It Could Happen 89

to ask each of them to introduce themselves. If you could give us your name and any relevant affiliations that you think listeners should know, that would be one.

to harvest. Had the fish camp up there and and we'd fish the uligans, bring the uligans home to the to the people, and the catch can Saxsmon Metal Catline. Then people would send them out to the west coast, so we're very connected. We go up to the Unich in the spring for ooligan and the fall for hunting. Now they used to do the salmon up on the

river with the fish camp. I served on our community council for from two thousand and two, but I think twenty fifteen in there, and now i'm their tribal rights representative for the community and I report back to our council after each of our meetings.

their own environments and their food security through science. And yeah, I'm looking forward to this discussion as well.

bears didn't eat, there would be so many bears in fish and now you don't smell any of that.

down into the river. And the river is so shallow, it's only a few inches deep, and it's it's not very wide. It's it's the smallest river out of the Stakeen and the Takou there, and so any pollution in that river will completely kill it off. The salmon runs their way down from what we've seen through the years. But you know, it's also the wildlife that's disappearing with it, because.

that cascades at the ecosystem. Could you explain a little bit of the role that salmon play not just in the in the provision of food for the for the animal life of the area, but also like the role they played traditionally in provisioning and feeding indigenous people.

But we've seen an extreme decline in returns. And you know, we've we've stopped a lot of our commercial fisheries and our food fisheries until which time we feel that the the returns are sufficient enough so that we can continue to harvest. So we've got the Taii Test Fishery at the mouth of the Schena, and they do a count every year throughout, starting in the spring and throughout most of the summer. They do a test fishery and they

estimate the amount of salmon that are returning. And we do not fish, as I said, commercially or for food until we feel that the numbers are sufficient that have gone past that fishery. There are many obstacles that face salmon today, most of which are a result of human activity. Logging, mining, commercial fishing, oil and gas, and we all have to take a little bit of responsibility for that because we

all enjoy those resources and we use them. And I've always said to people that we can't mine our way out of this global warming and climate change. We have to learn how to we have to learn how to use less. And as I said, you know, mining, obviously it's it's a it's a big concern, but there's also logging, there's oil and gas, as well as commercial fishery. You know, there's a lot of things that happen out in open waters in the North Pacific that can be changed fairly easily.

they're fishing in open waters approximately half the fleet. From what I understand, we're not asking this fishery to stop. We're asking them to move inside so that skin and sawkey can go past this fishery. And right now we are just barely making our escapement every year that make it up into the headwaters where they can spawn. And so, you know, there's a lot of different ways we can

address the issue of salmon declining in numbers. There's some low hanging fruit, there's a lot of other things that are going to take a lot of time to enforce. But I'm hoping as transboundary nations, we can come together to work towards making sure that salmon have a fighting chance. Salmon are very resilient. They're a keystone species, and they're a good indicator of the health of the environment and surrounding areas as well as the water.

forestry with the nations in question here, the people who's ancestral and current homeland this is happening on not consulted or was there insufficient explanation of the consequences when these with these mines and forestry operations were opened.

that community, and it's completely tone deaf. And so what engagement, what consultation does happen is incredibly inadequate.

We need to recognize that we can't manage a complex organism such as a watershed by dividing it down the middle under two different jurisdictions. We have to I don't say move the border, we basically have to erase it. And we need to treat that ecosystem as a whole. Climate change is having a huge impact the chinook or

the king salmon or the spring salmon. They're the largest, so they have the largest egg, they have the less surface area and the environment to absorb oxygen, so they're kind of an indicator of the first you have a problem, you're kind of red flag going up, you know, in your network, complex ecosystem and both Caribbean. Right, we're right, it's the crash of the entire network that we're seeing. Salmon is just an indicator of that. But we're seeing

it across the board. And it's unfortunate because here, especially right now in southeast Alaska. I live in Juno, Alaska. Prior to European contact, there was probably five times the population living here than there is now. You look at maps of the old village there everywhere, and they've been there for tens of thousands of years. They managed to do it sustainably, do it with bounce, do it with effective you don't really call it in management, but in

engagement with nature. And so here we are kind of on the front lines of it. And strangely enough, we have the solution and people who have within their oral history the stories of my grading due to climate change, of adjusting their life due to climate change. It's in

the history or you know, the current oral history. And so when we're looking when we say unify here, there's a great voice and indigenous people too if there is, and it's hard to justify with mining, I'm just going to say that because it's an inherently extractive down to the last profitable dollar industry. It's not sustainable. It's it's reducible constantly as it operates, and now it's being used

to justify climate change. Adjusting to climate change is now being used to justify more mining, which again, as usual, is going to fall on the backs of the local people and communities and indigenous people.

the same thing with mining. Actually we're seeing the justification of very damaging lithium mining rights and then being told that this is a solution to climate change and whilst also destroying these ecosystems. If people think it's just an issue that affects one group of people in one group of the part of the world, it's not. It's it's very universal. And that's just in the United States. We see the same thing places I've traveled for work in

East Africa, South America. I wonder then if we could talk about the value of accepting indigenous leadership when it comes to addressing I think we began addressing that in Guy's comment very well, but perhaps one thing we could talk about when we talk about that is I think when people think about specifically British Columbia and Alaska, they people will use the term like frontier or wilderness a lot, right, which erases the fact that, as Guy mentioned and both

of you have shared with us, that people have been living there for tens of thousands of years in a way that was sustainable, right, Like, these weren't places without human beings, It wasn't empty land, and it was just land that wasn't inhabited by people of European ancestry, and so when we talk about how to go forward with this land, why it's important to listen to the people who have always been there, you said, A good framework.

losing everything. We're getting very close salmon and I are getting a lot less and a commercial fishing in my whole life. And and then later as the kids got older,

we went into tenderings. We just had family aboard, and you know, we would get loads after loads through the seventies into the eighties in nineties, and then pretty soon you could see the Sainters are coming in with less and less fish and just ulligan alone and been fifteen years up there for the Ouligan in the spring and get out of school for a little while and to

go up the river ours from Metal Catalan. The last got to up to the Unique River a little over one hundred miles, so we have a two hundred mile round trip to get up there and back. And there's no safe harbor there. It's wide open to the weather. So you have to really best to learn from somebody who's been up there a few times, and you know, they know where you can maybe duck out of for a safe spot and easy to get hurt on the river because they're so shallow.

the same river all the time. We'd have to go through the canal and check the other places where they might go up, but with the salmon, they need that clean river because they won't go up any other river, and their numbers really really have dropped. Used to see king salmon, you know, probably as far as I could reach, which is about six feet and spawners in the river, and three years ago they were maybe long as one arm.

I couldn't find any real big ones in there. But it was good to see some of them coming back. But that won't last long things continue to go the way they are.

were very smart. Can things return to the way they work and we at least stop things getting worse?

a significant other or or a pet. You know, a lot of people have pets. It's it's a reciprocal relationship. There's a lot of give and take and there's a lot of compromise.

of watershed, you know, we used to harvest seals. We used to harvest, you know, a lot more things other than just salmon. And what we've done over the last fifty or so years has put so much pressure on salmon that they just can't sustain it.

But what I'm trying to explain is that our relationship with the environment is broken, and we need to fix it, and and it's out of balance right now, and we need to bring it back to balance, and we just need to consume less.

And so they just harvested it, harvested as much as they could, as fast as they could, and scent it around the world. And you know, if any of your listeners haven't tasted salmon, it's it's one of the most flavorful things you've ever you will ever taste. And it's it's the best meat in the world on the planet for you in terms of nutrients and and such, and you know, it's it's totally natural, and yeah, it's just all around good for the environment.

very unresilient to constant pressure and stress. You know what it does to your digestive system, nervous system, everything, your family life. It's the same for these ecosystems. It's not the occasional huge impact, it's the continuous stress. And this area was not it's not really pristine. It was highly modified by the people and actively engaged with their environment.

They enhance salmon streams and resting pools, They built clam gardens, They move trees and vegetation around, you know, enhance beaches, and it was very active. And we can incorporate that knowledge into how we move forward on a lot of these things.

got that habit, change change another one. And you know, I think over time we can we can fix this.

one piece. You were never welcomed in the smokehouses again, so they didn't waste time, and they told it would tell the children when they get too loud, your children are to be seen but not heard. And just like that, they never stopped teaching. It was I wish I could remember more from a long time ago, but I was lucky that they treated you know, whatever friend I had, their their grandparents were were mine that just learned how to get bark off the cedar tree, and so you

don't kill the cedar tree from my friend's grandmother. I never forgotten. When my wife wanted to go out and get get some bark, she was surprised. I told her I know how to do it, and so we would. We went out and got it. But just things like that is.

the ecosystem. So can you explain what a tailing stam is and what a tailing stamp failure is.

climate change. They're wanting to maintain three meters of water on top of these tailings in perpetituity. I mean, at what point in perpetituity does any certainty of your predictions completely break down? And they require massive amounts of water treatment. And it's not just the tailings, it's the waste rock in Louis's Unich River, it's not just the Bruce Jack.

But now now they're permitting the Escape Creek, an open pit and already permitted but not yet built as the KSM, which would be one of the top five largest open pits in the world on a small water shed with incredibly low hardness of water, meaning it cannot absorb any kind of change of pH or acid and is home to, you know, the spawning and rearing grounds and genetic diversity of Pacific salmon, and in the long run, the only way we're going to keep salmon from extinction as well,

as Kirby says, kind of help, you know, change our attitude with this world. But we have to maintain that genetic diversity that's spawn in all of those little tiny streams throughout the coast and far into British Columbia. We need that genetic versity. Salmon are incredibly resilient, but we also can't know completely ignore our part in disrupting the natural cycles here, and as they pointed out, they are incredibly disruptive. I did you know, I want to say that,

you know, Louis mentioned how they're not listening. He's not listened to, and that story can be multiplied in every community and tribe throughout the Pacific Northwest and probably the entire United States about the world. But that's what we're trying to remedy here, trying to let's all get together. Let's ignore that border. We find out in these meetings like our summit, that were actually related, some of us were related to one another. And look at this in the big picture.

