WGST Statements

WGST and LGBTQ Studies Joint Statement Condemning Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision

Anonymous — Wed, 29 Jun 2022 15:39:28 +0000

WGST and LGBTQ Studies Joint Statement Condemning Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 06/29/2022 - 09:39

We, the faculty of the Department of Women and Gender Studies and the Certificate Program in LGBTQ Studies, strongly condemn the Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The ruling, issued on June 24, 2022, eliminates the constitutional right to an abortion, almost 50 years after the landmark Roe v. Wade case secured federal protections for it. We are saddened and outraged as we anticipate the cascading effects of this ruling, particularly as it will most devastatingly impact Black, Indigenous, and Latinx women, and other w

omen of Color (BIPOC); poor, disabled, and LGBTQ women; adolescents and young women; and trans and nonbinary people who are pregnancy-capable.

We draw from the reproductive justice framework developed by Black women, Women of Color, and other nonbinary and trans People of Color, which calls for us to situate this latest attack on abortion on a longer continuum of reproductive injustice, including histories of forced sterilization, lack of access to contraception and family planning, and inhumane conditions of pregnancy and childbirth in US jails and prisons and in countries impacted by US imperial wars. We locate this ruling within a larger trend toward austerity measures that severely curtail the right to live a full and dignified life, including a shrinking social safety net, lack of access to state-supported childcare, and growing food insecurity in the wake of a pandemic that has forced record numbers of women out of the workplace.

While this moment is being framed as a “throwback” to pre-Roe days, we must also be attentive to how it heralds new efforts to surveil bodies seen as unruly and criminalize those who seek agency and self-determination over their own bodies, whether the right to decide whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term, the right to parent a child in a safe and healthy environment, or the right to determine one’s own gender and seek gender-affirming care.

As a department invested in intersectional, transnational, and decolonial feminist scholarship, we also wish to underscore how attacks on the reproductive freedoms of women and pregnancy-capable people in the United States are tied to the undermining of reproductive health globally by the US. For example, the infamous “global gag rule” introduced by Ronald Reagan in 1984, reinstated by Donald Trump in 2017, and most recently rescinded by Joe Biden in 2022, prevented foreign NGOs (non-governmental organizations) receiving any US global health assistance from even using their own funds to provide services or information for legal abortions in their respective countries. As we fight to reinstate and secure access to abortion for women and people who can become pregnant within the US, we must also continually challenge these imperialist histories of foreign aid, echoing the transnational feminist expressions of solidarity globally. This includes support from Latin American feminists – especially from Mexico, where Mexico’s Supreme Court moved last year to decriminalize abortion – and global reproductive and women’s rights groups including UNFPA, the International Planned Parenthood Federation, and the Global Fund for Women.

In Colorado, where access to abortion will be preserved for the time being, we stand in solidarity with abortion providers who will continue to serve Colorado’s population and the populations of our neighboring states, many of which will outlaw or severely restrict abortion in the coming weeks.

We recognize the importance of Colorado organizations - including COLOR, The Brazen Project, and the Colorado Doula Project - that work tirelessly to fight for access to abortion, especially for communities that face socio-economic barriers to accessing reproductive services, including those across state lines.

In closing, we call for the ��«��Ƶ to stand as a leader in opposing threats to bodily sovereignty. CU must pledge to provide continued access to accessible, inclusive, and gender-affirming reproductive health services and contraception on campus. We also call on CU ��«��Ƶ's Health and Wellness Services and the Wardenburg Health Center to distribute information that warns students about the prevalence of Anti-Abortion Counseling Centers (so-called “Crisis Pregnancy Centers”) in ��«��Ƶ, which masquerade as abortion clinics while actually providing medically inaccurate information and targeting low-income students and students of color.

In solidarity,

The Faculty of the Department of Women & Gender Studies and the Certificate Program in LGBTQ Studies, ��«��Ƶ

Painting by Micah Bazant created in 2020 for the 47th anniversary of Roe v Wade with Forward Together, National Network of Abortion Funds, Kenya Martin, Jasmine Burnett, Bianca Campbell, Adwoa B. Agyepong and Kemi Alabi. Words originally by Renee Bracey Sherman, used with permission.

