Host: Noah Parrish, Gender Justice Communications Director

Guest: Nicki Hangsleben, QUEERSPACE Collective

“Your program is saving my kid’s life.”

Through mentorship, training and advocacy, Minnesota’s QUEERSPACE Collective creates a space where LGBTQ+ youth can show up as their authentic selves.

We recorded this episode a little over a week before the 2024 election, with major stakes for LGBTQ+ rights in the balance. We thought it was a good time to focus on the power of community and how we protect one another and stand together, which we’ll need to do regardless of election outcomes — our conversation with QUEERSPACE Collective executive director Nicki Hangsleben will give you a jolt of hope.

Links to resources mentioned in the show:

Queerspace — mentorship | merch | social

Minnesota School Outreach Coalition (MNSOC)

RECLAIM! Mental health support for queer and trans youth
Trevor Project Suicide prevention for LGBTQ+ young people

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Visit the "Gender Justice" Website ⁠here⁠ and "Unrestrict Minnesota" ⁠here⁠.

The GJB is produced by Michael at ⁠www.501MediaGroup.com⁠

Host: Noah Parrish, Gender Justice Communications Director

Guests: Erin Maye Quade, Gender Justice Special Projects Advisor, and Miraya Gran, Minnesota Building Families Coalition infertility advocate

At Gender Justice, we advocate for gender equity under the law. We also subscribe to the philosophy of reproductive justice, a concept developed by Black women advocates in the 1990s defined as “the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, to have children, to not have children, and to parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities.” Access to infertility treatment and services is a key component of this right.

Though specifics on state laws vary widely, 22 states and the District of Columbia require insurance to cover some kind of fertility treatment — but Minnesota isn’t one of them.

In this episode we talk with Miraya Gran, a leader of the Minnesota Building Families Coalition, and Gender Justice Special Projects Advisor Erin Maye Quade, who in her role as a Minnesota legislator is lead Senate author of the Minnesota Building Families Act, which would align Minnesota law with the position of the medical community as well as the reproductive rights, health, and justice communities.

Links to resources mentioned in the show:

• Minnesota Building Families Coalition

• • Sign up for action alerts

  • Follow the Minnesota Building Families Coalition on Facebook and Instagram

• Infertility insurance coverage by state

• Minnesota Building Families Act legislation

• 2024 letter to the Minnesota Senate Health and Human Services Committee from Gender Justice in support of the Minnesota Building Families Act

• Disparities in access to effective treatment for infertility in the United States: an Ethics Committee opinion | American Society for Reproductive Medicine

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  Visit the "Gender Justice" Website ⁠here⁠ and "Unrestrict Minnesota" ⁠here⁠.

  The GJB is produced by Michael at ⁠www.501MediaGroup.com⁠

  
  

Host: Noah Parrish, Gender Justice Communications Director

Guests: Christina Sambor, Gender Justice North Dakota State Director and Marc Hearron, Center for Reproductive Rights Senior Counsel

Victory in North Dakota!

On September 12, 2024, a North Dakota state court ruled that the state’s total abortion ban is unconstitutional.

“All North Dakota citizens, including women, have the right to make fundamental, appropriate, and informed medical decisions in consultation with a physician and to receive their chosen medical care among comparable alternatives. Such a choice is a fundamental one, central to personal autonomy and self-determination. Those choices belong to the individual, not the government. That is the essence of what liberty and happiness require.” — South Central Judicial District Court Judge Bruce Romanick, in his order

We talk with two of the attorneys who have been involved with the case filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights, Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, and Gender Justice.

Links to resources mentioned in the show:

• Statement on the ruling from the Center for Reproductive Rights and Gender Justice

• North Dakota judge vacates state abortion ban, ruling it unconstitutional, by Mary Steurer and Jeff Beach, North Dakota Monitor

• Abortion Bans Have Delayed Emergency Medical Care. In Georgia, Experts Say This Mother's Death Was Preventable, by Kavitha Surana, ProPublica
  Read the full opinion (pdf)

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  Visit the "Gender Justice" Website ⁠here⁠ and "Unrestrict Minnesota" ⁠here⁠.

  The GJB is produced by Michael at ⁠www.501MediaGroup.com⁠