United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. BC has implemented that through the Declaration on the Rights of People's Act, they're supposed to respect, you know, these traditional territories. Regardless of the land status of Alaska tribes, they certainly have an obligation to respect the First Nations and the ends heeded territories of the First Nation people in British Columbia.

That's clear by law, and the Supreme Courts have expanded it to people that no longer live in Alaska if they still have that direct connection to their traditional territories within I'm sorry, British Columbia. And so we're going to use that to make sure that Louis and everybody is.

thousands of years old, whereas Western science. In some areas, such as British Columbia, Canada, where we've only you know, been in contact with European settlers for just over five hundred years, indigenous science is much much older.

helibateocause in itself very credible. The Western people when they moved in and at least here on the coast, they looked at the way the clink at height and Shimshei and people were harvesting fish with beach traps and beach nets and whatnot, and they copied that fish wheels and they copied that technology. But then they took it to the massive extreme and just took everything out of the rivers. But they used indigenous technology to do it, ironically enough,

so we can turn that around. You know, we can use that technology to turn this around. And there's no reason why we shouldn't this thanks point.

go to www. Dot s e I t C dot org o rg SO, Southeast Alaska Indigenous trans Boundary Commission s C I T S. We're just getting started and so there should be some incredible stories along the way.

damage because of it. And it's I think Curve made excellent point that like if we don't you know, those things are already there, and guys said it, like in our walls and in our computers and things, and we could do so much better to use the ones we have rather than consistently damaging people on the planet to dig up more.

Danil using a ten year old Logitech Experts control. That's a submarine joke for those of you who have not been following h Today, I'm joined by Alex and Tom, both of them graduate students in the UC system, and we're talking about this this really obscene charge of assault that some graduate students are facing after they disrupted an alumni event in San Diego. Hi, Alex and Tom, if you had to introduce yourselves a little bit, as far as you feel comfortable.

the university has decided to allege that sixty seven graduate students, including by our account eighteen who were either not present or not involved, are going to be charged under the student conduct process with committing a physical assault, as well as charges for disruption and a vague assertion that we were threatening the health and safety of others. These are quite serious allegations. They do carry potential sanctions up to long term suspension. And expulsion from the university, right.

better part of eight years at UCSD. You've invested a lot of time, you get paid like shit, and if you then get nothing out of it, that is potentially devastating.

So this is really a bad look for the university as well to you know, potentially have sixty seven graduate students under these charges.

a stage and shouting? Can you maybe give us an account of the events and then we'll talk about maybe how those have been represented in the process. That makes sense.

as well. And what the protest to the form of was that a number of graduate student workers walked on stage uninvited and began giving speeches and holding signs demonstrating the ways in which and informing the audience of the ways in which that our contracts have not been upheld

since we signed them in December. The ways in which the university is circumventing some of the raises that we were promised for our research and teaching, and the ways it is trying to sort of prevent those things from being resolved in the sort of normal channels that you go through with these sort of these sort of union and contract administration things. And that's been I'm gooing for

i suppose six months now, with relatively little process. So that demonstration took place about up until the time that some local police officers arrived, and at that time the demonstration was fully compliant with those orders, and the police officers noted such and theirs, which I was able to

retrieve from the city. And then after that the demonstration continued outside of the venue of the event, where people were still able to you know, make a decent amount of noise and raise their grievances despite the walls separating

the group from the alumni inside. And it certainly did get some attention, since we were in touch after that with people who were sort of relatively high up in a number of university and alumni centric offices and who were surprised to hear of the things that we were alleging and wanted to hear more and be able to

raise those issues further up into the university. So these charges certainly did sort of come as a shock, given that at first a lot of people at the event seemed receptive in a way, though certainly not all, but some were certainly receptive to our concerns and what we had to say.

paid university chancellor or president or in the United States. So we presented him with an award for UCS these most overpaid workers, and that was sort of our rationale before doing this specific event. And the other thing is that when the police arrived, they actually gave no verbal orders for us to clear out. As soon as we saw them. We peacefully started to leave the stage, and they stood there as well. Their rests were made, now,

interviews were orders were shouted. They remained on site for the duration as we stood outside picking. There were no reinforcements, There were no swat teams, and we're just one or two squad cars. The police typically are known for having outside responses to minor problems, but the fact that they did not have any kind of aggressive response to this indicate to us that they were was entirely peaceful events.

into him. But I don't even recall ever seeing that happen. I haven't talked to anyone who recalls seeing that happen, anyone who was in our group or not. But other than that, the rest of the report is really just full of descriptions of how they they I don't even think they talked to anyone who said they were scared of us. They just said people might have been scared of us. It's very strange.

And during event itself, it's ironic because I was at the event as we, you know, indeterminate and out of other dual students, and we actually were assaulted by members of the crowd who would come up and put their arms on their hands on our shoulders and how us puss why people hate unions and you know, hey, I brought my nine year old grandmother to this and I have some you know, fifty million dollars ranch, and I'm

being honored for this. People pumping my trust, people pumping other people's trusting fingers on our faces and telling us to really ruined their special night. And our response was, do you know, I think that our need to pay branch and our theater, ourselves is a little bit more important than your special night at the at the museum by the ocean with the glasses of champagne.

to people in positions of power in the university. So given that right that this was an event, I guess which reinforced the people who have authority in the university. It's interest to what's not interesting. It's upsetting to look at the nature of the process that these sixty seven people are facing, because it's not that they're not being accused in a court of doing a crime. They're being accused by the university in the university of breaking the

conduct rules of the university. So the university is like, it's all parties apart from the defendant. Right, it's a judge, it's a jury, it's a prosecuting lawyer and the executioner. So can you yeah, go ahead.

the music coage. To charge undergraduates who are are drinking in their terms sexually harassing their peers from their classes is not something that is in my view appropriate at all to apply to a labor dispute, which is what this was.

I think it's very telling that the university is kind of using one system to circumvent the fair bargaining and the unfair labor practices and all the things that they seem really like, they seem almost like inexplicably committed to not sticking to the contract, even though they got a contract that was largely favorable to them and not as much as people had wanted at the start of the strike. So how does it work from here? Like, what does this process look like?

sort of predetermined to serve on these conduct review boards will judge the weight of the evident in a preponderance of the evidence standard, and at that point then the Office of Student Conduct, if you are found responsible, I believe that office is then what decides what the sanctions are that you will face. So this this is a bit of an unprecedented process, at least for us we actually,

I believe, and I want to clarify some numbers. I think I said sixty seven graduate students earlier, they were actually fifty nine from this event who were charged, and that sixty seven comes from a to who were charged for a protest related to the university's attempt to fire

workers for striking, which is still ongoing. That protest took place in January, and there that conduct process for those eight workers has not yet resolved as we speak today on June twentieth, So it's not clear how they are going to manage the logistics of trying to charge six fifty nine workers in a single case. It could, assuming they follow their entire procedures by the book, and don't dismiss any charges. It could take more than a year to resolve this situation, Jesus.

be a time correct if I'm wrong on that. But what still could be the case is that you could you know, and could well be the case for me that I defend before the conclusion of this process, but it could still end up is something that would be on a contact record that could be released in certain employment situations. So even if you are able to escape the process, so to speak, it is not necessarily not going to follow you after that point.

respond to these. And I think that that was a decision that was purposefully made, but you know, to to process this is the sheer number of students involved in this is stidering, and I think that the office offices

are really struggling. The other thing that I will say is we have it from informal channels that this is something that is being directed from the very top, which is the same from the Chancellor's office, that this is not something that you know, in partial observers, you know, made of something that the chancellor himself is directing.

to go on strike, to march, to occupy the Chancellor's complex, and to like physically demand action for weeks and weeks if not months from the Chancellor's system, right like, and still it was extremely unsatisfactory process. The resolution was with extremely unsatisfactory. But I guess that there's.

Stories of sexual assaults, as you said, of racist harassment that I really don't know, actually parted the student last summer for very threatening behavior and the very nuxt square he was in my class.

a question? Really not who's responsible for it? So much? Right, Like you can accept responsibility for doing what was a protected First Amendment activity, but like you obviously can't accept responsibility for assault if you didn't assault somebody. But given that no one.

I don't believe they've made that determination yet. I think what they are trying to do now, and this sort of leads into another part that I think represents a degree of sort of apathy, border on bordering on cruelty of this process is that we've identified at least eighteen graduate students who were either not physically present at all or had merely registered for the event without even knowing that this would take place, and those people have all

been charged with the exact same things that everyone who was intentionally part of the protest has been. So we think that we're at the individual stage where they are trying to kind of they know that they they're well aware that they caught a bunch of people that had no involvement in this. But we think that we're using really these individual meetings to figure out who those people are to the best of their ability, and perhaps further down the line, they may decide to try to consolidate

these cases to expedite the process. But it's it's hard to say for sure. The again, this the the important aspect of this process is the fact that almost every element of it, in every step and how that is carried out, is entirely at the discretion of a handful of university administrators. There's no real appeal outside of the system, there's no real accountability outside of the system, so they can simply implement these things, you know, as as they see fit.

the deadline for you know, how this process proceeds. So it wasn't that they invented a rule to charge someone under but they did edit their own due processes they went along.

you know, unraveled, and I didn't think that. Obviously I had no plans of assaulting someone, and I did not assault anyone, So yeah, I had no reason to expect that perhaps I needed to take that level of precaution with this kind of a peaceful protest action. But we believe that they merrily got the names of who did who who they'd sided charge from simply registration lists. But again the fact and there was a sign in at this event where you picked up a name tag, and

you know, it was kind of a gate. You couldn't really get in without doing that. But they still gave charges to people who actually, we know for a fact were not physically present and have been able to prove that they were not physically present. So it doesn't seem that they even bothered to consult, at least initially, the actual sign in list of people who actually showed up and checked in, which is also a bit strange. But yeah, it seems to be a very haphazard process so far.