Resources for Action, Engagement and Reflection about Abortion

In solidarity with our activist communities, we offer the following resources, compiled by reproductive justice activist and WGST graduate, Mar Galvez-Seminario.

If You Need to Access an Abortion or Reproductive Care:

Hotline to Have Abortion Pills Mailed to You

National Hotline for those Seeking Information and Support

List of Providers (Colorado)

Crisis Pregnancy Centers To Avoid

Cost of Abortion Fact Sheet

Wardenburg Health Center at CU

Fact Sheets on Abortion:

Colorado Fact Sheet on Abortion

State by State Legal Status Fact Sheet

States with Trigger Laws Fact Sheet

To Volunteer:

Colorado Doula Project

Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains

Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights

Cobalt

To Donate:

Colorado Doula Project

��«��Ƶ Valley Women’s Health Abortion Fund (offering later abortions)

National Network of Abortion Funds

National Abortion Federation Provider Security Fund

National Abortion Federation Hotline Fund

Media Guides:

Reproductive Justice Media Guide

Scholarship on Abortion and Reproductive Justice:

A Black and Asian Feminist Reproductive Justice Syllabus. Compiled by Saloni Bhaman at the Asian American Writers Workshop.

Radical Reproductive Justice, Loretta J. Ross, Lynn Roberts, Erika Derkas, Whitney Peoples, and Pamela Bridgewater Toure (eds.)

Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organizing for Reproductive Justice, Marlene Gerber Fried, Elena Gutiérrez, Loretta Ross, and Jael Silliman

"Beyond Roe v. Wade: Struggling for Abortion Access," Emily Janakiram

Scholarship by WGST faculty on Abortion and Reproductive Justice:

“Guerreras y Puentes: the theory and praxis of Latina(x) activism” by Celeste Montoya and Mar Galvez-Seminario

Abortion: Three Perspectives by Michael Tooley, Celia Wolf-Devine, Philip E. Devine, and Alison M. Jaggar

“The Supreme Court’s abortion decision is based on a myth. Here’s why.” by Samira K. Mehta and Lauren MacIvor Thompson

“There is no one ‘religious view’ on abortion” by Samira K. Mehta

“Protestants and the pill: How US Christians helped make birth control mainstream” by Samira K. Mehta

“God Bless the Pill: Contraception and Sexuality in Tri-Faith America” by Samira K. Mehta

“On abortion, Florida’s party of ‘religious freedom’ tramples over non-Christians’ beliefs” featuring Samira K. Mehta

“How Pivotal Are Mexico’s Efforts at Gender Parity?” by Lorraine Bayard de Volo

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Statement by the Department of Ethnic Studies and the Department of Women and Gender Studies on the Killing of Asian Women in Atlanta

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Mar 2021 19:35:10 +0000

Statement by the Department of Ethnic Studies and the Department of Women and Gender Studies on the Killing of Asian Women in Atlanta Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 03/18/2021 - 13:35

The horrific killing of eight people, including six Asian and Asian American women by a white man in Atlanta has yet again brought to light the violence of anti-Asian racism in this country. We extend our grief and outrage to their families and everyone who is hurting right now. We wish to remember their lives, their hopes, their struggles, and their dreams. We condemn this killing and the escalated violence against Asians and Asian Americans in the U.S. since the beginning of COVID-19 (there have been at least 3800 reported incidents of violence directed at Asians and Asian Americans, primarily against women, from March 2020 to Feb 2021). We condemn how these acts of violence are represented, framed and discussed by law enforcement, by elected officials at local, state and federal levels, and by the media. Although authorities deny that the massacre was racially motivated, we see it as tragically illuminating the longstanding pattern of the hypersexualization and exploitation of Asian and Asian American women in particular. Observing how the carceral state rushed to minimize this violence to the perceived mental health crisis or simply a “bad day” for the white killer, we take this moment to underscore that our fight against anti-Asian racism must be connected to the fight for Black lives. In this moment of renewed demand from some quarters for enhanced anti-hate crime laws, we caution that such demands continue to target Black, Indigenous, and brown communities, and emphasize the need for alternative solutions that do not expand the carceral state.

While Trump and Biden’s anti-China rhetoric is definitely a catalyst to the recent violence of the past year, we must remember much longer histories of racism that Asians and Asian Americans have faced and continue to face in the U.S. Anti-Asian racism spans over centuries in the U.S: from the exploitation of Chinese railroad workers, race riots targeting Asians (including the attack on Denver’s Chintatown in 1880 and the killing of one Chinese man), illegal occupation of the Philippines, anti-Asian immigration laws from the late nineteenth century till the 1960s (and into the present, including Trump’s Muslim Ban), incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, multiple and endless U.S. imperialist wars across Asia, to the ever increasing Islamophobic violence against Muslim communities since 9/11. All these processes continue to position Asians and Asian Americans as perpetual outsiders whose labor can always be exploited. Anti-Asian racism is not new. It is one of the pillars of white supremacy in this country, a country founded on the violence of colonization and dispossession of Indigenous peoples, and the enslavement of African and Black peoples.

As we remember the lives of the murdered Asian and Asian American women, we must remember how anti-Asian racism continues to reproduce itself primarily through racial-imperial heteropatriarchal violence on the bodies of Asian, Asian American and Pacific Islander women, queer, and trans peoples. The first ever anti-immigration and xenophobic law was targeted against Chinese women in 1875 (Page Act). The act prohibited the entry of Chinese and other Asian women as they were seen as “prostitutes” and “immoral” women. Since then Asian women continue to be hypersexualized for consumption and exploitation by white men, as white men see Asian women bodies as simultaneous sites of desire, hatred, and dominance. We know the long history of sexual exploitation of Asian women by U.S soldiers across Asia, from Okinawa to Saigon to Subic Bay, and the portrayal of Asian and Asian American women in U.S. media as submissive, domestic, and sexual. We see these histories as fundamentally connected to the killing of the six Asian women in Atlanta.

On-Campus Resources
• The Center for Inclusion and Social Change
• Counseling and Psychiatric Services (CAPS) is offering free e-Let’s Talk sessions. Students can check in via telehealth for an informal and confidential consultation with a counselor. No appointment is necessary. Students are seen on a first-come, first-served basis at 10-11am and 3-4 pm Monday through Friday.
• Office of Victim Assistance is offering e-Ask an Advocate sessions Friday, March 19th from 2-3pm and weekly from 2-3pm on Tuesdays. CU students, staff and faculty can call 303-492-8855 for free confidential support if impacted (directly and secondary impact) by racist, discriminatory, and or bias-related experiences.

Off-Campus Resources
• The Asian Mental Health Collective
• National Queer & Trans Therapists of Color Network
• Stop API Hate
• Chinese Immigrant Family Wellness Initiative

As we stand against racism, we also reaffirm our stance against racial-imperial heteropatriarchy and misogyny, and call for solidarities to women who are sex workers, who are immigrants, who are undocumented, who are refugees, who work in massage parlors, who are precariously employed, who are poor, who do not speak English, and who are survivors of racial-sexual-imperial violence. Anti-racism struggles need to center the struggles of sex workers and stand against global sex trade regimes, including the U.S. military, that continue to make the lives of sex workers disposable, exploitable, and unworthy.

We know Asians and Asian Americans are not monolithic and homogenous communities, and that different communities have varying experiences of racialization, colonization, and imperialism. Yet, we call for solidarities to all Asian and Asian American communities. While some Asians and Asian Americans are often seen through the trope of the “model minority”, we must understand how these tropes are racist and do not protect Asians against the rage of white supremacists.

Let us fight together to keep decolonial and abolitionist visions at the center of all our collective struggles. We must forge intentional and relational coalitions between Asians, Pacific Islanders, Muslims, Arabs, Black, Indigenous, Chicanx, and Latinx communities, as well as those further on the margins and those who are undocumented, refugees, poor, with disabilities, women, queer, trans and gender nonconforming, and sex workers. We call on our communities to deepen our anti-racist, anti-colonial, anti-imperial solidarities and coalitions in order to disrupt and dismantle white supremacy.

