaries or anything that could relate to happiness or celebration. We have one year of Trump 2.0. We have the Roe anniversary and the March for Life. How are we feeling one year in? And I guess because there's so much [that] we could talk about, maybe narrowing it to like things in our realm. And I'll leave that kind of broad because it is broad.

Jess: Well, the vibes are great. A year in Trump 2.0 is...

Jennie: Like, how is it only a year?

Jess: Is devastating.

Jennie: I aged like 10 [years].

Jess: It... no, completely. That's not even a joke. I mean, I think, you know, to really ground the conversation because Trump won was devastating. Trump 2.0 is a different level of immediate horror than we've seen. And so, it's helpful to think about, you know, what were some of the first weak actions that we saw this administration take. And one of the very first things that this administration did was dismantle global public health. Almost day one, if not day one. Yeah. It’s been a while, and we're all holding on as best we can. But that was the opening salvo for how in our issue spaces this was going to go. Global public health, and particularly global reproductive and sexual health, is such an important pillar of stability and soft power that folks don't understand because we don't talk about it that way. Because that would mean talking about all sorts of messy conversations within global sexual and reproductive health, like imperialism and colonialism, that we're not quite prepared, I think, to really interrogate. But that decimation and just the total disregard for humanity in the dismantling of USAID and what followed put us all on notice that this was going to be an administration, not just of cruelty, but of violence, right? And it's the violence that I really want to underscore because you know, US dismantling USAID, that's an act of violence. Occupying DC in Minneapolis is an act of violence. And there is a direct line between the two of them, and it's authoritarian control. And we are one year into it, and I am grateful for all of the activists and advocates who are making sure people are taken care of because we are in a care-for-each-other moment. I am desperate for an opposition party.

Jennie: I feel like that was such a jarring wake-up call. I think we had, like, all of the like game planning of, like, all of the really bad things we expected, like in the global repro space to happen. And, like, thought we were dreaming big of, like, how bad it could be, but like eliminating USAID in full, I don't think very many people were thinking that they could or would go that big. And so, to have that be like one of the first like day one things was shocking.

Jess: Right. And I think the shock of that then reverberates in the disorganization around the opposition of what follows. Because from the decimation of global and sexual reproductive health, we get the nomination of Bobby Kennedy to run HHS and the elevation of a know-nothing, you know, quasi-pseudo-populist public health movement that is grounded in grift. And we will see that play out in devastating ways over the course of the administration. I mean, I think the one of the more emotionally sparkly parts of this whole thing right now is really living with the knowledge that rebuilding is a generational effort at this point. Within the first year, these folks just took a sledgehammer to programs and institutions and policies that were, in some cases, you know, not just decades, but centuries building up to. And it doesn't make their friends at the supplement company enough money. And so, we are going to dismantle it. Don't think for a second that these people care about anything other than enriching themselves and their friends.

Jennie: And I think it's also just important to think of this as we were still rebuilding from the damage of Trump 1.0. Like, we had never made back all of those gains or gotten policies completely back to where they needed to be. And now the thought of doing that and the institutions themselves are gone.

Jess: Right.

Jennie: The people who had the knowledge and the skill have likely moved on and found new positions. So, like rebuilding. I think a lot of people, you know, I feel like we talk about this a lot when we talk about, like, Global Gag and things, it's like, it's not just a light switch. It's not just like it is there or it's not there, and then tomorrow it's everything's back. It is: you lose all those things and you have to rebuild. And so, this is not going to be a quick or an easy fix. It is going to take a very long time to get all these things back. And how do they come back?

Jess: Well, I mean, that's it's such or if it's I it's such a smart point to make and not not to try and be a doomsday, like, you know, kind of alarmist here, but again, it also is part of the conversation of the attacks on public education that are happening right now and the dismantling of the Department of Public Education because the people who are orchestrating these attacks know what it takes to build back. And they are simultaneously doing everything that they can to make that build back impossible, making it, for example, too expensive and not available to borrow money to go to medical school. Who does that benefit, right? We, I mean, the caps on student borrowing that the "Big Beautiful Bill" has put in place will absolutely further harm our public health institutions because we will not be able to train a sufficient enough number of people and from diverse enough backgrounds. So, we are the administration and the conservative legal movement is ensuring that the information is siloed, that it is biased. I mean, it is not to, like, lean into you know my personality too hard, but it is the anti-abortion playbook nationalized for public health generally. And that's because that's who's in charge.