There are people who have been charged who weren't there. There are people who were there who haven't you know, necessarily been identified at this point in time. So it's it's it's a little bit of a mystery.

what to do with this. Has it had like a chilling effect on on campus organizing on protesting their ongoing contract violations.

are in Peopril. This ironically seems to be a huge miscalculation on the part of the university because a lot of those issues that they haven't gone away have been absolutely subsumed in the you know, the injury to one's an injury of mentality, so that there's a great amount of solidarity. But going into the summer, I don't think any work around campus really expected.

stuff as the process continues that people could join. Yeah, definitely, And and if if you sign that petition, that's one way where so the petition sort of has the dual goal of of sort of getting you know, demonstrating uh to the administration that there's a wide level of awareness of this issue and concern over this issue, but also to make sure that anyone who wants to be involved in any way that they're able to support us, will

be able to be kept in the loops. So if you use an email the address that you actually read when you sign the petition, you will certainly hear about any actions that we have. We are still very much in the early planning stages. As as Tom alluded to earlier, there is you know, a certain as there appears to be a certain aspect of strategizing here where the charges were given right at the point where campus becomes the least populated potentially of any time throughout the whole year

except perhaps Christmas. But you know, there's still plenty of graduate students here. They are all, you know, just as shocked as we are to see this unfolding. So I think we can definitely plan for, you know, some kind of actions to take place this summer.

they know I'm poor. But I think those of you who the u SEE is still calling for the nations, you know, that would be a good time to raise this or you know, you can email or whatever, an email the alumni office. But yeah, it's this is obscene and ridiculous and obviously like a continuation of union busting and their fundamental refusal to acknowledge student workers as workers apparently and only see people as students. And so, is there anything else you want people to know about this?

You anything else you'd like people to do to show solidarity before we wrap up?

solidarity for any protests. Yeah. Again, if you're a UC alum of any kind, certainly make your thoughts known to UCSD because apart from I would say that the two people, the two groups of people who have the most power to act in decent numbers in the situation our professors in alumni and and so that would be Yeah, like what you said, that's a huge a huge would be

a huge point of support. Other than that, I think just the way, you know, I've I've been here for almost six full years now, and you know I've four of those were without a union. I'm a student researcher, so our union is brand new, and you can go

back to November episode to hear that whole story. But my point is that, you know, before we had this kind of network and this kind of collective organization to protect our rights, a lot of you know, I've seen a lot of friends who, through no fault of their own, ended up in some kind of you know, one sided process where it's them versus the bureaucracy, whether that's you know, they're a bad relationship with their professor or or you know, any number of things that might have come up along

the way help issues leading to lower you know, not not finishing work on time and you know, getting on the bad side of advisors or anything like that. You know, it is very easy in the status quo of the way the large university works to fall through the cracks and to have a bureaucracy act in secrecy to just simply kind of remove you without anyone really saying a word. So I think the most important thing is to keep eyes on this, to make sure the university knows that

people are watching. That they can try to bring this process against us, but it is not going to be a pleasant experience because you know, the public and and the the the workers here in the community here are going to be watching and they're going to be supporting us. So I think just just keep keep an eye on the situation if you can, if it's something that that you're interested in and able to do, and that that's really the biggest way I think to support us.

absolute horror that has been unleashed in this country. And yeah, I'm going to be talking today and tomorrow with one of those people who is Crystals has the triple crown of abortion work of being an abortion worker, a union organizer, and on the on the board of an abortion fund. Yeah, welcome to the show, Crystal, and I'm sorry.

it's just gets more horrible every single week. And that's you know, I sound so negative saying that, I know, but I just know that I'm saying that knowing that there's so many amazing people who are doing like abortion advocacy and abortion care work and offering abortion services and practical support for abortion, and it has just been an incredibly heavy year for us. We've seen, we've all witnessed a lot in the last year, and we're all carrying

a lot, and it's it's it's just hard. And I'm really grateful for everyone that I work with and that I'm in community with, but it's it's been traumatizing. I know that, you know, it's really easy to say. I think like, oh, you know, this is traumatic, and that's traumatic, But I don't know what else, what other word to use to having to having had witnessed everything that we've witnessed in the last year and to know that there's no end in sight. It is incredibly traumatic. It's like

a national trauma. We're all sharing it together.

If I can point like when did I really know that we were we were fucked and we were going to like we were going to see the worst outcome, I would say on September first, twenty twenty one.

legal system, and o there are new bands. There's pretty much been a new band, it feels like pretty much every week, to the point where I know that I just named a couple of states just now, and just to be cautious, I just want to say that, you know, look, you can go to like abortionfinder dot org or I need ana dot Com and like look up your state to see, you know, if you have access in your state.

It changes so frequently that you really do have to kind of rely on those reliable websites like abortion Finder and I need an a to really make sure that you're up to date. So you know, don't like if I mentioned a state, you know, just it might have been there might have been something in effect months ago and I'm just like alluding to it. So just definitely rely on those resources that exist to see what's up

to date now. But yeah, things have been incredibly back and forth for a lot of states in the last year. And it's it's just there are holes in access, deserts and access that just keep widening and widening and widening. The most devastating being recently this This was just this was a really bad day for for me and and a lot of my coworkers when there was the vote in Florida, and and the Florida Band is not yet

an effect, but we'll eventually be going into effect. And and that was really like one of the last places that you could access an abortion in the Southeast. So now when you look at a map, which I do a lot, I I now have to look at a map every single day for work and look at like you know, individual state maps, and like I'm on Google

Maps constantly. But there there's there are places where you have no choice but to travel to get an abortion or access abortion services online if that is possible for you, and you know there there are resources available where if you as an individual need an abortion and you keep looking and you search and you reach out to people,

those resources are out there, you know. So practical support groups exist, funding exists, Clinics and service providers will bend over backwards to get you to your appointment and help you access these services, so you know there is help out there, but it is it's really difficult, and it's it takes a lot of work to access an appointment.

So everything's it takes longer to get to an appointment, it takes you have to travel further, you end up paying so much more money, Like everything is just so much more expensive than it was a year ago, because now you're not just paying, you know, for the procedure cost and then maybe like a little bit of gas money to the appointment. You're having to figure out plane tickets, hotels, ask money for whatever, like really long distances. I've seen

patients driving twelve hours to get to an appointment. Yeah, And I can talk more about like what that process looks like too, but I guess I just wanted to give like a general overview of it's just getting harder to access, longer distances traveling, and and and more expensive. And luckily there is people. There are people there to help and there is support, but it requires a ton of work, a ton a ton of work in order to make sure that people are getting the health care that they need.

make sure that they get healthcare. And that's just one person. So the only reason that abortions are still happening is because one people are putting that work in and make sure that they happen, and like, you know, those people are amazing and also pay, like people seeking healthcare are amazing.

They're incredibly brave to be doing what they're doing, to be working so hard to get healthcare, to be navigating all of these obstacles that you have to be like, that's what you have to be strong to do that. That's an incredibly brave thing to do, having to fly in an airplane if you've never flown before to access health care that you know you need. Like you're you're being really strong and you're being amazing, but you don't you shouldn't have to do that. And so it's a

lot of money. So thank god that the money is there, because if the money wasn't there, then people would not be able to be helped. So I know that, like you know, oh, donate to abortion fund, don'tate to an abortion pun but really, like if you want people to continue to get abortions now, not just waiting until like November in an election, then you need to make sure that the money is there for people to do that because it is expensive.

who need this. And I don't know, I mean, I think there's something really bleak about the where society is structured, where your freedom and your bodily autonomy are dependent on having money. But that's basically where we're at, right Like that's 'eah's that's the way the system works right now.

their appointments. And I can like talk out that process too, like you know, what does it look like now?

you know, we'd have to work out financial assistance. And then also abortion care is often just like a really intimate type of healthcare to be accessing, so there's a lot of factors sometimes to discuss with the person that was accessing services, and it could be really complicated with

all of those factors. So you know, like it's always been pretty labor intensive to schedule someone sometimes, but it was it was fairly you know, fairly short phone call for the most part most of the time, and then you just get somebody scheduled and then you move on and you schedule someone else. And that was six years ago.

For me. And I'm not saying that more difficult situations didn't come up, because of course abortion access was not good six years ago either, but the way in which it's changed is so marked, and I feel like there's so many people have witnesses where it went from from that to it taking weeks to work with one individual to get them to an appointment because there is no clinic within eight hours driving distance to them, and so the whole intake process and the whole just like getting

the funds together, I guess I'll just walk you through it because I just I don't even know how else to relate. So let's say, just like hypothetically, you know, you're an individual who is living in a band state and they're the closest actual brick and mortar abortion clinic to is nine hours away, which is the situation for so many people that I talk to and that are

living in the United States. And let's say you don't have a car, and you have children, and you don't want everybody to know your business, so you like, you don't want everybody in your family knowing that you need an abortion and that you're looking for that type of health care, so you're trying to do what you can by yourself, and you're googling, and you're looking at different resources.