[artwork above: A woman holds a sign at the End The Violence Towards Asians rally in Washington Square Park on Feb. 20, 2021, in New York.Ron Adar/SOPA Images / Sipa USA via AP file]

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WGST supports #ScholarStrike for racial justice

Anonymous — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 00:25:26 +0000

WGST supports #ScholarStrike for racial justice Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 09/07/2020 - 18:25

The faculty and staff of the Department of Women and Gender Studies (WGST) support the Scholar Strike for racial justice on September 8th and 9th, 2020. The national strike has been called by Anthea Butler (Religious Studies, Africana Studies, Univ of Pennsylvania) and Kevin Gannon (History, Grand View University) in the wake of the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, WI, and the many other police murders of African Americans of all genders in recent months and across history. As a department, we stand in solidarity with BIPOC students and community members to take a collective stand against police violence against Black communities and other communities of color. We encourage our faculty, staff, and affiliates to support the strike in any way possible. We encourage supervisors of staff and graduate instructors to support their supervisees who are engaging in the work of racial justice, either by taking time aside from work, or in other ways. Some ways of supporting the strike are listed here: #CUScholarStrike. We also refer back to our joint statement with WGST/Ethnic Studies from this summer: WGST Condemns Racist Police Violence

***

Links:

#CUScholarStrike, from diversifyCUnow: https://www.diversifycunow.com/cuscholarstrike

Scholar Strike, by Anthea Butler and Kevin Gannon: https://academeblog.org/2020/09/02/scholar-strike/

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We Condemn Racist Police Violence

Anonymous — Mon, 01 Jun 2020 19:24:09 +0000

We Condemn Racist Police Violence Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 06/01/2020 - 13:24

The Departments of Ethnic Studies and Women and Gender Studies at the ��«��Ƶ condemn the police killing of Mr. George Floyd. This killing adds to a long list of over 1250 folks of African descent killed by police since 2005, not taking into account acts of police brutality resulting in grievous bodily harm and deaths while in police or sheriff's custody.

Mr. Floyd’s public murder adds to a spate of police killings of Black people in the past few months of the COVID 19 pandemic. Breonna Taylor was shot in her own bed at home in Louisville Kentucky. Ahmaud Arbery was hunted and killed while jogging in Georgia. Tony McDade, a Black transgender man, was killed by officers in Florida. These police killings come at a time where the COVID 19 pandemic is causing much higher rates of death in Black, Latinx and tribal communities, especially the Navajo Nation. We urge our campus community to take note of racism as another public health emergency for Black, Latinx, Native and other communities of color. We also urge public attention to how these acts of violence are racialized and gendered, with Black people in every gender group being disproportionately vulnerable to police violence.

As departments whose work is informed by intersectional antiracist, feminist, queer, and transgender scholarship and activism, we condemn the ongoing criminalization of black people and the glorification of police violence against black people. We demand justice for the family of Mr. George Floyd and all families who have lost loved ones to racist police violence. We denounce the ongoing onslaught of violence against peaceful protesters in Colorado and across the United States and the world in the wake of this horrific murder. We call for an end to the increased militarization and funding of police forces and the prison industrial complex, and for states and counties to invest in better schools, job training and empowerment for marginalized communities.

We call on our students, faculty, and administration at the university to take a stand against the systemic violence and murders that have wrecked black people’s lives in this country since the colonizers first arrived. We also demand that our campus leaders call for the ��«��Ƶ police department to account for the many instances of racial harassment by the ��«��Ƶ police. Finally, we stand in full support of the student public petition co-authored by Ruth Woldemichael and Olivia Gardner.

Please also see: 9news interview with Dr. Hillary Potter, associate professor of ethnic studies and associate dean for inclusive practice, College of Arts & Sciences, CU ��«��Ƶ, discussing the history of violent demonstrations in Denver amid the George Floyd protests.

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