Northeastern University fourth-year student Rev Birnholz recently brought trans and gender nonconforming issues to a roundtable-style discussion at The Whole House, where they were invited to join other students leaders from across the US.
Vice President Kamala Harris led the discussion, which focused on the impact on reproductive rights from the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Roe v. Wade but also took up other important topics related to gender, like the rights of transgender student athletes and inclusive sex ed.
“Access to abortion is indisputably a women’s rights issue, but it is not only a women’s rights issue,” Birnholz told News@Northeastern. “Women have historically led the effort for abortion access, and it disproportionately impacts cisgender women, but we cannot forget that this issue also impacts members of the transgender and gender nonconforming communities.”
“By failing to mention the transgender and gender-noncomforming community, it’s erasing the existence of people who can get pregnant, who have even more barriers against them in getting this care,” Birnholz said.
Reports News@Northeastern:
[At the meeting,] Birnholz, a cultural anthropology and theater combined major set to graduate in the spring of 2023, had some thoughts, particularly about how the administration’s own messaging around abortion access since the decision gutting abortion protections has been inherently exclusionary, leaving out the transgender and gender nonconforming communities, they said.
It’s an issue that hits close to home, as Birnholz, who is nonbinary and transgender, has developed close ties with those communities…
Birnholz flew to Washington, D.C., to take part in the discussions on Oct. 14, which served to explore ways of protecting reproductive freedoms in the wake of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Birnholz was one of 75 students selected to meet with Vice President Kamala Harris to provide input on the administration’s response to the national fallout of the Dobbs decision that saw some states enact abortion restrictions.
Read the complete News@Northeastern story here.
Not a subscriber? Sign up today for a free subscription to Boston Spirit magazine, New England’s premier LGBT magazine. We will send you a copy of Boston Spirit 6 times per year and we never sell/rent our subscriber information. Click HERE to sign up!