And what I witness a lot as a healthcare worker helping someone through this process is there's a lot of dead ends when people are trying to find someone that can provide them with those abortion services. They you know, they're looking at the clinics that are close to them, and they're seeing that they're nine hours away and they can't get to them. They're looking up fight tickets and they're seeing it's like eight hundred dollars for their and back and they can't afford that on top of the

procedure cost. And let's just say hypothetically they're early in the pregnancy and the procedure might cost maybe four hundred, five hundred and six hundred dollars, which is still a

lot of money. That's still a lot of money, So I don't want to pretend like that's not But on top of that, then there's also the plane tickets, trying to find a way to the airport and all of that, and they're just reaching a lot of dead ends like I can't possibly go here, and I can't possibly go here, and okay, like maybe I can go online and order some medication, but it might not arrive for several weeks,

and what if it doesn't arrive? I mean, that's like a really scary thing to be doing, like knowing you need healthcare and knowing that you're relying on the mail and like hoping that you get your packet and that

you can trust wherever you're purchasing the medication from. And if you can't even really like let's say that you're you're further along and you may be are like twenty weeks, and your options are incredibly more limited, and you're paying a lot more if you don't have insurance coverage with most people don't, so you're paying like maybe up to on like two thousand and three thousand, four thousand for

a procedure. And you just need help, and you need to ask for help, which is already like a not a good spot to be in because you're accessing health care and you have no choice but to ask for help and you shouldn't have to.

personal for you. And you wish you didn't have to tell people, or you wish you didn't have to talk to so many people about an appointment because you know, for most healthcare appointments, even though healthcare in general is not easy to access, you just call and you schedule the appointment and maybe you have to pay a copay and that's annoying, and then maybe the appoint is four months out and that's awful too, But you know, it's

this just makes everything worse for the individual. So let's just say, like, you know, they keep trying, and they keep trying, and they keep looking, and you know, let's say they get to me, and I'm somebody who I do. I do scheduling now for patients who need to travel, and I help them get financial assistance for the cost of travel and for their appointment. So a lot of times when I get in touch with someone, they've already encountered so many dead ends. And when I am not

the dead end. They're filled with so much relief that a lot of times this happens almost every day now, someone will get in touch with me and they'll just start crying when I tell them that I can help them. And that is not a good feeling, because I feel like maybe in like other types of work, or maybe even like before, like maybe years ago, like when somebody was like great, it might feel good, like, oh, I'm

so glad I can help them. But when someone who is like a caregiver, a worker, somebody who needs health care and they're scared and they're crying out of relief, it does not feel good. It makes me feel really horrible because they have already been robbed of their dignity by the time that I talk to them, and I hate that. It's just it's disgusting that they've already been put in this situation that is dehumanizing, and I just it doesn't feel good when they cry in relief. It

just does not feel good. So, just continuing this the tale of you know, this patient accessing an appointment. So so let's say you know they can get an appointment in a clinic, it's not in their state because there's no it's not legal to provide an abortion in their state, so they have to travel two states away and get to the clinic. So the flight tickets are eight hundred dollars and the cost of the appointment is four hundred.

So already that's twelve hundred dollars, which luckily, I am so grateful and glad that I have the ability to arrange financial assistance for that, and I can work with individuals to do that. Thank thank the Lord, like they honestly, I shouldn't, no, not thank the Lord, thank the people the Lord. Yeah, yeah, like thank these people so much. I'm just like so glad they exist and they're there

and that they're such hard workers. Oh my god. But yeah, So that's twelve hundred dollars that we can that we can look into covering so that way the person pays whatever they are capable of paying, even if that's nothing, because you know, some of these people like like they're living paycheck to paycheck because they're taking care of their children and like their family is coming first. That is what is happening, is they are taking care of their

family and they are being a good caregiver. So the you know, the money is going to food on the tape. So that's that's like twelve hundred dollars. But then there's a couple other things you have to factor in, is like does this person need a hotel because that can be an additional what like one hundred and two hundred depending And does this person have a car? Can they pay for the gas money, especially if they're driving, because like let's say they can get to an airport, but

the airport is still two hours away. You still need gas money. You still have to park at the airport. You gotta pay for airport parking. And then you get on the air You get on the airplane and you fly over to the state where your appointment is. You get off the airplane, and then there is surge pricing for Lyft and Uber and let's say the Uber, it can be anywhere from like maybe fifty dollars or one hundred dollars depending on what's going on. And that is just more money that needs to be spent.

already traveled, like they've been on a journey. So they arrived to the appointment and get the health care that really should have been what they should have been able to focus on, and then they got to go back,

so then they got to do the whole thing. They got through, go through airport security, get back, get the uber from the airport, and then let's say they have a two hour flight back, and that's I mean, that could be done all than one day, but sometimes it can't be, Like sometimes it's just not possible to do all that in one day. And that's like another obstacle that I come across is that a lot a lot.

I would say, most of the patients I talk to are already parents, so they're like, I have to be back that evening because I don't have childcare overnight, Like

I don't have overnight childcare. So then I'm like trying to get them back the same evening because because they're a parent, and then like, can you imagine just like you know, just like imagine your own parents, like your own like mom just like zipping away for one day to go get like a really simple health care procedure, and then they have to like rush back and you're

already in bed, and it's just so stressful. It's so stressful for the for the parent, for any any family members that might be like kind of like sharing this whole stressful experience with them, any friends, any loved ones. And it's just you have.

are really important. But that's also that's a lot. That's a lot, and that's a lot on top of like an intimate healthcare appointment. And you know, just just outlining how much someone has to do to get to an appointment, there's even a couple other factors to consider too, because a lot of these people who are having to fly or drive these long distances to their appointment, they would

have never been in that situation otherwise. So you know, these are individuals who have never flown on a plane before, maybe because like they've just never been in a situation in which they needed to fly on a plane. They've always been able to drive to like vacations and everything, like you know, like oh, family vacation, you drive maybe like four hours and you know, you have fun, and you just don't want to go on a plane. It makes you nervous. That's a lot of people live like that.

So all of a sudden, these people have no choice, like, oh, you have to get on a plane and otherwise you're gonna have to drive twelve thirteen hours. So they get on a plane and they're scared because they've never done

it before. Because they're already stressed out that they're going to a doctor's appointment, They're already stressed out that they're relying on basically strangers to get them there, which is that's like a whole other topic is like you have to rely on strangers, and that's you know, people shouldn't have to do that. And then also you have to navigate an airport. So a lot of my job has become looking at maps, Like I'm looking at a map, like how far away is this someone from a clinic?

How far away are they from an airport? You know, can they go here? Can they go here? But I'm also on the phone with people kind of describing how airports work, like here's what airport security looks like. People are afraid of TSA, and I don't blame them. I fucking hate TSA. They're always passholes. Fuck them. They make everything worse. You got to go through TSA and you gotta yeah, I gotta know how to get your tickets, and you got to know how to where, you know,

to get to a terminal. A lot of people don't like if you've never flown before, they might not know that they're supposed to get on that little training you know, you know what I'm talking about, Like you will train, you go to your terminal, and like a lot of people don't know that, and all of a sudden they have to find out really fast and I have to explain it. And that's part of their abortion care. Part of people's abortion care is now talking them through an airport,

and that that has sucks. That's become like the daily experience. That's become the daily experience where it's like, yeah, six years ago, these used to be like, Okay, I'm gonna bookr appointment. You're going to come in. Your appointment's going to be maybe like I don't know, five hours, and then you and then you leave and you drive home and maybe you're only driving like thirty minutes, maybe an hour,

maybe two hours. And now we're having people who you know, flights or it's a twelve hour drive, who are a flight there, who are a flight back. The flight lands at like midnight, you know, like and then your kids are in bed, and it's like it's so much and you can see why people give up, and people are giving up. In fact, the numbers are the numbers are

hard to hear. I know that there was a study that showed that in the first six months after the DABS decision, thirty six thousand people who wanted an abortion couldn't get one, and that is only in the first six months, So I'm sure that that number is much I'm like dreading seeing new numbers, but I'm sure the number is much higher now. So when you're faced with all of this, people do give up because it is too much, which is the whole point of all of

the bands and everything that's happened. The point was to make people give up. And I think that a lot of leftists maybe don't want to acknowledge that people are giving up. They want to believe that people will keep trying and they'll find those resources and they will get to the appointments because help is available, but not everyone finds the help that is out there, and not everyone can make it work. Like there's a lot of reasons why people can't do this ridiculous thing I just described.

trying to get the healthcare that they're looking for? They're changing their entire plans, like you know, because like everyone, not everyone, but a lot of people have like ideas of what they're doing with their life, and they're like, I want to have this many kids, I want to have them at these times, and I want to be with this person, or I don't want to be with anyone, and I want to work this job and go to

the school or whatever. You know, you're making plans and then all of a sudden, because of this situation, you have to change your plans. And there's even worse things happening than that. But I think that that's bad enough, is that you can't get what you need and you just have to just change your life and accept defeat and take a path that you did not want to take. And it's fucking sad. And it's more than sad sad as an understatement, I don't know what word it is.

It's horrible because this has been taken from them, The choice has been taken from them completely, and that's that is going to have effects that we are going to see for decades to come, and that's kind of hard to wrap your brain around, like what does it mean for that and tens of thousands of people to not have had the health care that they need. It means that we're going to see like the negative health effects for years to come because that is a lot of people.

