Reproductive justice is an LGBTQ issue, and queer activists around the country made that clear this weekend.
On Saturday (October 2), demonstrators in Washington, D.C., and hundreds of other cities across the United States rallied for abortion access with the Women’s March. The protests come a month after the implementation of Texas Senate Bill 8 or the “Texas Heartbeat Act,” the most restrictive abortion law in the entire country. Under SB 8, nearly all abortions are banned statewide.
The bill is currently the subject of a federal lawsuit from the U.S. Department of Justice contesting its legality. It is one of a number of cases that will put Roe v. Wade, the historic 1973 decision that made abortion legal in America, before the Supreme Court yet again.
Attacks on access to safe, legal abortions impact anyone who can get pregnant, including LGBTQ people, so queer activists and advocacy groups made their voices heard at different Women’s March actions on Saturday.
We are out here demanding justice & fighting for reproductive rights & healthcare at today’s March! Proud to stand with @thebritafilter representing @DragOutTheVote pic.twitter.com/cmO3FoiyGX
— Marti (@MartiGCummings) October 2, 2021
In New York City, drag artist Marti G. Cummings and RuPaul’s Drag Race alum Brita Filter joined thousands of protestors at reproductive justice rallies in Manhattan’s Foley Square and Washington Square Park. Thousands more took the streets in D.C. while a federal judge heard arguments about whether SB 8 should be suspended amid the lawsuit.
In an op-ed for LGBTQ Nation, Kierra Johnson, executive director of the National LGBTQ Task Force, emphasized how this ongoing fight “has never just been about abortion but about freedom from the tyranny of a State that picks and chooses how to control our bodies at will.”
“Each of us lives an intersectional life where our identities are perceived in different ways and people who hold multiple marginalized identities face tremendous discrimination and barriers to health care simply because of who we are,” Johnson continued. “The ’overlap’ of reproductive rights and queer rights is as real as the women who are denied bodily autonomy for either — or both — identities they hold. … We are all in this struggle together — to win, we must be.”
Below, find more moving photos from reproductive justice rallies across the U.S.