Jennie: Well, and just think of all of the distrust that is being built right now. Like HHS could tell me anything right now, and even if I know like it's true, like I'm not gonna believe it because like there's clear, like, I how do you build back that trust that has been actively, like, sewed? And like this again, so it's not just the institution, but trust in the institutions that has been just completely blown to smithereens.

Jess: Mm-hmm. And I mean, you know, we've talked about this a little bit on the Boom! Lawyered podcast in regard to the MAHA movement and its opportunistic nature. Don't think that I'm out here saying that American public health institutions are the gold standard for delivering patient care. There are a lot of people who are doing their best, but it is a for-profit medical system that has failed a lot of people. And I think there is strength in policy in admitting where the improvements need to be. And I think that, you know, I mean, I started in public journalism with the original fight around the Affordable Care Act. So, this is, again, part of an ongoing conversation, right? The Affordable Care Act radicalized the ways that insurance companies operated in this country. That doesn't mean that necessarily your experience at, you know, a public health institution, whether it's a minute clinic or a hospital, was fantastic. It meant that you could actually start to get consistent care, which was elevating health outcomes across the country. That's huge. That's not gonna happen right now, right? Like our, and so we are in this rollback. And how do you build back trust? I mean, I really think that we are seeing this in the direct conversations and mutual aid efforts that are happening, whether we're talking about in response to, you know, ICE occupation in Minneapolis, whether we're talking about in response to the dismantling of abortion care networks after Dobbs, since we're gonna eventually get to row whatever we're calling it, anniversary, like, you know, flag pent pole moment, whatever it is. But like, we are in spaces learning that the analog contact matters and that hyper locality is where that starts. CBS News, right? CBS News is now a function of the state. It's state-run media at this point. I, you know, it's the lack of institutional trust, your hospitals, your media, your government officials, schools and universities, like it's an ongoing project. I may likely not see the result in my lifetime.

Jennie: Okay. So, you did mention the Roe...

Jess: I tried to get us there.

Jennie: Anniversary. I guess there's nothing else to say than "anniversary," even though it's no longer... Roe is gone. But so, like, with that, and I even, thinking through like one year of the administration, I feel like I was also braced for some actions that we haven't seen. So, like, not to say things are good, because they they're not, like so much bad has been done, but yeah, also just like not hopeful or optimistic, those are not the right words, but, like, a little nugget of surprise of things that we haven't seen that they could have done, which is I guess nice. I don't know. I just because it is still so bleak and still, we don't have access we need, obviously. So, like, not good, but less bad than expected.

Jess: It does. I mean, I hear you. You know, I think the Roe marker, I guess is what I'll call it because I can't call it an anniversary. Like, what is it?

Jennie: Yeah, no.

Jess: Whatever it is.

Jennie: Decision day?

Jess: It no longer is the point. I think, you know, yes, it's true. The administration could have within its first year taken more aggressive steps at rolling back what is left of national abortion access, right? Like, there are things that they could have done, and I'm not suggesting that I think that that, you know, means it's not gonna happen. I will say that I think the thing to really watch for the rest of this year is agency action around mifepristone. This is where the sort of shirk sharks are circling, so to speak. And it's happening on a couple different fronts, right? So, we have active litigation still around mifepristone access and telehealth, in particular, and pills by mail. Conservatives and the anti-choice movement really, really, really do not like pills by mail. It upsets their whole deal. Like, it really is the genie out of the bottle for them. And the harder it is for them to reign in that access, the more amplified the attacks on medication abortion are going to come. So, we've got litigation that I mentioned, and it's just the sort of, you know, hangover from the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, the case that will not die in some ways. And so, I am keeping an eye on that. There's nothing immediately worthwhile to talk about that case, except that, you know, they just keep on trying. And, you know, we know this. I, you know, I mean, Amani and I were reminiscing about the days of 20-week bans on the podcast and how quaint that time felt by comparison, right? We also know that folks like Students for Life have the ear of this administration, and in particular Health and Human Services, which has, you know, proven itself to just be a grift machine. And boy, can nobody grift like the anti-choice movement. So, the FDA and HHS are both undergoing administrative action around mifepristone, whether it's safety and efficacy, approval generally, whether mifepristone is falling into the water supply and turning frogs gay or whatever nonsense that Kristan Hawkins is out there peddling with Students for Life, they are taking quote unquote "serious agency action" on that. And so that could look like rolling back or removing entirely mifepristone from the American marketplace. You know, this is again one of those awkward places where, you know, is it big pharma that's gonna come in and sort of save the day on this? I don't know. Bobby Kennedy really believes all of the nonsense around health. I just don't know what else to call. I mean, I have other words to call it, but I'm trying to keep this from you getting censored and, you know, in any sort of, but it's even Dr. Oz and, you know, the like we don't talk about like the damage that run and CMS into the ground will do around some of these things because it's really complicated. But I guess what I'm saying, Jennie, is: I'm glad that you have found a space where you're like, this feels better. I feel really worried about what will happen mid-term ish.