That is a lot of that's a lot of people, and that's going to impact people in really long term ways for a really long time. And knowing that is really I don't know, words are kind of failing me. Yeah, it's like it's like beyond traumatic, beyond Yeah, I'm sure there will be studies in years from now, I'm sure, but like it's been a year and I can say, like it's those it's gonna the data is going to be really bad. The data is going to be really bad based on everything that I've already seen.

than that. Where where you are, you're risking death because pregnancy is incredibly dangerous. So there are people who who are putting themselves in really dangerous situations with their pregnancies, and they're being denied the care that they need. So you see people who are being forced to risk their life because they can't get the care they need, and

people are losing their body parts and their fertility. Because recently I read a story and then there's these horror stories every day, which I like, I read them because I want to know everything that's happening, but I also am so resentful that like every day there's like a

new like horror story about these services. But recently there was someone there was somebody who wasn't able to get timely abortion care it had to continue pregnancy, ended up losing her uterus, even though she did not she wanted to have more kids. She like wanted to continue having children. So all of a sudden, because she couldn't get an abortion, she couldn't continue to expand her family in the way that she wanted.

that's that's a big thing. You know, a lot of times they it makes sense that if they're trying to get away from someone that you know, they don't want to continue the pregnancy. So and then that might be something that the partner might be intimately involved in where either they know about it or they don't know about it, and if they know about it, they could be pressuring the individual. It's unfortunately something that is often a component of this healthcare is that that is a factor that

the person seeking healthcare is dealing with. So in terms of and all of this is I'm like, this is all really really triggering stuff too, and so trigger warning. But with Gabrielle A Gonzalez, that was something that happened. I think it was in it was in May. I remember it was in mid May. Because the news hit it hit hard for us for like a lot of abortion care workers and practical support you know, advocates, because it's the thing that we we try so hard to

keep our patients safe. When they disclose things to us, you know they we the patient safety is the number one priority. And the fact of the matter is these bands make it harder for people to access the services safely. So in the case of Gabriella Gonzalez, I just want to say her name. She was a mother of three children. She was twenty six years old when she was murdered by her ex partner after she accessed an abortion in

another state. So she was located in Texas, she had to travel to Colorado to get an abortion, and when she came back, unfortunately, she was murdered by her ex. And just like a couple, just like a couple of things on that is. It's just if you are trying to be discreet and you're trying to take care of your health care, it's hard to keep things private if you have to fly to another or drive to another state.

It's just this situation is is just so much more complicated than it would be if you could access those services at home or near where you are. It's easier to keep that information private, it's easier to handle that situation in a timely way. So I feel like I mean,

our country is failing everyone pretty much. But I'm torn apart and devastated and this was this news hit so hard to learn about Gabriella Gonzalez and what happened to her, and knowing that, you know, we try so hard to keep our patients safe and being careful about communications, being careful about what we hand patients, even like there are sometimes like it's like, well, I cannot give you any handouts, So here's how we're going to provide you the information,

because it's you know, people can't even have that information on their phone or or in their purse on their person, and trying so hard and then just having like the state defy you in every way, and and it's just really it's trapping people in the in this these violent situations that you say, I mean, these situations have always existed, but ever since these abortion bands went into effect, it is made them even even more dangerous.

These are also you know, like again these are there's a reason. These are also people who want to end out fall divorce, right, like they like their entire ideology is based on men being able to and flip violence, yep.

just it's fucking awful. It's so fucking bad. And I know that, like, like where do I go from there after saying like the worst in.

way that it like literally can never recover. And that is the thing that is possible, right it is, it is possible to completely destroy political movements. It is possible to just drive them so far underground that people forget they even existed. And you know, and then that has happened to movements before that were you know, as powerful

as this one. So it can be done. It's just it requires, you know, I mean, it requires a level of political will that most that you know, a politicians don't give a shit about because this is not something that affects them.

it's very little. Like the biggest win that we've had is mif a pristone not being banned, which is horrible because like, oh and then that was that whole yeah thing, that whole step, but that's like a whole other thing. But that is such a blique win, especially since it's not even gone and we're going to see this issue

come back with mif a pristone. And and that's another thing too, because if that does happen, like misapristal is amazing, and misa prostal is very effective, and taking mesaprostal only for abortion is effective, but it's also more symptomatic and given just like you know, like we were talking about people like just people being exposed to violence, people having to act doing just like moving mountains and having to cross mountains and go on a journey to get these

abortion services and literally what can be often a thirty minute to an hour appointment if you're you know, lucky. It's not always like that, but anyways, like these services aren't complicated, like you know, like it's not like a like these y, yeah, we have the technology, Like like to get medication, you just go and you get the medication. They tell you how to take the medication, and they make sure they can prescribe you the medication. You get it.

It's not like that can be like a fifteen minute appointment. And then if you're if you're like under a certain gestational age, a first time master abortion can be only like five minutes. Like this, This is not complicated healthcare. This is very simple healthcare. And you're adding all these extra factors in so when you're when you have to prescribe someone in medication that is more symptomatic, which is

just adding like it's just one more complication. And the attack on abortion services has always been death by a thousand cuts, and this is just like one more cut that we really really do not need. So but that was a win and and and it's like that is such a shitty win. And then you have some states that are becoming like sanctuary states where they're like, you know where I hate I hate saying that word. I'm

so sorry. I didn't mean to say sanctuary states because it's really not that, but they're saying like we're a safe place for you to get an abortion and we're never we're always gonna have abortion services. And it's like, what does that mean if you have so many patients traveling from other states that you're booking five weeks A.

like nothing? Right, and this and this is something that like, Okay, you know, if if if you look at the way the right has been like fucking dealing with this, right, it's at every single step, right, you know, they they're constantly involved in lawsuits, they they're they're constantly pushing the boundaries and doing literally whatever they can within the within and without the bounds.

wage this kind of campaign that the Republicans have been like, they're not gonna wage a pro access campaign on the scale at all, Right, but they're not gonna not gonna wage on the scale the Republicans have been doing to like make sure that you fucking can't get these services.

a ripple effect. And I feel like I talked about this last time when I was on talking to you, where Okay, you can't get these healthcare services near you, so you go somewhere else, and the people locally can't get those services, so then they have to travel further and there's like this ripple effect to the point where like I'm sure that like blue states are seeing more

appointments than ever. And I know for a fact like here in Pennsylvania, here in Pittsburgh, where literally we're seeing we're always seeing people in Ohio just because they'll even though abortion is legal in Ohio. It's just there's a lot of restrictions there, so it's a little tricky. But then there's like West Virginia and like Kentucky and Tennessee, and you're seeing so many more patients so you're booking

out further. And it's like if you're let's say you're eight weeks and you find out, so if you're eight weeks pregnant, then you're you've only missed your period like for like a couple of weeks. It's really like, you know, you can find out you're eight weeks, right, You're like, you just found out, really, and you call somewhere near you to get an appointment, but the appointment is five weeks away, so all of a sudden, you go from eight weeks to thirteen weeks. It's like, what the heck.

It's like yeah, like it's totally different options, like and that's happening in blue states, and it's like, so this is impacting literally everyone, but no politicians or even like big talking heads are really doing anything about it because it just gets worse. There's just more bands constantly.

Like it's bullshit. It's always been fucking bullshit. They don't mean it, and you know, all of the fucking like this is the sanctuary state thing is just like a thing that they fucking say so that they can you know, just sort of like like rally the based support and like build towards whatever presidential run they're going to do in twenty like thirty two whatever. And it doesn't. It's not it's not helping people and it's just not going to.

I am so I'm full of so much anger that it's it's sometimes numbing, Like sometimes I'm just so angry that I kind of feel nothing like it kind of like it's like it's so far down the spectrum that I like just it just turns into like a non emotion basically, like so much anger that it's blinding and

feels like nothing, And I don't even know what. I don't even know what to do with it other than focus into just like continuing to provide healthcare where it's like, oh, I'm so angry and I'm so mad and I feel so terrible. I Am going to make sure that this person gets an abortion. Like that's what I can do. I can I can get people to an appointment, and

I don't I want to do more. I want to go and and just like raise everything to the ground and be like, like you were saying, but I can't be the only one doing that, Like we all have to do yeah, like we all have to raise everything in the ground because this is so untenable and so unfair and and is creating such a huge ripple of suffering that we're all going to be experiencing for decades.

And I'm really bitter about it. I'm super angry and super bitter, and and it's not going to get better too, it's not I have to be honest about that, because if I'm not, then I'm not going to be prepared. But we're going to continue to see these bands, They're not going away right now. Then if a person issue is going to come back and we're going to keep seeing it and it's spreading, and you know, I know that that's like a whole other topic too, but the

ripple effects are really immense. And every time someone is hurt, well every individual, like when I heard that thirty six thousand number, that really hurt, yeah, because you know, I know how many patients I've seen in the last year, and it is it's less than thirty six thousand. So like, every time I help someone, I'm so happy and I'm like, yes, you know, I helped this person get healthcare, I'm really happy.

And then I look at that thirty six thousand number and I'm like, oh my god, there are so many other people who were not able to find help. And I'm and I don't like, like I said, like, I don't even feel good when someone is like thanking me and they oftentimes people will say, people will say to me, I hear this almost every day. You have no idea how grateful and thankful I am. And it's like, I really don't. I don't know because I'm not in your shoes.

