Every Week Should Be Reproductive Justice Week
Bailey Borchardt, PPNYC CUNY Organizer
Last week, Donald Trump declared a national emergency to circumvent Congress to get funding for his divisive vanity wall. Our country is in a state of emergency — however, it has nothing to do with the border between the United States and Mexico.
So what does this have to do with Reproductive Justice Week at the City College of New York? Quite a bit, actually. Reproductive justice is about much more than a woman’s right to access safe and legal abortion, though this is often the binary that dictates any conversation about reproductive justice. SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective defines the term as “the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities”.
The notion of reproductive justice is about creating a world that is livable for not only those living in it, but for those who have yet to enter it. Police brutality, environmental justice, high maternal mortality rates, immigrant status, affordable housing, living wages, sexual assault, visibility of trans and queer communities — all of these things are not only matters of reproductive justice, but they are all matters of national emergency.
Many of the issues stated above affect college students, and City College of New York (CCNY) students in particular. We launched Reproductive Justice Week to bring some of these topics to the forefront of the conversation between students, while also introducing Planned Parenthood of New York City (PPNYC) to the student body.
As CUNY organizers, our role revolves around meeting students where they are and helping to mobilize their collective political power. Trans and non-binary folks are often left out of the conversation of reproductive rights, and PPNYC is dedicated to correcting that. Through this partnership, the LGBT+ Open Alliance at CCNY hosted two of the four events of the week. Beginning with a mixer held in their safe space, where all City College students were welcome, and point-of-entry was a signature on the petition for more gender neutral bathrooms. PPNYC also sent in a sex educator to mingle with students and answer the most looming questions they had around safe, pleasurable, and consensual sex.
Because the New York City public school sexual education curriculum is far from comprehensive, it was important to bring that education to the students of City College. We spoke about pleasure, consent, and safety when it comes to sex. It was clear students wanted to learn more. As the night progressed, they were becoming visibly more comfortable participating and offering their own insights.
To ensure we explored reproductive justice from many different intersections, it was important to lead a conversation about reproductive justice through the lens of Black trans women and trans women of color. Jason Walker from VOCAL-NY and Queerocracy spoke to students about the HIV/AIDS epidemic, how Black trans women suffer the most, and why this must matter for our futures.
One of the most glaring insights from Reproductive Justice Week was how few students knew where to find sexual health services or that PPNYC provides them. However, what was equally as evident was the students’ clear desire to learn more and do more with the knowledge they took away over the week.
The CUNY system expands across all five boroughs, educating hundreds of thousands of students. Historically, some of our country’s most impactful movements began on college campuses. With PPNYC having student organizers within the CUNY system, we have the power to uplift, amplify and mobilize the voices of CUNY students on the issues that affect us all. Reproductive Justice Week was just the beginning.
