Until Justice Just Is: Bodily Autonomy

UJJI is a YWCA USA initiative that we participated in. Each week we tackled a different topic. Week one the focus was Bodily Autonomy.

What is Bodily Autonomy?

Bodily Autonomy is the right to make decisions about and have personal control over your own body. It is one of the most fundamental rights we have as human beings, but unfortunately, this right is being challenged.

Throughout the country, including in Georgia, laws have been proposed and passed that limit the rights of trans, gender nonconforming, and non-binary individuals, impacting their access to essential medical care and their ability to exist in public spaces. The fight for reproductive choice is also an ongoing struggle that has taken critical decisions out of the hands of individuals. Weight stigma, which disproportionately impacts women of color, is yet another way we police bodies that has a profoundly negative impact on people’s physical and mental health. People of color also face discrimination based on their hair texture and style.
 

Bodily Autonomy Challenge

Every week during the Until Justice Just Is, we will encourage you to reflect on the week's theme and take some action. These challenges are meant to help you reflect and deepen your anti-racism practices.

This week's challenge: 

Step 1: Take sometime today to think about your own values around bodily autonomy and race. What do you care about? What about bodily autonomy and race is important to you? The themes below offer a good jumping off point for the many ways bodily autonomy intersects with race. 

Step 2: Each day this week, make observations about where and how you see race and bodily autonomy intersect in your daily life. This is a good topic for meditation or journaling, but you can also make your own mental notes about what you see and experience.

Step 3: On Friday, after evaluating your own self-reflections throughout the week, write a values statement that you can commit to abiding by in your daily life. We will provide more examples in our Friday email of how you can turn your reflections into values to live by. Who will keep you accountable? Identify accountability partners in your life who will keep you accountable to your value.
 

Bodily Autonomy and Race

Throughout American history, women have been advocating to maintain autonomy over their own bodies.  Women, and particularly women of color have been subjected to various forms of control over their bodies, ranging from forced labor to medical abuse and misdiagnoses to discriminatory treatment around weight and natural hairstyles. The impact of slavery and forced sterilization of Indigenous women is still felt by many today, resulting in wealth gaps, and the loss of generational histories and learning. In the present, our right to bodily autonomy is continuously threatened by discriminatory medical practices and biases, prejudices in the work place, and attacks on reproductive and trans healthcare access. 

Structural inequalities can perpetuate these injustices and make maintaining bodily autonomy more challenging. Addressing the issues that arise at the intersection of bodily autonomy and race requires not only acknowledgment of historical and present injustices but also organizing and advocating for policies that promote dignity, personal agency, and body liberation and autonomy.
 

Bodily Autonomy and State Policy

Here in Georgia, our rights to bodily autonomy are being challenged. Georgia’s reproductive laws prevent most women from making their own reproductive decisions because abortion care is banned after 6 weeks of pregnancy, often before a woman knows she has become pregnant. Trans healthcare is also under attack, with bans on medically needed gender-affirming care treatment and medication.

YWCA of Greater Atlanta works in coalition with advocates and allies to support state legislation that would help individuals maintain their bodily autonomy and fight against legislation that limits Georgians’ abilities to make decisions about their own body and health.
What can you do?

• Look up your state legislators and contact them asking them to support legislation that secures our rights to personal bodily autonomy.

• Sign the Petition for The Reproductive Freedom Act to encourage lawmakers to affirm our right to bodily autonomy.

Deeper Dive into Bodily Autonomy

Want to learn more about our right to Bodily Autonomy?
Check out these resources below:

1) Infographic: Bodily Autonomy Framework from Positive Womens Network
2) Podcast: Our United Fight for Bodily Autonomy with Imani Barbarin
3) Article: Bodily Autonomy and the Right to Privacy: What They Are, How They Affect People with Disabilities, and Why We Need to Protect Them
4) Article: Black Women, Civil Rights & the Struggle for Bodily Autonomy
5) Video: #Mybodyismyown: What is Bodily Autonomy (4 minutes)

*some information in this e-mail is from YWCA USA and can be found at: https://justice.ywca.org/

This Week's Challenge: Putting it into Practice

For this week’s challenge, you were invited to reflect on your own values around bodily autonomy and race. Take a few moments to review your journaling thoughts or collect the mental notes you’ve taken. Reflecting on your values, experiences, and observations this week, craft a Personal Value Statement about your commitment to ensuring all people have agency over their own bodies. After crafting your Value Statement, determine concrete ways that you may commit to living out your values.  

Here are a few examples to help you get started: 

Medical Abuse/Informed Consent: Example Value Statement: “I believe all people deserve unbiased intentional medical care from doctors who respect their patients’ medical decisions, regardless of race or gender identity.” How you will put it into action: “I will advocate for myself and family members, when appropriate, with medical providers to ensure that we receive the care we need without bias or discrimination.” 

Weight Stigma: Example Value Statement: “Anti-fatness and negative weight stigma are discriminatory ideologies that disproportionately impact women of color. I believe that individuals of every size and weight deserve to live fulfilling lives and have access to unbiased healthcare.” How you will put it into action: “I will stop any fat shaming or fatphobic conversations within my friend group by meeting comments with introspection or inquiry rather than correction.”  

Hair: Example Value Statement: “I believe all people have the right to express themselves and their culture through hairstyles and hair coverings.” How you will put it into action: “I will advocate for changes in workplace policies to ensure discriminatory policies in my employee handbook are removed.” 
 

Once you’ve written your value and action statements, take a short video or make a post on social media sharing them! If you post on social media, be sure to use our #UntilJusticeJustIs hashtag and tag YWCA of Greater Atlanta on Instagram at @ywcaatlanta and X at @ywcaatl.