And I feel I'm and I'm sorry that I that you had to come to me like this, like I'm sorry, I feel I'm so sad in like such a deep visceral way that when someone is saying like you'll never know know how thankful I am that they just weren't able to go to their local doctor's office or even have the medication mail to them and and have it like come in like two days and just take it and follow up with the doctor on the phone if needed, you know, something super simple which would make sense. And

I am just I'm I just I hate it. I fucking hate it. I just keep coming to that. I'm like, this is so bad, this is so bad. I'm gonna keep doing it, but it sucks.

the healthcare system, including trends healthcare. But in the meantime, we have an enormous number of links to different abortion funds and various abortioned worker groups who also need your support, So yeah, please support them, and yeah, so that that's gonna be the next episode is because again again like this this isn't a you know, once you have like an evil like this has been unleashed into the world, it doesn't just stay in one place, right, It keeps moving,

It keeps going after different people, it keeps expanding, and

it keeps just rippling through the world. And so we're goen we talking about that, We're gonna be talking about yeah, you know, I mean, the fights that abortion workers have been having, and then we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna give you a brief bit of hope at the end of what you can do, because like, fuck it, the world does not need to be like this, Like this is not you know, I mean, there's there's the old David Graber lines like that is the ultimate hidden truth

of this world is that it is something that we make and could just as easily make differently.

They are being so amazing and I love them. And also I know that the Chicago Abortion Fund is a huge fund, but I just I love them so much, so I just they can't have enough money. Just go donate too, They're so amazing. So Texas Equal Access Fund, the T Fund, the Chicago Abortion Fund, they're doing such important work. So you know, if you if you're looking for someone outside of your local abortion fund which you should be supporting, then also check them out as well.

The thing that is worstening today is the rights war and abortion, which they are winning and are continuing to win, is not contained to simply abortion. It has been spreading. It has been getting worse. And yeah, with me to talk about it is Crystal, who once again is an abortion worker and abortion union organizer and on the on the on the board of a bail fund, not bail fund,

Jesus Rist. Sorry, I'm getting my I'm getting my getting my funds crossed in my mind on the board of a of a of a Jesus Christ.

because we're all we're in America, we're all losing. We're all losing here except for the fascists.

being pumped out. People can just like literally plug in the templates and share them and it can be applied to a number of different things in different states and

and copy copycat legislation. So it worked, and where we're we are because that strategy worked and did not get enough resistance, not enough was done to combat that strategy on the left with Democrats, and it immediately spread to the next autonomy based issue because and not saying that it didn't start before that, because you know, these fascists have been going after all kinds of issues of autonomy for decades, abortion being one of them, you know, prison,

prison abolition being one of them, and then also trans healthcare and just you know LGBT in general, but like specifically trans healthcare that we have been seeing, we are seeing a lot of the same restrictions and bands UH spreading to that very quickly, like faster than I. I mean, like I knew things were bad. You would think that

I would just like you know, expect the worst. But like I, I didn't think that we would see the legislation for the anti trans health UH healthcare and gender firming services legislation move as fast as it has, like I should have and I didn't, And it's been incredibly fast, and it feels so similar and I should I don't even want to say it feel similar. It is. It's when I when I'm seeing it happen, I'm like, this is the same thing. They're using trap laws, which are

laws that so uh, target actual providers. I mean, I guess you can't really call them trap laws because abortion providers in that.

it's impacting other types of health care services. And it's I and I'm seeing a lot of the same legal back and forth where it's like, oh, this law went into effectively, for example in Florida, and oh now it's being challenged in court, so it's it's not being it's not enforced right now, so it kind of go back goes back to the way it does before, which I mean, it's always good to see a restriction temporarily paused in a band temporarily paused because that relief is needed. I

see that in abortion care. Like when when there is a band that is temporarily reversed by the courts, it is like, thank thank god, I'm so happy, you know, we get some really we can we can see people for their healthcare services tomorrow. However, that back and forth is incredibly confusing and creates confusion and chaos on a like on a mass scale, because it's like can I access these services? Can I not access these services? Can I get these services in the stage where I have

to travel out of state? It's more than like the individual can keep up with and confusion is the point. So like when I'm seeing some of these bands related to trans health services, I'm like, Okay, you know, I'm glad that I'm pretty sure. I have to admit I have not read the news in the last couple of days, so I don't know if this has been walked back, but it seems like Florida has some relief right now. But I just know what that mass confusion looks like

for individuals, And I'm like, this is so similar. Oh my god, this is this is the same type of fight. This is the same fight.

it because they're transphobed. But you know, like one of the one of the things is very that's just fucking awful about this stuff is that like the people who are reporting on this don't understand how these laws work.

And so you know, like I mean, like I this is my job, right, Like I cover this for a living, and I will read a report about something and I can't tell what the law does because the person writing the fucking there's the stupid ass journalists who they've hired who like have never talked to a transperson in their life, and like are only tangentially aware of what the law is, like like the concept of the law is something they

were introduced to two years ago. Like they don't fuck they don't fucking know what these bills do, right, so you have to like go actually read the bill, But that doesn't help because you know this this is yeah, this is like this is I think a very similar strategy of like there's there's this way in which like

constant onslaught constant sort of confusion, constant terror. And also you know and the way that the strategy right now that that is being sort of relied on the stop this stuff is to the courts that that is very similar to what the entire struggle over abortion wies look like.

And you know, we know how that ended it. It doesn't It didn't work, and it's not going to work with with with transpertes either, and like it, and and you know, and I think something that like we're we're going to see more of as you know, because like a water some of these bands will be struck down, but you know you're gonna get the abortion thing where it's like okay, so you like one bag gets struck down,

so they pass another one. Then you just keep passing them until they can find one that their fucking judges will make.

like it hasn't changed. And seeing that also happen, it's like, well, people need health care now, like with abortion care and trans healthcare, it's like you need that health care when you need it, like right now today tomorrow, and when there is confusion and this back like the because the courts take forever like it, it's and it changes a lot, and it's confusing when you see the news stories like you were saying, So it's interfering and lowering the quality

of accessing like lowering the quality of that healthcare and accessing that health care like the experience of accessing that health care now like today. And it's it's cumulative because like you, you lose the ability to keep track of what you have the right to do and what you don't and and these are these are the same, like they are issues of controlling your life and your body and of privacy is well, you know, your ability, it's like your business. It's your body, and the state is

getting in the way. And and it hurts so much to see this happening to even more people, because it's it's hard enough watching what happens to people who need abortions and seeing what they go through, and then having to see even more people who are also trying to access healthcare to help them have control over their lives and their bodies also having that, you know, having that impeded and and and and taken away from them too with a different type of health care, and seeing like

that is just like, oh my god, Like not only were we able, we were not able to maintain these services in this country, and we're also seeing it happened to another type of health care. And and another thing too is like abortion providers are also trans healthcare providers. Like yeah, it's it's like body stuff. It's like you know, like it's they're they're like often the same building.

don't know. I mean, I think I think in terms of the people who actually do organizing, I think it's it like it's understood that it is the same fight, but I don't think it is as much in the general republic, even though the like for the people you're fighting against, they are you know, incredibly like viscerally and disturbingly clear about like what they want to do and about the fact that you know, like destroying people's autonomies and using the state to take control of me just

like literally physically take control of their bodies and define what they are, which is something they do, like you know what I mean, then this is this is this is the thing that's been happening in these anti transpils too, is like they've been like like legally defining what a woman is by like reproductive apparatuses and stuff like that.

my god. And we're also like we're punishing people for not having like perfect health and like perfect pregnancies and being born into the body that you know what I mean, Like people are being punished for not being the ideal cause like and I've asked, I've like stupidly asked this out loud, where I'm like, you know, I've asked out loud, like why are these bands so restrictive where people who are pregnant and you know, like they're just not having

a perfect pregnancy, like there are complications like which which happened, and they're like being punished for not having the perfect pregnancy by these laws, like these abortion restrictions. And I'm like why would they do that, Like why like how can you not know that pregnancies go wrong? And how would you not know that? And then somebody said to me they were like, well, you know, like E've was punished with the ability with dangerous pregnancies, like if you

look at their religion, like it was a punishment. So I'm like, yeah, like they're they just believe we should be like punished for not being born in the right body, not having the perfect pregnancy, not wanting a pregnancy, you know, like you're being punished for not and having the ideal because they believe that it is a it's a punishment just like in I guess I'm trying to think of

the word like naturally intrinsically or something. I don't know, and I don't subscribe to that ideology, but it's being forced on us.

