UC Press Blog

By Chris Barcelos, author of Youth Organizing for Reproductive Justice: A Guide for Liberation

If you care about bodily autonomy and self-determination, the current times are very, very bad. The United States federal government has now issued an avalanche of executive orders that amount to what scholars call stochastic terrorism, a form of political violence intended to promote fear, violence and disgust against a particular group of people. The executive orders have taken aim at transgender people, immigrants, and anything related to diversity, equity, and inclusion in an “act of full throated explicit dehumanization.” 

This is not just symbolic violence. It has very real effects on people’s ability to receive healthcare, get education, cross borders, work or learn in a safe environment, and more. 

As I argue in my new book, Youth Organizing for Reproductive Justice: A Guide for Liberation, we can learn a lot about what this moment demands of us by looking to youth-led social movements for reproductive justice. Youth activists understand how systems of oppression such as racism, xenophobia, and transphobia are interlocking, or deeply interwoven and dependent on each other. Focusing on interlocking systems of oppression enables us to see, for instance, how executive orders banning youth from receiving gender-affirming healthcare and those targeting researchers studying racial inequities are part of the same strategy to deny marginalized groups bodily autonomy and self-determination. 

We can learn a lot about what this moment demands of us by looking to youth-led social movements for reproductive justice.

Youth Organizing for Reproductive Justice surveys youth organizing in the United States from the past 25 years. Here are some lessons from the book that help us understand our current political movement and how to fight back:

1. Resisting criminalization is key to promoting bodily autonomy

Making it a crime to receive or provide medical care or to teach accurately about the history of white supremacy is a bold-faced attempt to prevent people from exercising bodily autonomy and self-determination, values at the core of reproductive justice. Criminalization isn’t just about what is considered “illegal.” It’s also a process by which some people and some bodies are seen as dangerous and unworthy of human dignity. Building our movements’ capacities to resist criminalization is key to promoting bodily autonomy for both youth and adults. 

2. The importance of youth-adult solidarity 

As adults, it’s important to be accomplices to youth without also diminishing or fetishizing their activism. Adults often have access to resources that youth do not, such as transportation to get an abortion or gender-affirming care or the years of wisdom to know how to pick your battles. We can also support youth simply by showing up, as hundreds of adults did when a New York City health organization abruptly canceled care for trans youth  against the recommendation of the state attorney general.

3. Who is considered a “youth” is all about power

Historians have pointed out that the meaning of youth has varied by time and place. Policymaking and political discourse use the flexible category of youth to serve various political goals. When politicians use the argument of “protecting children,” they don’t mean the protection of youth who aren’t white, abled-bodied, normatively gendered, and economically privileged. Undocumented youth can’t expect to be protected from ICE raids in public schools, and the category of “trans youth” was conveniently expanded to include 18 year old legal adults. We must stay vigilant to the shifting category of “youth” and how it’s used to cause harm. 

4. We need each other to survive 

As scholars and activists have argued, marginalized people cannot turn to the law for protection, as the law has never made us safer. Mutual aid became a household term during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it has long been a tactic of radical social movements, including among youth activists. Mutual aid is a form of collectively meeting each other’s needs when existing systems aren’t going to meet them. Whether it’s fundraising for healthcare or teaching each other how to resist state repression, mutual aid is what’s going to get us through these times, and beyond.