Jennie: Oh, for sure.

Jess: There’s gonna be some, you know, you just- we’re gonna get a Lauren Handy, where there's a bunch of, you know, we're just they're gonna gin up a story, right? Like this is an administration that is based in professional wrestling and reality TV. They wag the dog on the American public all the time. And I feel like the media just does not get that part of it. So, we'll get a story that's gonna do something, and it's gonna all be bullshit like they usually are, you know? So that really does kind of stress me out because we know when that happens, then the threats immediately trickle down to providers. Like, the misinformation is the kind of thing that puts people's lives and, you know, at real risk. We're already seeing that. I mean, after the collapse of Roe, talk about, you know, it's the same in the abortion care economy, right? Clinics don't just open after they've been closed. Providers that are run out don't just pick up their practice after a brief sabbatical. We're still building back that infrastructure, which is why pills by mail are so important because they can't stop it. So, there's that. And we're seeing the battle over shield laws really heat up, and I anticipate that it's gonna be a Supreme Court decision. You know, um, we see Louisiana just tried to indict a provider out of California, and you know, California ignored that subpoena as they rightly should, or indictment, I mean, um, same with New York. I'm sure Colorado will get one at some point. They're gonna keep trying. They're gonna keep trying. And, you know, that's just from the Trump administration. We've got South Carolina trying to bring in fetal personhood in the legislative session, Tennessee trying to bring in fetal personhood in a legislative session. It's almost like the Trump administration has given, you know, abortion advocates so many horrors and so many ways to try to wrap their arms around that now the bad actors in the states really have some oxygen and some runway to play with. And God bless the lawyers, man, who are out there doing the work of delaying and defending and pushing this stuff away because it feels probably pretty thankless right now. And I'm just here to say thank you.

Jennie: Yeah. And I also just want to say, like, definitely not good news, but seeing it as maybe, like, harm reduction of, like-

Jess: Oh, for sure.

Jennie: -the terrible things I was expecting had not happened yet, and it was definitely a "yet."

Jess: It's a version of harm reduction, right? Like, that's really all that we can do right now is various exercises in harm reduction.

Jennie: And then the other thing I've been keeping an eye on, because I can just feel those two pieces coming together, is the nonsense around Tylenol. And you cannot convince me that they are mentioning Tylenol by name versus acetaminophen because we talk about mifepristone being as safe as Tylenol. You cannot tell me that that is not why that was the statement. And I see those two pieces coming, gonna come together.

Jess: Completely. I mean, except again, an administration that is narrative driven, not policy-driven, narrative driven, right? WWE, like professional wrestling and reality TV. It's all pre-scripted, and I think that that's really smart. Just like, you know, oh, we've apparently got three pregnancies in this administration right now, right? I mean, you know, it's not subtle.

Jennie: Okay. What are you keeping an eye on? It's January. A parade of horribles is coming. Like, what are you keeping an eye on this year?

Jess: I am keeping an eye on the mental health of my friends and family and myself first and foremost. And I say that, you know, with a laugh in my voice, but really, I mean that. Like a year in, everybody who is listening to this podcast, please take care of yourselves and your community because the idea is to run us into the ground and then run us over. And we can't let that happen. And so, this isn't like, oh, light a candle and drink some tea. I mean, that's great, do that. But also, really take whatever is necessary to protect your health at this time and build community. So that's not just like, you know, crawl into your cocoon, but you know, really make the efforts at connecting in real life as you can in spaces with folks who help you feel seen and supported and whole. So that is my very honest number one priority this year.

Jennie: In terms- as somebody who is a cocoon person, I really always need to hear that because that is my first instinct is the cocooning.

Jess: And it's a good instinct, you know, honestly. Like, I spent a lot of time just kind of like tucking in and taking care. But really what we are seeing in DC, in Minneapolis, in the places where the administration has brought in federal troops is an attempt to dissolve community bonds. And the effective strategy of resistance is to strengthen those bonds. And so, you and I in our cocoon state also need to challenge ourselves for one piece of real life meaningful connection that is analog. Yeah. This is about building really truly like the things we can touch and you know feel in this moment. So, there's that in terms of, in the progressive and conservative legal spaces that I'm keeping an eye on. I mentioned the shield laws because this is, as we've seen on so many things, abortion is so often the tip of the spear in other larger policy battles. And so, if states that are run by progressives and Democrats don't have the ability to pass policies, whatever they happen to be, abortion-related or not, that serve the needs of their constituents in a way that protects those constituents, and the federal government can just override that, or not even the federal government in this case, a different state. If we're gonna Texas and Louisiana, the whole country, we need to be having a conversation about that because it's not just about abortion then. And we know that that will extend beyond it. We're already seeing it, whether it's you know, trying to restrict attempts to provide support for gender-affirming care, whatever it is, right? Because that's a federalism, that's a state of the democracy kind of issue that I think because of the horrors is going largely underreported. I'm also a year into this administration, we're gonna start hearing some of the fallout of these policies in place. And like we saw with Dobbs, right? We knew that there would be a reported death. We just didn't know when it would happen and where exactly it would happen. And so, I'm waiting for that in some of the other contexts. And I think the you know, the pending attacks on we've talked about abortion, but really hormonal birth control for women because of Bobby Kennedy's presence in health and human services and the coordinated mis and disinformation campaign right now, the Tylenol-mifepristone connection, all of those things that you are talking about, the infrastructure from the conservative side is there to do an entire scare campaign. They already are doing it on social media, and translate that into policy. And I expect we'll see that probably with minors’ access first, because that's usually how it goes. You also can't talk about gender-affirming care bans without talking about birth control because most of it's hormones. So anyway, it's just those are some dire spaces. And I think, you know, to sort of end it on more of a sci-fi note, the longer the pronatalist movement gets any oxygen and taken seriously, the more terrifying we're gonna see the policy outcomes. I used to joke about the tech bros talking to me about things like an artificial womb as a way to quote unquote solve the abortion problem. But yeah, we're actually gonna start to see some of those things floated as in real life policies and what that means for women who want autonomy.

Jennie: Okay, that was bleak.

Jess: Can we do a happy hour episode? Where we like...

Jennie: Yes.

Jess: I don't know...

Jennie: We need to do that sometime.

Jess: I mean, I know that bleak is kind of my brand, but at the same time, like I do look out the window, right? And I just, I don't want folks to feel disempowered. I really, you know-

Jennie: See, you just know where I was going. What can people do?

Jess: They can directly support mutual aid organizations of all kinds right now. Everything is about attacking families of a particular kind that are not very wealthy and white and conservative. The DOGE cuts that happened at the beginning of the year, we're still feeling at food shelves in states and localities. So, immigration- you know, I know of families in Minnesota who are organizing and supporting others who cannot leave the house. You know, this is really happening across the country right now. So, first and foremost, support mutual aid organizations of all kinds. Organize as you can in your lane. Whenever I'm here, I remind folks that everybody has a lane. You might not be a protest girly. That may not be your lane, and that is okay. You may have fantastic administrative skills. And guess what? Right now, we need people who can run an Excel spreadsheet. So-

Jennie: Don't look at me for that one.

Jess: Me either, man. Never. Nope, not me. That is not my skill set, but it is needed for folks who are coordinating deliveries to folks who can't leave their house, who are shopping for multiple families at a time, who are managing communications and points of contact. Put your administrative skills to use. I guarantee you there's a neighborhood organization that would be over the moon to have help with that. And, you know, check in on yourself and your friends and your family. We get ourselves through this. We save ourselves. Nobody's coming in to take care of this. This is not a Michael Bay movie. There, it is not wrapped up neatly in the end. We save ourselves.

Jennie: Jess, as always, it is so much fun talking to you about such terrible, terrible things.

Jess: I'll take that as a compliment.

Jennie: Thank you for being here.

Jess: Yes, thank you for having me back.

Jennie: Okay, y'all. I hope you loved my conversation with Jess. Like I said, I always love talking to her. It is so much fun, and I always learn so much. So thank you, Jess, and I will see everybody next week.

[music outro] If you have any questions, comments, or topics you would like us to cover, always feel free to shoot me an email. You can reach me at jennie@reprosfightback.com, or you can find us on social media. We're at rePROs Fight Back on Facebook and Twitter, or @reprosfb on Instagram. If you love our podcast and want to make sure more people find it, take the time to rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform. Or if you want to make sure to support the podcast, you can also donate on our website at reprosfightback.com. Thanks, all!