The actual point of the state in neoliberalism and this and you know, and this is one that's incredibly compatible with the sort of like with the sort of religious fascists that they allied themselves with in order to come into power. Right, the way that's actually manifested is is just through the state directly taking control of your body. Because you know, like people, people aren't actually fucking natural

market subjects. They're not Like a woman is not as as these like stupid assholes always insist is like, oh, someone who gives birth, Like no, that's just like not true. That's not true. It's not and so and because it's not right. But people, because that's the image that they have to like force you into. The only way they can do that is by using state violence to physically take control as your body and shape you into the thing that they think you are.

these things are a silo by themselves. They're all kind of embedded together, and the effect of that is that it's kind of become impossible to be a doctor and a healthcare provider for a lot of these services because they're so entwined and because like you know, we all we have our bodies, and like our bodies aren't in separate like can take our body parts, aren't in separate containers, Like they're all like we're like all connected, Like it's

all connected, and you can't really have one without the other. And now we're seeing doctors who can't safely do there what they have to do, like provide like the healthcare to like appropriate medical standards within these laws that exist. So you see doctors who are like, wow, I can't actually perform the healthcare that I need to perform without potentially losing my license, so I'm just going to leave

the state. So you see a lot of doctors. Uh, there's been a lot of news stories about doctors, particularly the ones that I've seen. I'm sure that there's other types of doctors too, but like you know, obstetricians and obgyns who are leaving states because they cannot safely practice the medicine as it's as you know, as science and medicine wants them to, you know that without risking losing their license. So they're just leaving and these are states

that need those doctors. I mean, there's a lot that can be said about maternal and infomortality rates in the United States. So the fact that you have obg i ns like fleeing states, and I'm sure these are states that need those doctors and have low standard like low or have just like low quality outcomes or like bad

outcomes when it comes to maternal and infomortality. And you're seeing this and it's like, well, this is just making all kinds of health care worse, Like it's becoming less safe to just be pregnant in general, even if you

are caring and delivering a pregnancy in these states. And I'm sure that you're going to see this also happen because of these trans healthcare bands and say you're going to see doctors fleeing in areas in which those doctors are needed because they are risk of losing their license and not being able to practice.

my healthcare. Labor is that like just everywhere, even even in even in sectors where like there's no there's no sort of legal threat, right, there's They're just massive labor shortages because these these for these for profit healthcare companies are you know, don't want to fucking bring in another person on a shift because that costing more money and that's less money than they can pocket. And you know, and yeah, and and and and but and both both

abortion services and trans healthcare are fields. I mean there are just there's just not that many people. Like they're just like the the the numbers are so small that like like I can I can ask my friends and they know like every provider in the city.

other parallels. Right, this is like Chicago has always been I mean not always, but for I mean like half a century, probably longer than that, has been a place where people like trans people from around the country, particularly from the South, have like uprooted their lives and fled to because it was a place where you could actually get care and you know, but like but even here, it's fucking hard as ship.

are leaving states. Becomes even harder, the services that already exist just even more over tax and it's just like it's the exact same like collapse just like rippling through the entire sector.

threatened with violence. You're also having to deal with patients who who are also experiencing the same national health crisis that you are, Like you're experiencing it together, Like this is something like it's not like, oh, I'm suffering by myself as a worker, or oh, these patients are suffering as individual I mean they are suffering into visual but

you know, like they're not suffering alone as individuals. They're experiencing like the same sort of like grief is like a lot of the other people who are accessing the

same services as them. And it's like, while we are all in this sinking boat together, and and it's so hard to recruit into these roles, so like we need more more abortion care and trans health providers, and it's hard to get people to commit to that when you you can't live on that and you can't sustain that, like you can't stay in that job and keep doing it for years when you're literally being like you're you're

you're being traumatized, you're experiencing suffering, You're witnessing suffering.

like it is being realized more and more now. But you know, the more people who learn it, the better and the ways in which just I just feel like the DABS decision and the overturn of Robi Wade meant more than just people couldn't get abortions. I think it's just the destruction of healthcare in general in this country and it turned it into like just like a mad dash to do the exact same thing to health services that trans people need.

through that. I don't we need to figure out what

their name for the version of the anti translorts. But you know, so they're being specifically targeted by the state, and then they're also fighting a conflict with their own employers and whether that's whether that's private healthcare providers or that's NGOs who are you know, don't want to pay them shit, you know, our funnel are funneling all of this fucking money into paying somebody's fucking dipshit cousin like three hundred thousand dollars a year to be like the

device executive director of like policy marketing or something. And yeah, and and and the way, the way in which you know this this is this has turned into a union struggle that is deeply like it kind of in a lot of ways, deeply unpopular among liberals because they just don't they don't see like healthcare providers as workers.

And I know I've had uh peers in the kemmunity and the abortion providing and abortion advocacy community say things like, you know, you expect a snake to be a snake, Like you know that the right is going to attack you and the fascists are going to do whatever they can to take away your right to autonomy and privacy. But it hurts a lot more. Like personally, I think

it hurts so much more. And it's been so painful in the last year to see the ways in which the people on our side, the people who have the same goals as us, ultimately like of like, you know, we want people to have abortions and we want people to access health care, and they are to have them hurt you, yeah, because yeah, because like they're not supposed to be snakes, And it hurts. It hurts a lot more.

And a lot of the same people don't. I feel like they're the same kind of folks who didn't understand the immediacy of needing to protect because so you know, LGBT, I feel like we should have gone harder for the tea, you know, like all these years, like how long has we have we had the acronym lgbt and like, and it's like this whole time, it's like we like we

could have seen this coming. We shouldn't. It was like it clearly was like the same with Roe v wa where it's like they are coming for Roe v Wade, this is coming. We could have done so much more to prepare. And I feel like in the a lot of the same way, the same people who are like devaluing the labor who didn't do enough to protect abortion services are the same people who didn't do enough to protect just like trans people in general.

like gay marriage and shit. And that that was a very expos decision that they made, and you know, and it worked for them, right, Like yeah, like we got gay marriage, right.

could have been done and they just weren't. And you know, like it's it's the it's the same thing, like like people just get used as like people's health just gets in their bodies get used as bargaining chips.

not looking out for the most vulnerable. And part of that part of it in terms of abortion services is the compromising, you know, compromising on bands like, oh, a fifteen week abortion ban is reasonable. No it's not. No abortion of ban is reasonable. But so that's what abortion services. And then with the fight for queer liberation, you know, who's the most vulnerable will trans people have been the

most vulnerable and not looking out for them? And then the frontline workers, Like who's the most vulnerable when it

comes to people doing this work providing these services? The frontline workers, the people who don't who don't make much who you know, the people who aren't managers or CEOs and I mean like you know, senior management and CEOs and things like that, are are They're in different situations than the people who are answering the phone and scheduling and talking to the patients and taking their blood pressure

and giving them their medication. And yeah, it's just not looking out for the people in the most vulnerable situations. It's killing us. It's literally killing us.

of trans people who get representation. But you like, I think there's a lot of people who think that, like the average transperson is like a fucking tech worker in California, And it's like no, like the like the the the the the actual like median trans person like works at a works at a EPs warehouse or you know, it's like a vet tech or like you know, does all of this shit that you know works like just really shitty service jobs and like you know, the stuff for

like like I mean struggles like we're not even having because we're we've been like kicked all the way back down to like can we legally exist? But like you know, things like like people getting housing right, like that that kind of stuff, like those are labor struggles. The struggle for abortion is is also labor struggle because like again, like you can't fucking have abortions without workers who do

the abortions. Like they don't, they don't just magically spring fully formed from like the mind of an ngo.

an explicit thing. Like Starbucks specifically did this thing where they're like, well, if you try to unionize, like we can't guarantee you're gonna have like we're gonna like get ready your trans healthcare.

power don't. And I think the separation of these issues has has really hurt us. And we're stronger together, you know, safety and solidarity and all that. So if we if every abortion care worker and abortion volunteer, abortion advocate, and you know, a queer liberation advocate, trans health advocate, just transliberation advocate, union organizer, no union member, even if you're

like working for if you're a plumber. You know, if we all can identify that we have are it's all one fight and it's all connected, will be better off for it.

patriarchy and the movements. And you know, you can radicalize people to the right by just sort of like by like doing sort of missagist politics, or you can do the thing that like the you know this is this is the sort of the Christian democratic strategy in uh, like in Europe was you know, they they they recognize that the workers roupments like weren't really like organizing women in any substantive way, and so they you know, they were able to create this massive sort of anti communist

like like center right bulwark against like organized labor by like actually organizing women, right, and you know, and this is this is something that they sort of do everywhere, which is like yeah, like if if if, if you, if you aren't fighting all of these things at the same time and conceptualizing you at the same time, like you will get you will get picked apart one by one in your individual struggle and movement will collapse and die.

And that's really hard. And you know, like the deck has been stacked against us, but that that's that's the cards that we have, and yeah, we have to deal with them.

health services, but you know, you have to be safe. Well, you know, if you're pregnant and you need healthcare, you want to be safe. And then also if you're like a trans individual and you don't feel safe, it's helpful to have those organizations there. Yeah, exactly, That's totally what I have in mind. And on the right side, like that is like those are still being like the healthcare is still being provided even if it has been decimated and people are having to move mountains in order to

get there. You know, abortions are happening, and every day I'm still do and I'm still getting people abortions. There are workers who are helping people get the health care that they need, the hormones that they need, and there are people like you know, teaching defense and security and

working together. And we need to continue to do this because I you know, I am really angry and I am really just fucked in the head now because of everything that I've experienced and had to witness, and it's soul crushing, but I just keep doing it because that it just needs to happen.

no matter how awful we feel. And you know, this has been an incredibly hard year and I have had conversations that I never would have wanted to have ever and that are hard to carry with me. And I'm going to carry these conversations. You know, these memories are like in my head now and then I have them for the rest of my life maybe, and they're they're in my head, you know, they're there. I've it's happened.

And I'm just really grateful for the other people doing this work and that they're there and that I'm not the only one feeling this way, and that we have each other's backs and that we we do have the same fight. Like knowing that we have the same fight, I'm like, you know that solidarity means means everything right now, because it's more than just like winning or losing, Like, yeah, we've we've lost a lot, and we're continuing to lose a lot, but we're all still here and we all

still need. We still need, like we need to just take care of ourselves and each other still. So I'm going to keep doing this work. I know that other people are going to keep doing this work, and I know that there will always be help available. Whether you know, finding it is one thing, but I know that it will always be there, and I try to take solace in that because this is this is a collective trauma that our generation is going to see out for the rest of our lives, and it's going to bleed into

the next generation. And there's a lot I hope for, you know, before I die, there's a lot I hope to see. So I hope that I see it to end this on a positive note because I know at the very beginning, I know, like when we first started talking Mia, I saw we wanted to end in a positive note. So that involves me sharing like the thing that cheers me up the most and that like pushes

all the right buttons for me. But there have been some good things terms of like abortion access in the last six months, So I want to share that it all starts. It starts with partners Clinic uh. They Partner's Clinic is an ull trimester clinic in in Maryland and they opened this year and they were doing fundraising, and first of all, they're amazing. They're an amazing team of workers, amazing abortion providers. I love Partners Clinic there. I just

I could not, I cannot praise them enough. And they they were fundraising to open their clinic and have everything that they need and you know, you know, have money for staff and everything. And it was picked up by prison Culture, uh more commonly that's like her online handle.

