Power Belongs to the People

To Our Community,

Despite the injustice exacted by the Supreme Court, the health and well-being of people who need access to abortion as a critical procedure that protects their health, agency, and opportunities in this country is not up for debate.

Despite the recent wave of anti-trans legislation across states, trans lives are not up for debate.

Despite the lack of discernible action to end the gun violence crisis, people’s right to safety, from children to elders, is not up for debate.

For many of us, every day is a fight, and every minute is a riot against oppressive forces that seek to control us, our bodily autonomy, and our right to dignity. 

Reproductive rights are directly related to housing rights— housing is healthcare. This decision disproportionately impacts the LGBTQ+ youth experiencing homelessness, Black birthing peoples who are disproportionately impacted by mortality rates, medical racism, and negligence, and all people surviving poverty who are routinely denied access to equitable services. 

We denounce the overturning of Roe V. Wade. We denounce the violent political acts of abuse that seek to remove protections from our communities. We have the right to be protected, and it is by virtue of being alive on this Earth. 

We’re not here to take up extra space, we’re here to lend our voice and our platform to show solidarity. While we are doing the work with folks across the country to end the youth homelessness crisis, we lift up all those doing the liberation work to protect reproductive rights, to protect trans lives, to end gun violence, to protect Black lives, to eradicate poverty, to fund education, and beyond. 

In the wake of this crisis, we uplift the call to action to donate directly to the trusted mutual aid campaigns in your communities. 

We will always protect one another, and while we must allow ourselves to surrender to our grief, so that we can also righteously claim our anger—we must always remember that true power belongs to the people, not to the oppressors. 

The people united will never be defeated.

With solidarity, 

Pilar Barreyro
VP, Communications & Strategy