Understanding digital threats nearly 2 years post-Roe
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Bi-Weekly Sexual Freedom Newsletter Wednesday, May 8, 2024
Top Stories This Week
What’s happening at Woodhull;
Librarians fighting back against book bans;
Discrimination against trans patients;
Understanding digital threats nearly 2 years post-Roe;
Banning TikTok;
Working against the legislative tide of anti-LGBTQ+ bills; and
Woodhull’s take on protecting pregnant workers.
Debunking Sex Myths and Misinformation with Analysis, Data!
WOW! It’s been an exciting first week forFact Checked by Woodhull. We’re providing you with the facts you need to make informed decisions. Whether it’s dissecting complex policy debates, debunking misleading claims, or verifying the accuracy of statements made by public figures, we’re here to separate fact from fiction with precision and rigor.
Don’t take our word for it! Here’s whatNadine Strossen, author of Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women’s Rights (NYU Classics edition with new Preface, 2024); and former ACLU President (1991-2008), thinks about it:
"Fact Checked by Woodhull is an essential antidote to…dangerous disinformation. It presents expert research and evidence about sexual expression, which refutes arguments for additional restrictions. As with all speech that some people dislike, the appropriate response is more speech. I dislike the too-prevalent truth-distorting expression about sexual expression, so I applaud the appropriate more-speech response to it: Fact Checked by Woodhull!"
Join Us for the Week of Visibility for Non-Monogamy!
Woodhull is proud to endorse The Week of Visibility for Non-Monogamy(July 15-21, 2024), a movement-wide week of action that aims to amplify non-monogamous voices, identities, and experiences in order to dismantle stereotypes and promote acceptance. Launched in 2023 as a Day of Visibility, this year’s celebration is being expanded into a full week to create more space to educate, advocate, and celebrate! The Week of Visibility is being organized by participants from across the non-monogamy movement, with coordination by OPEN (Organization for Polyamory and Ethical Non-monogamy).
Attempts to ban books are at an all-time high. These librarians are fighting back (PBS NewsHour)
Book bans continue to be at an all-time high, with devastating consequences for everyone, especially librarians and the readers they serve, who bear the brunt of restricted access to information spanning from racism to sexuality. Casey Kuhn writes: “Brooky Parks in Colorado won a $250,000 settlement with her former employer, High Plains Library District, following a civil rights dispute she filed after being fired in 2021. Her firing came after she organized anti-racist and LGBTQ+ programs for teens. ‘Teens need those programs,’ she told the NewsHour through tears. ‘If it costs me losing my job or even losing my house, it’s worth standing up for and fighting for. And I know at the end of the day, I will be able to lay my head down and sleep at night.’”Read more.
(Erik McGregor/Lightrocket via Getty Images)
4th Circuit Rules Against States Discriminating Against Trans Patients (Truthout)
Access to high quality, comprehensive health care, including gender-affirming care, is a human right deeply related to our right to sexual freedom. Chris Walker writes: “On [April 29], the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that state-based health care systems in North Carolina and West Virginia that prevent transgender and nonbinary people from attaining gender-affirming care were unconstitutional barriers to their needs. The en banc ruling, in which the entire circuit court takes part, stops a discriminatory Medicaid regulation in West Virginia from being implemented. In North Carolina, a regulation blocking transgender state employees from receiving such care is also blocked due to the ruling.” Read more.
(Electronic Frontier Foundation)
Two Years Post-Roe: A Better Understanding of Digital Threats (Electronic Frontier Foundation)
It’s been nearly two years since the Dobbs decision overturned Roe, leaving swaths of people across the U.S. without abortion access and facing increasing digital threats. Daly Barnett writes: “Besides the obvious perils of stripping away half the country’s right to reproductive healthcare, digital surveillance and mass data collection caused a flurry of concerns. Although many activists fighting for reproductive justice had been operating under assumptions of little to no legal protections for some time, the Dobbs decision was for most a sudden and scary revelation. Everyone implicated in that moment somewhat understood the stark difference between pre-Roe 1973 and post-Roe 2022; living under the most sophisticated surveillance apparatus in human history presents a vastly different landscape of threats.”Read more.
(Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
The TikTok Ban Is an Egregious Assault on Free Speech (Jacobin)
Our free speech rights are precious – they allow us to build community, organize, and speak out against baseless attacks on our human right to sexual freedom. Mounting repression, including TikTok bans, threatens all of us. Caitlyn Clark writes: “Lawmakers are citing data privacy and national security as the primary concerns behind the ban. But others have been more explicit — they are worried about how the app is influencing Americans’ political views, particularly among young voters.”Read more.
(Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Many Trans Americans Are Living in Fear. But LGBTQ+ Advocates See a Reprieve in Statehouses (them.)
Many trans people in the U.S. are living in fear, for good reason. The onslaught of anti-LGBTQ+ bills is seemingly never-ending, but thankfully, there might be a political shift coming. Orion Rummler writes: “Last year, Kentucky passed arguably the most extreme anti-trans law in the country. Within a single law, the state banned students of all ages from being taught about gender identity or sexual orientation, banned students from using restrooms that match their gender identity, banned gender-affirming care for trans youth and banned students up to the fifth grade from learning about human sexuality and development. This year, the state passed zero anti-LGBTQ+ bills — which left [Chris Hartman, executive director of the Fairness Campaign, a Kentucky LGBTQ+ advocacy group] in disbelief as the final gavel before veto recess in Kentucky’s General Assembly fell in late March.”Read more.
(Photo: Camylla Battani)
Woodhull’s Take: Protecting Pregnant Workers (Woodhull’s Sex & Politics Blog)
Pregnant workers, like all workers, deserve to work in safe and healthy workplaces, rid of discrimination. We at the Woodhull Freedom Foundation share our take on recent regulations for the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA): “As Bryce Covert writes, the PWFA and related regulations cover a scope of pregnant workers’ needs, from ensuring that employers should grant straightforward modifications to opening a new avenue for workers to secure unpaid time off for pregnancy-related needs without risking their jobs. Pregnancy-related needs include the need for time off to recover from childbirth or to get an abortion. [...] To be clear, unpaid time off is far from an ideal response to pregnant workers’ needs, but it is a step in the right direction.” Read more.
Woodhull Freedom Foundation is the only national human rights organization working full time to protect the fundamental human right to sexual freedom. Our work includes fighting censorship, eliminating discrimination based on gender or sexual identity, or family form, and protecting the right to engage in consensual sexual activity and expression. We do this through advocacy, education, and coalition building.
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