This SCOTUS Chat is hosted by Erin Maye Quade, Special Projects Advisor at Gender Justice, with Brittany Stewart, Senior Staff Attorney at Gender Justice, and Dr. Kate Gepford, Chief Education Officer at Children's Minnesota. This SCOTUS Chat addresses the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in US v Skrmetti that allows states to ban medically necessary gender-affirming care for transgender and non-binary youth. The discussion covers the background of the case, its implications for states like Minnesota...
Jun 30, 2025•1 hr 3 min•Season 5Ep. 1
Host: Noah Parrish, Gender Justice Communications Director Guests: Sara Jane Baldwin, Gender Justice Senior Staff Attorney Paula Schaefer, Advocate for Minnesota Juvenile Justice Reform Meagan McIntyre, Gender Justice 2024 legal intern In this conversation on The Gender Justice Brief, we shine a light on an issue that doesn’t get nearly enough attention: the unequal protection of girls in Minnesota’s juvenile justice system. This episode was inspired by a keynote address Gender Justice Senior St...
Jan 28, 2025•41 min•Season 4Ep. 12
Guests: Erin Maye Quade, Gender Justice Special Projects Advisor Jess Braverman, Gender Justice Legal Director Brittany Stewart, Gender Justice Senior Staff Attorney On December 4, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a case out of Tennessee called U.S. v. Skrmetti that could determine the future of gender-affirming care in the United States. In the monumental case, families, doctors, and the United States government are asking the Supreme Court to strike down Tennessee’s ban on hormo...
Dec 19, 2024•57 min•Season 4Ep. 11
Host: Noah Parrish, Gender Justice Communications Director Guest : Ash Tifa, Community Organizer and Advocate In the wake of the 2024 election results, many people in the trans community and wondering if now is the time to update names and gender markers on key documents such as passports and driver’s licenses. As a new, hostile presidential administration comes in January, we spoke with Ash Tifa, a legal professional with a wealth of experience designing and leading name and gender marker chang...
Nov 18, 2024•29 min•Season 4Ep. 9
With the Trump administration’s harmful policies targeting our fundamental freedoms, our state-based work at Gender Justice has never been more urgent. Post-election, our legal and policy experts discuss the immediate threats we face, what the results mean for the issues Gender Justice covers, and how we’re preparing to defend our rights in this hostile environment. Speakers: Jess Braverman, Legal Director Erin Maye Quade, Special Projects Advisor Monica Meyer, Political Director Megan Peterson,...
Nov 15, 2024•56 min•Season 4Ep. 8
Host: Noah Parrish, Gender Justice Communications Director Guests: Jay Belsito, Gender Justice Organizer, and B. Wilson, BIPOC Educators’ Collective co-founder We all have a role to play in defending trans lives, and today’s conversation aims to engage allies and those who want to be stronger advocates. We’ll explore ways to push back against harmful rhetoric, foster understanding, and take action to support the trans community. At our monthly Trans Equity Trainings convened by Gender Justice or...
Nov 14, 2024•36 min•Season 4Ep. 7
Host: Noah Parrish, Gender Justice Communications Director Guest: Nicki Hangsleben, QUEERSPACE Collective “Your program is saving my kid’s life.” Through mentorship, training and advocacy, Minnesota’s QUEERSPACE Collective creates a space where LGBTQ+ youth can show up as their authentic selves. We recorded this episode a little over a week before the 2024 election, with major stakes for LGBTQ+ rights in the balance. We thought it was a good time to focus on the power of community and how we pro...
Oct 30, 2024•31 min•Season 4Ep. 6
Host: Noah Parrish, Gender Justice Communications Director Guests: Erin Maye Quade, Gender Justice Special Projects Advisor, and Miraya Gran, Minnesota Building Families Coalition infertility advocate At Gender Justice, we advocate for gender equity under the law. We also subscribe to the philosophy of reproductive justice, a concept developed by Black women advocates in the 1990s defined as “the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, to have children, to not have children, and to par...
Oct 08, 2024•33 min•Season 4Ep. 5
Host: Noah Parrish, Gender Justice Communications Director Guests: Christina Sambor, Gender Justice North Dakota State Director and Marc Hearron, Center for Reproductive Rights Senior Counsel Victory in North Dakota! On September 12, 2024, a North Dakota state court ruled that the state’s total abortion ban is unconstitutional. “All North Dakota citizens, including women, have the right to make fundamental, appropriate, and informed medical decisions in consultation with a physician and to recei...
Sep 17, 2024•41 min•Season 4Ep. 4
Host: Noah Parrish, Gender Justice Communications Director Guests: Christy Hall, Gender Justice Senior Staff Attorney, and Dave Edwards, Founder of Gender Inclusive Schools In this back-to-school episode, Christy Hall reviews state and federal laws protecting transgender and gender expansive students in a conversation with Dave Edwards, an educator and former client of Gender Justice who has just published a new book called Gender Inclusive Schools: How to Affirm and Support Gender-Expansive Stu...
Sep 11, 2024•41 min•Season 4Ep. 3
SCOTUS Chat: Court Reform Edition Host: Erin Maye Quade, Gender Justice Special Projects Advisor Guests: Christy Hall, Gender Justice Senior Staff Attorney, and Hayley Durudogan, Alliance for Justice Durot Fellow Court reforms proposed by the Biden-Harris administration are popular across the political spectrum . In this episode of The Gender Justice Brief, Christy Hall and Erin Maye Quade talk with Hayley Durudogan, Alliance for Justice Durot Fellow, about the background of these specific measu...
Aug 27, 2024•51 min•Season 4Ep. 2
Justice for Reyzl: Standing up to LGBTQ Workplace Discrimination Host: Noah Parrish, Gender Justice Communications Director Guest: Brittany Stewart, Gender Justice Senior Staff Attorney In August 2024, Gender Justice and co-counsel Wanta Thome PLC filed a discrimination lawsuit against the Academy of Holy Angels, a Catholic high school in Richfield, Minnesota, and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis after they effectively terminated Reyzl Grace, a staff librarian, when she came out as tr...
Aug 21, 2024•29 min•Season 4Ep. 1
SCOTUS Chat: Recorded live with Jess Braverman, Gender Justice Legal Director and Erin Maye Quade, Gender Justice Special Projects Advisor On June 27, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Idaho v. United States and Moyle et al. , or the “EMTALA” (Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act) case, which centers on whether state abortion bans supersede the federal EMTALA law mandating that hospital emergency departments receiving federal funding must stabilize a patient whose life or ...
Jun 28, 2024•44 min•Season 3Ep. 14
Host: Noah Parrish, Gender Justice Communications Director Guests: Ash Tifa, Rainbow Health Legal Services Program Coordinator, and Annie Van Avery, Family Tree Clinic Executive Director “No health plan that covers physical or mental health services may be offered, sold, issued, or renewed in this state that excludes coverage for medically necessary gender-affirming care.” This is the simple language underlying one of the major accomplishments from Minnesota’s 2024 legislative session: the Gende...
Jun 18, 2024•36 min•Season 3Ep. 13
Host: Noah Parrish, Gender Justice Communications Director Guest: Jess Braverman, Gender Justice Legal Director On June 13, 2024, the Supreme Court issued a decision in U.S. Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine , its first abortion case since the Dobbs ruling reversing Roe v. Wade . In a unanimous ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court maintained the current FDA regulations on mifepristone, one of the two pills used in medication abortion. This medication, alongside misopros...
Jun 14, 2024•36 min•Season 3Ep. 12
Host: Noah Parrish, Gender Justice Communications Director Guests: Jess Braverman, Gender Justice Legal Director and Paige Suelzle, Litigation Counsel at The Lawyering Project In this episode of The Gender Justice Brief we talk with The Lawyering Project’s Paige Suelzle about a recent victory for abortion funds—and for the First Amendment—in a case that is likely to have broad regional and national repercussions. When the Dobbs decision was announced on June 25, 2022, abortion became illegal in ...
Jun 11, 2024•36 min•Season 3Ep. 11
In honor of the 10th anniversary of the passage of the Women’s Economic Security Act (WESA), which guarantees nursing rights for Minnesota workers, we are re-releasing our 2023 episode on Pregnancy and Pumping Rights. In 2014, Gender Justice helped catapult the life-changing package of legislation known as the Women's Economic Security Act over the finishing line. In the decade since, the policies have been further strengthened, solidifying protections for pregnant and nursing employees, creatin...
May 07, 2024•35 min•Season 3Ep. 10
Host: Erin Maye Quade, Gender Justice Special Projects Advisor Guests: Jess Braverman, Gender Justice Legal Director and Rupali Sharma, Deputy Executive Director for Legal Programs at the Lawyering Project “This case is about our humanity: do we matter?” — Rupali Sharma Gender Justice legal and policy experts are joined by the Lawyering Project’s Rupali Sharma to discuss the oral arguments in the case Idaho v. United States and Moyle et al. , or the “EMTALA” (Emergency Medical Treatment and Labo...
Apr 27, 2024•48 min•Season 3Ep. 9
Host: Erin Maye Quade, Gender Justice Special Projects Advisor Guests: Jess Braverman, Gender Justice Legal Director and Amanda Allen, Deputy Executive Director for Legal Programs at The Lawyering Project Gender Justice legal and policy experts and the Lawyering Project’s Deputy Executive Director for Legal Programs Amanda Allen discuss the oral arguments in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) , the Supreme Court case challenging access to medication abortion ...
Mar 27, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Season 3Ep. 8
This episode of The Gender Justice Brief is a recording of the panel of advocates and researchers featured in the film Preconceived , moderated by Gender Justice Executive Director Megan Peterson at its premiere at the South By Southwest festival in Austin, Texas on March 9, 2024. Preconceived tells the stories of Maleeha and Maria, just two of the thousands of people who have been deceived by coercive anti-abortion propaganda mills known as crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs). As the film follows t...
Mar 12, 2024•59 min•Season 3Ep. 7
On February 12, 2024 , the Minnesota Court of Appeals denied an anti-abortion group’s request to relitigate the historic 2022 Doe v. Minnesota decision ending restrictions on abortion care in the state, bringing us one step closer to the end of litigation. In this episode, Gender Justice Special Projects Advisor Erin Maye Quade and Gender Justice Legal Director Jess Braverman review the case, analyze the latest court decision, discuss how a state Equal Rights Amendment would strengthen the const...
Feb 27, 2024•25 min•Season 3Ep. 6
Panelists: Megan Peterson, Gender Justice Executive Director and Monica Meyer, Gender Justice Political Director 2023 was truly a banner year for gender equity: from passing the Trans Refuge Bill to ending state funding for crisis pregnancy centers and repealing Minnesota’s unconstitutional and harmful abortion restrictions, Gender Justice supporters helped advance some of the most equitable policies in the country. We know that there is much more work ahead to protect and expand abortion rights...
Feb 12, 2024•45 min•Season 3Ep. 5
Crisis pregnancy centers, or “CPCs,” are anti-abortion organizations that target pregnant people with predatory, deceptive marketing. Their main function is to attract and intercept Black, brown, Indigenous, and low-income people before they access abortion care. Their goal is ideological, not medical: They want to prevent pregnant people from obtaining abortion services using any means necessary, including by using delay tactics, disinformation, and deception. With nearly a hundred CPCs in Minn...
Feb 06, 2024•34 min•Season 3Ep. 4
In this episode, Megan Peterson, Executive Director at Gender Justice, and Jess Braverman, Legal Director at Gender Justice, discuss the work leading to the language to revise and secure equal rights in the Minnesota state constitution. Megan and Jess provide an overview of the stakeholder-inclusive process of identifying and revising its language and the importance of specificity and inclusivity, while remaining as all-encompassing as possible. Megan and Jess discuss the historical and current ...
Jan 30, 2024•36 min•Season 3Ep. 3
In this episode, Erin Maye Quade, Gender Justice Special Project Advisor talks with: Shayla Walker, Our Justice Executive Director ShaVunda Brown, Our Justice Communications and Advocacy Director, and Destini Spaeth, Prairie Abortion Fund President Please find the links mentioned in the episode here: Our Justice Website Instagram Facebook Twitter Our Justice Text Line 612-208-7119 Prairie Abortion Fund Website Instagram Facebook Twitter Prairie Abortion Fund Book Club Choice Desserts (biggest an...
Jan 23, 2024•45 min•Season 3Ep. 2
Megan Peterson, Executive Director of Gender Justice, visiting in Washington, D.C., interviews Paula Ávila-Guillén, Executive Director of the Women's Equality Center. They discuss the Green Wave movement, focusing on abortion rights in Latin America. Paula details the movement's origins, its significant societal and legal impacts, and its stamps on global abortion rights advocacy. Megan and Paula also talk about the recent changes in abortion law in the United States, how these developments comp...
Jan 13, 2024•40 min•Season 3Ep. 1
In this episode, Erin Maye Quade and Jess Braverman, answer you questions related to their work on gender justice, legal challenges, and lawmaking. Erin and Jess delve into controversial issues including the Kate Cox abortion case in Texas, discuss their experiences and challenges in their respective roles as lawmaker and lawyer, and share insights into how legal cases are chosen for action. Erin and Jess also touch on their expansion into North Dakota, and explore personal topics like their fav...
Dec 30, 2023•52 min•Season 2Ep. 16
2023 has almost drawn to a close, and we have one more episode to go. On Saturday, December 30th, Erin Maye Quade and Jess Braverman unpack the "Mailbag", answering the questions you asked us. From all of us at Gender Justice, we wish you Happy Holidays! ### Visit the "Gender Justice" Website here and "Unrestrict Minnesota" here . The GJB is produced by Michael at www.501MediaHouse.com & Audra Grigus....
Dec 23, 2023•45 sec•Season 2Ep. 15
In this invigorating conversation, Gender Justice Legal Director Jess Braverman and renowned law professor, Melissa Murray, cover an array of controversial legal topics. Murray offers her insights on Democratic deliberation of the Supreme Court, potential court reforms, the impacts of organized conservative judiciary, and the significance of equal rights amendment in state and national levels. She also delves into the issues surrounding the “Dobbs” abortion rights case, the importance of law in ...
Dec 16, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Season 2Ep. 14
In this Zoom-Live briefing, the Gender Justice legal team discuss the importance of protections for breastfeeding, nursing, and pumping moms in the workplace. In particular, we highlight the experiences faced by Hani Ali, a mother who faced discrimination and intimidation at Sun Country Airlines due to her need to pump milk at work. For more information, please visit these links:Ali v. Sun Country case page Ali v. Sun Country complaint This year, Gender Justice helped secure increased protection...
Dec 13, 2023•46 min•Season 2Ep. 13
