For this year's Trans Day of Visibility, we're issuing an historic call-to-action joining leaders of the fight for reproductive rights with legends of the trans liberation movement under a single slogan: “Bodily autonomy for all, bodily autonomy now.”
With featured speakers ranging from Gabrielle Union-Wade to Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, Samira Wiley to Chase Strangio, and Tarana Burke to Lilly Wachowski, “Our Bodies, Our Choice” arrives at a moment when U.S. conservative lawmakers are working to simultaneously restrict access to family planning services and gender-affirming care. In response to these legislative attacks, we brought together generations of organizers and storytellers to reflect a united front against institutionalized transphobia and sexism. Because just as there can be no trans liberation without reproductive justice, there can be no reproductive justice without trans liberation. The success of our collective resistance depends on our ability to see each other not simply as allies, but as members of one movement — as siblings in the struggle.
To that end, we invite our readers to continue the fight for bodily autonomy by learning more about ways to support local initiatives to safeguard the rights of birthing people and our trans siblings.
Read on for our full open letter and list of signatories below.
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Bodily autonomy: the freedom to do with our bodies as we please. Cis or trans, this is what we want — to decide for ourselves whether to transition, to have a child through IVF, or to carry a pregnancy to term. It is in opposition to this human right that conservative lawmakers have banded together, with sometimes lethal efficacy.
As of March, 2024, more than a dozen states have moved to ban abortion. Meanwhile, many of those same leaders are working to prevent trans people from receiving gender-affirming care. What began as an attack on transgender youth has increasingly become an effort to block transition at any age. The writing isn’t just on the wall anymore; it’s on the books. They’re coming for us all.
To stop them, we must tighten our ties. We must solidify our solidarity. We must join forces — as trans organizers, as reproductive rights advocates, as feminists, as storytellers, as icons, as parents, as principled people to proclaim: My body, my choice.
To insist: Our bodies, our choice.
Let’s be honest: We don’t need the future to be female. We need the future to be free. That’s the demand — for the pregnant people weighing all of their options, for our beautiful trans siblings who model liberation everyday.
Bodily autonomy for all. Bodily autonomy now.
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Miss Major, Gloria Steinem, Kate Bornstein, Lilly Wachowski, Roxane Gay, Tarana Burke, Gabrielle Union-Wade, Imara Jones, Chase Strangio, Raquel Willis, Shelby Chestnut, Trace Lysette, Margaret Cho, Samira Wiley, Qween Jean, Devin-Norelle, Jasmin Savoy Brown, G Flip, Devery Jacobs, Chappell Roan, Terry Hu, Chelsea Handler, Sarah Burke
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