A lot of people like know her as prison Culture, but Mariamikaba and she started fundraising for them, and she was a to help so much that they surpass their goal and they opened and now we have another all trimester abortion clinic in the United States, staffed by the most compassionate, amazing, hardworking individuals. And that cheered me up so much because I obviously love Mary Amacaba and prison abolition.

I know, I'm a prison abolitionist, so seeing her like seeing her see how the issues are connected that they're like that, you know, they go together, and organizing for that on top of the work that she is already doing for abolition. I was just like so happy to see that. And on the topic of all trimester abortion clinics, there is another one opening up as well, and this cheers me up immensely as well. They are called the Valley Abortion Group. They're not open yet, they're currently unraising.

I could probably send you the link to post maybe. Yeah, so they're not open yet, but you know, they're getting there. And they're called the Value Abortion Group. They're gonna be another ultrimester clinic and they're going to be located in New Mexico and they're I just want to point out that their acronym is VAGE, which I just I think is really important to point out.

them to exist. And on this topic, I also want to bring up that you know, there are stories out there of people who it takes them six months to get an abortion appointment. Six months, Chris, I just want to bring that up because that's happening. Because I know that I've said like five weeks a lot while we're talking, but like it takes some people six months. So it's really important for these ultrimester abortion clinics to exist and for us and the communities that we're part of to

welcome them with open arms and like big love. And also on the same topic of good news things that cheer me up, prison abolition, abortion access, all of these good good topics, prison culture Mary Macaba is now fundraising for another abortion practical support group, and I have to mention this up because mention this because this fundraising is

happening right now. So if you go to prison Cultures Twitter, she's like fundraising for it every single day, but she is fundraising for the Online Abortion Resource Squad, So Online Abortion Resource Squad or OARS for short. What they are is they are a entirely volunteer organization, which is why they need to pay them for their labor. This is really important work that monitors, moderates, and provides quality posts on our abortion was our slash abortion. How should I

read that? So basically our slash abortion. So the reddit the subreddit for just abortion on Reddit, which I think that like when I immediately say that, some people might not realize how important that is. But as these bands have just spread and gotten worse and the abortion access doesorts have widened, it is so important for people to be able to access quality information, and a lot of people go to Reddit, Like so many people go to

Reddit to find out information. So like the daily page hits for our slash abortion is just up and up and up and up. And there's a group of volunteers that you know, like donate their their their hours, their free time, you know, their energy to to give people the answers that they're looking for and to like walk them through a process. Because a lot of people, you know,

they want to help, so they post links. So they're like, oh, you you're in a band state and you can't access services, so they just post a link to I don't know, like aid access. But it's more than it's not that easy, Like you can't just like give somebody a link to aid access and be like here's your abortion. No, like you need to ask questions. You need somebody to assist you follow up questions if something doesn't work, like oh my god, the payment's not working, like you need help?

And or is the online Abortion Resource Squad. They go into our abortion every single day and they make sure that people get help. And they've been doing this labor for free, and now prison culture is helping them basically get them, get them paid, get them money, get them, get them make it so that way they can do that, like you know, they don't have to, you know, find different options for employment. You know, they don't have to struggle to get by like they they there's money sustaining them.

So that way they can make sure that people have their questions answered all day and that is so important. Like I just like, I just I never thought, like if you had asked me, like like seven years ago, if I thought people posting on Reddit would be life saving, I would have totally like just not taken that seriously.

But now I'm like, I'm like, oh my god, people are flocking to Reddit every day to try to find out how to get an abortion, and there are people volunteering their time to get them quality answers and make sure that they get the care that they're looking for. And I love that. I love that an abolitionist, like a prison abolition police in prison abolitionists, has identified that this is a significant need that people in these different communities that are typically like a little bit siloed are

supporting each other's causes. I think that abolition and abortion go hand in hand. And this just cheers me up immensely. And the fact that like there are resource hubs online that are that are like that are coming to bat you know, like, oh, this horrible thing has happened. Roe v Wade has been overturned, and what are we gonna do?

And it's like, well, go go answer people's questions on Reddit, and yeah, so I wanted to share that because I said a lot of sad stuff about how horrifying and traumatic and this all is and how there's so much human suffering. So it's just because of that, I just I also wanted to to take time to say, like, hey,

there are people making sure that people get care. There are amazing people you know working to get people paid and get people funding and make it so that way this work is sustainable, because like sustainability is its own thing,

Like yeah, who like it? Is hard to fight against fascism, Like it's we're being we're having our are basic human rights violated on a daily basis, and we are being dehumanized, and that is incredibly difficult to fight constantly on top of having to pay your bills and you know, like deal with whatever the heck's going on in your life. So I'm just like, I'm really grateful for Mary Micaba

and everyone who has helped her. I'm really grateful for Partners and Value Abortion Group BADGE, and I am really grateful for the Online Abortion Resource squad Ors and all of their amazing volunteers. And I hope that like, if somebody is feeling helpless and and like feeling like they don't know what to do in these really scary times, they can look toward, like look to to these examples and be like, well, I can I can provide good

information to people. I can share donation opportunities or donate myself, and I can uplift this stuff and recognize how valuable even posting online can be sometimes because I posting online usually not a good thing. But you know, if you are helping somebody get healthcare and you're utilizing like you know, a popular platform to spread that information. You're you're you're doing a great job, and you deserve all the shout outs.

So yeah, so yeah, those are some really those that's what's cheering me up in the year twenty twenty three. As I approach like June twenty fourth, the anniversary, I'm like, oh my god, everything's really awful, but this, this is what's cheering me up.

mean that struggle. Look like the thing about this right like there there's a reason that it's a like they have to spend all of this effort on it because there is actually a struggle, and the fact that they have to they spend so much effort, so much resources, so much of their time, and so much of their power on this, like is also proof of their weakness, that this is not something that they can do just sort of neutrally right, and it's it's something that can

be stopped, it can be rolled back. And yeah, I mean the the fact that it is a struggle like in and of itself like implies that they're wrong in in and of itself, demonstrates that we are also still fighting, and we are going to continue fighting and one day we are going to beat these fuckers.

it's it's a sada shakuri. I think where is where there's oppression, there is resistance that that that makes me feel better, you know, like because which ah, God, God, just like I know is speaking of liberals, there's I just don't understand the take where it's like, oh, these red states are getting what they deserve. Texas is getting what the deserves, Florida is getting with what they deserve, and it's like no, like they they're being oppressed and

they are fighting their oppression. And I love people in those states, and I love the people fighting, and I I just I don't know how you can look at that and not be filled with like love and awe, just like in the way that I'm filled with like love and awe when I see like how hard people are working to navigate these barriers and to access the

health care that they need. Like, I'm just like, you are being so brave, you are You're so strong to do this, and like not everyone is seeing it, you know, because like these are like you know, private like journeys to get healthcare, but like I'm seeing it, and I'm like, God, these people are so amazing, and people are fighting so hard and they are continuing to struggle and they're not giving I mean, some people are giving up because like the state is like forcing it on them, but like

a lot of people aren't giving up. And I am I'm constantly in awe about that because yeah, yeah, it's a lot of witnessing human suffering and people suffer, but also it's witnessing a lot of people be really strong and really fight and for what they deserve. And I'm so glad I get to witness that too, even though I wish you no I didn't have to see all the suffering, but you know, I'm really grateful to see

the struggle too. I love human beings and I'm just we're awesome, like we I mean, a lot of us aren't, but the rest of us are oks putting up a good fight. So I think we can win. I think we can win.

Fund is doing amazing work right now. Partners Clinic, which is located in Maryland, like shout out to their team. I love them so much. They are they they are like the light in the darkness. Right now, Valley Abortion group Badge, which will hopefully be opening I don't know when they're opening, but I'm looking forward to them opening

so much in New Mexico. And and then the online Abortion Resource squad Ors, the Saints of our Slash Abortion, Like I just I want to like shout them out with this like platform that I have right now, So Google all them, check them out, click the links, and then of course, you know, again your local abortion fund, like it just just don't get tired of hearing donate to your local abortion fund, just like say it again, just like right out on the back of your eyeballs.

It's that. That's that's what we getting. That's what's getting people health care right now, people who can't wait. So yeah, I just like uplifting all those things again. Like I'm sure like there are there are a lot of amazing groups doing work. I could probably like take like an hour listing all of them, but uh, like right now, those are the ones where I'm like, hell, yeah, this is amazing.

undersell the little things that you can do. Even little things are really meaningful right now, like what you have the capacity for. No one's gonna I'm not gonna shake a stick at it. I think any contribution is incredibly valuable, no matter how small.

those hotel prices are going up like crazy. So like I know that she had a concert in Chicago recently, and there the Chicago Abortion Fund was like trying to book hotels for traveling abortion patients. So patients who are traveling from band States to get abortion services in Chicago, and they were paying like way more for the hotel hotel costs because of the local Taylor Swift concert. And it's like, Taylor Swift, donate to abortion funds. What are

you doing? You're driving out hotel prices for patients. Just donate, donate to abortion funds, Taylor Swift. So that's what I just wanted to add that, or any artists who's driving up hotel praces. Come on, people need health care. What are you doing?