April 2021, and I'm gonna talk about abortion
I say “abortion is healthcare” a lot but that’s because abortion is healthcare. The clinic was nice, they prepped me well, they gave me drugs, the procedure took no time at all but was still very expensive — sounds like healthcare in America to me!
A lot is new in my life. Besides my increasing dedication to my role in my full-time job, I’m also newly on the board of directors for an abortion advocacy fund which takes up a lot of my non-full-time-job time. Every single moment that I am overwhelmed, I can’t believe I get to be overwhelmed by these causes, the things I care about so much.
Everyone knows abortion matters to me and at a time when the news still manages to be about intentionally scary news like abortion BANS, I thought I’d share why I had one and why I continue to be proud to support this right.
The real reason I had an abortion is because I thought forward to a potential child’s life on this earth. Not just a child, my child, who would deal with living to paycheck-to-paycheck, who would deal with separated parents who fought pretty bad and pretty often. They’d deal with a lovely but overwhelmingly present extended paternal family and a scant and unstable maternal one, full of people who do not like their mother. Their financial and mental support system wouldn’t exist, largely because their parents were not yet good or stable people and there was no promise one day they’d be so. I thought that life sounded really bad. Life is already hard, and I even mean besides the overwhelmingly awful systems we have in place that run our dysfunctional societies. Besides inherent racism and rampant internal biases. Beside’s life’s boulders of grief and loss, unexpected, expected, all of the different kinds. I think life is especially hard for people who are born to parents that don’t really want to be parents. Actually, I don’t think that, I know it from deep personal experience.
And that’s why I had an abortion. It wasn’t about anything else. It wasn’t about My Right to Choose and it wasn’t about making a political statement. I didn’t have an abortion because I’d fought for my right to have an abortion. When I was actually in it, it was simply about what I wanted to do. It was about me and what I had to offer someone in this life, which was not much. And also, good thing I chose not to be a mother because it turns out I really don’t want to be one.
I say “abortion is healthcare” a lot but that’s because abortion is healthcare. The clinic was nice, they prepped me well, they gave me drugs, the procedure took no time at all but was still very expensive — sounds like healthcare in America to me!
If you want to help people have access to healthcare in places or circumstances where it’s a bit harder to have the experience I was able to have, I’ve got great news for you. That abortion advocacy group I mentioned is the Northwest Abortion Access Fund and we’re fundraising right now. My personal goal was met in a day so I made it way bigger but I’ve also been trying to get David Cross to donate to me. (Story for another day.)
Also to be clear, I had a nice experience, but my abortion was 500 dollars that I could not afford even with help from my ex so I had to borrow from my 401k. I did not know about resources and was scared to ask!!! Donating helps that too.
So thanks for donating to something that means everything to me.
Okay, okay! Enough already. Here’s the books.
[Books I Read With My Eyes]
Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters, published 2021
Quick summary: Three people navigate the idea of bringing life into the world together. | I love a buzzy book and this one sure is buzzy, isn’t it? Detransition, Baby is incredibly up my alley in subject matter, as infertility, reproductive health, and ~nontraditional~ families are just a few of the many things I am interested in, I actually found Peters’s writing a bit hard to wade through at times though overall that was not a barrier to me enjoying the novel. Notably, Detransition, Baby is one of the first novels written by a trans woman to be published by one of the five big deal publishing companies. I am hopeful for many, many more trans stories written by trans people about a wide scope of subject matters.
[novel, fiction, written by a white trans woman, medium-length read]
Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson, published 2014
Quick summary: The story of Jacqueline Woodson’s life and what home means to her. | I’ve actually never read anything by Woodson before which seems very strange, as I tend to prefer words written by queer, Black women. I didn’t even realize this was a middle grade novel but it does explain Woodson’s formatting choices (this is a verse novel) and the ease of her tone throughout the narration of her life. I didn’t listen to this book, but her voice is so strong, it’s as if I did. Now that I know about Woodson’s childhood, it’s time for me to read more of her.
[memoir, poetry, nonfiction, written by a queer, Black cis woman, short read]
The Factory by Hiroko Oyamada, published 2013; translated into English 2019
Quick summary: Three factory workers day-to-day lives as they slowly start to lose their grips on reality. | I always find myself drawn to stories like this one. The Factory reminded me a bit of Convenience Store Woman, which I adore, but this is a bit quirkier. I glanced over to the left side of my screen just now and saw the phrase “absurdist fiction,” which I like and which explains this book very well. There’s something to be said about randomly choosing this novella about the monotony of work and how it can consume you entirely at a time when all I can think about is how my work-life balance might be ripped away from me soon because of this capitalistic society…but more on that another day.
[novel, absurdist fiction, written by a Japanese cis woman, short read]
What's Mine And Yours by Naima Coster, published 2021
Quick summary: Race, family, identity, and community are the main focuses in this story that follows various characters with interweaving storylines. | After I finished Halsey Street, I wondered if I could declare that Coster was one of my favorite authors, having only read that one thing. Could I declare someone my favorite so suddenly? What if they impacted my actual real life emotions by creating characters that spoke directly to my experiences and my heart? It feels rare to read people — fictional people — who make you say, “oh, oh, no” as you slowly realize there are others like you. Well now I can say she’s one of my favorites because everything she writes, including both of her books, gets me. I love her work. I think she is incredibly talented and if you haven’t read Halsey Street, I’d encourage you to pick that one up too. In case it’s unclear, I recommend this!
[novel, fiction, written by a Latinx cis woman, medium read]
Virgin: Poems by Analicia Sotelo
Quick summary: Poems about sexuality and men being awful. | I like to read a book of poetry from time to time even though I am not inherently a poetry person. This was very interesting with great lines that stuck with me but overall was not quite for me because of the allusions to mythology that I was not invested enough to look up and reference. (A me thing, not a flaw of the writer’s!)
[poetry, written by a Latinx cis woman, short read]
[Audiobooks]
Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Brittney Cooper, published 2018
Quick summary: Black women are pissed, and Brittney Cooper tells you why. | This has been on my list for a long time and I am glad I finally got the chance to listen to it! I was inspired to read this because of The Great Unlearn which has been a part of my life lately. I’ve removed some books from my TBR lately that I personally feel are a bit outdated already — books written about feminism right before or during the early era of Trump’s presidency don’t feel relevant anymore. Don’t miss out out on this book, though. Published in 2018, it still holds plenty of relevance to conversations we’re having today, particularly around white and Black feminism.
[feminist theory, Black studies, nonfiction, written by a Black cis woman, short listen, read by the author]
[What I Recommend]
If you are also interested in sexuality, gender, motherhood, and/or reproduction: Torrey Peters’s Detransition, Baby
If you are a person with a heart (who enjoys fiction): Naima Coster’s What's Mine And Yours
If you are white or not Black or are a cis man and have ever said or wondered “why are Black women so angry?”: Brittney Cooper’s Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower
