Unzipping Taboos: Candid Conversations about Sex - Podcasthon 2026: SisterSong and the Reproductive Justice Movement

Episode Date: March 18, 2026

Reproductive justice isn’t just about pregnancy. It’s about power, policy, and the conditions that shape people’s lives.This week, Unzipping Taboos is proud to participate in Podcasthon, a global movement uniting podcasts to spotlight organizations creating meaningful change. This year, we are honored to highlight SisterSong and their decades of leadership advancing reproductive justice.We talk with Shanti Moore, Birth Justice Training and Curriculum Coordinator at SisterSong, for a wide-ranging conversation about what reproductive justice truly means. Rooted in a framework developed by women of color, reproductive justice goes beyond healthcare — it examines how overlapping systems of oppression impact bodily autonomy, community safety, environmental conditions, voting access, and more.We discuss SisterSong’s RJ101 training, the evolution of their work since 1997, and the birth justice initiatives addressing disparities in maternal health outcomes for Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities. We also explore the vulnerability of pregnancy and postpartum care, the role of faith communities, and why implementing reproductive justice is a lifelong commitment grounded in education, grace, and collective action.As part of this year’s Podcasthon, we’re proud to amplify SisterSong’s mission — and we invite you to learn more, support their work, and join the ongoing effort to build systems where justice is not conditional, but guaranteed.  DONATE to SisterSong To learn more about SisterSong, check out these links: SisterSong.net SisterSong - Become a Member About SisterSong SisterSong RJ Training

Hey, everyone. It's that time of year again where Unzipping Taboos is thrilled to take part in this year's podcast on. For one week, more than 2,600 podcasts across the world are coming together to spotlight impactful charities. And today, we at Unzipping Taboos are very, very excited and proud to highlight SisterSong. SisterSong is doing critical work to build a network of individuals and organizations dedicated to improving the institutional policies and systems that shape the reproductive lives of marginalized community. Truly critical work today. And we are quite honored to welcome Shanti Moore to the show to talk about the powerful work that SisterSong is leading in the fight for reproductive justice. Dr. Hsu, is there anything you want to

add i'm i'm just thrilled so last year we had an incredible organization and this year when we decided we were going to do this i kind of approached charlie and i was like so it's your turn to choose but here's who i want so um we we looked at the sister song website together and it was it was a no-brainer for me for both of us so um a few emails a few meetings and and here we are so i'm i'm so thankful for this and i get to skip my introduction which makes me even more happy because I hate doing my intro. So we're skipping our intros today because we want to introduce our very esteemed and honored guest Shanti Moore from SisterSong. Hi, Shanti. Welcome to Unzipping Taboos. Thank you for having me. It's great to be here. Would you like to give our listeners a

little bit about your background and how you came to SisterSong? Sure. So a little bit about me. I am a midwife and a doula and I am the birth justice training and curriculum coordinator with Sister Song. And how I ended up here, you know, I met Monica Simpson, who is our executive director, I want to say back in 2014. And she taught me what reproductive justice was. And when I learned about the framework, it just made so much sense to me, based on my own personal experiences based on I've always been someone who has been an advocate although I had never been a part of a movement home before and then I have to say it was around 2017 when many of us were just learning about the maternal

mortality crisis in the US that was disproportionately affecting black and Brown women. And that was a call to action for me, you know, and that's when I really began to get involved in reproductive justice, as well as birth justice, to be a part of the change. So that's how I ended up here. That's incredible. Incredible, incredible. I just, you're gonna have to forgive us listeners, because Dr. Sue and I are fangirling a little bit this episode. Dr. Sue, do you have any questions you'd like to lead off with? It's not a question. Well, yes, a question. But first, it's funny, because I finally put a name to it after meeting Monica as well. So I met her at a conference in the DC area. And I mean,

she's just a force to be reckoned with when you meet her in person. And she started saying all these words that I was like, Yeah, yeah, no, no, no, that's like, that's what I want. That's what i'm doing that's what i'm trying to do i didn't realize it had a name um and so yeah if we think about the power of monica um but i think a lot i think the challenge that i find is that a lot of people don't know what reproductive justice means and birth justice so if you could do either or both that would be great sure sure so reproductive justice um is really about living free it's about people having the right to expand their families and have children if that's what they choose to do and also having the right to decide not to if they don't want to have children and having the

right to raise their children in safe and sustainable communities and environments quite simply that's what RJ is and in terms of how it connects to birth justice because birth birth justice is a component, a critical component of reproductive justice and it's really about dismantling the discrimination in the life cycle of pregnant folks, specifically black and brown and indigenous people who tend to be more deeply impacted sometimes by their birth outcomes, marginalized folks, queer folks, people who are living with low incomes, but just supporting their full right to have the type of births that they want or to just really make the decisions about their pregnancies, whether that be to continue a pregnancy or

to, you know, have an abortion, being able to stand fully in their autonomy in terms of those decisions as well. i think that's one of the things that people i mean i'm sorry trying to like so many things just popped up for me um i'm trying to remember who wrote the article in scientific america about um the abuse that folks especially folks of color um were facing during the birthing process and what could only be labeled as abuse and i know that for me that was a really eye-opening experience. And I'm killing myself. I can't remember the woman's name. She's fantastic. And she actually pushed me towards a couple of organizations that were giving us some really

great information. And I think a lot of people are shocked by what that experience is like for women during the birthing process and then afterwards. And then when we start talking about maternal mortality and how it's such a problem in the United States, but it's such an an unbalanced problem in the united states when we take a look at at women of color um the problem and i know we talked about this in the pre-show the problem is everything you just said about reproductive justice is really hard to boil down to a tagline so i think that's one of the big challenges when i talk about it and i know you had mentioned it as well so if if there are key points like if someone listens to this and goes oh reproductive justice it's fill in the

blank, which I know is really hard to do. And I know you said it's almost impossible. But like, what are the key points you would want someone to take away from understanding this concept? I think understanding that people experience multiple overlapping forms of oppression, you know, so that when you are organizing on behalf of people, you can't focus on a single issue or a single fight, because RJ extends and expands into voting rights, being free from environmental injustice, police brutality, racial justice, it's about gender equity. And so if you think about any social justice issue that you can consider would be connected

to reproductive justice. When you think about those tenants, if you just go back to, um, um, so I want to, I want to add just that last piece, which I did not mention when, um, explaining the tenants of reproductive justice and just the piece about bodily autonomy, Because I feel like that is the one piece that is probably the easiest for people to connect to, you know, because everybody wants to be able to make decisions for themselves, you know, without being forced in any type of way or direction. And so when you consider what it means to live freely, I think it's easier to connect the dots when you're talking about reproductive justice, you know, that if I want to live freely, that includes being able to have enough food to eat, food sustainability, that's a part of reproductive justice. You know, being able to live in communities where my water is not being polluted, you know, or my air or, you know, now we have these data centers that are popping up, you know, that's a reproductive justice issue because we don't know yet what the consequences will be later on down the line, how people's lives will be affected. So I think it's one of those things, the more that you kind of ponder on just the issues that we're facing today, if you spend enough time, you can make the connection about how this is tied to reproductive justice. yeah that's one of the things uh in our in our meetings before coming to air to recording today

that's one of the things that stood out um that you said shanti is that reproductive justice this movement is about life in its entirety it's the whole life cycle it's not only about birthing humans and having equitable access to care being believed when you say something doesn't feel right or anything like that. It is the life cycle that this reproductive justice movement really, really aims at supporting. And I thought that was so critical. I had written that down from our notes too. So I'm glad you brought that up. I remember when you said that in the meeting, I was like, wait, I have to write that down. And I think that's what's hard for most people. I think it's, I think it's easy to have a slogan. I think it's easy to have a one issue

issue. It's, you know, we rally behind this one thing. Well, I'm a health educator by trade. I'm also a public health educator. And we did a whole thing about how voting is part of public health. Like, yeah, we make if we want to have legislation about health issues, we need to vote. And it's so hard for people to connect those dots sometimes that, you know, they want that one thing to rally behind um and it is such it is life it's it's just such an all-encompassing kind of concept so but you folks have a training on this yes yes can you tell us about the training please yes so we have a reproductive justice or an rj 101 training that we provide to orgs and institutions to introduce people who are not familiar with reproductive justice to

the framework and what it's about. And also to teach them how they can implement or put reproductive justice into practice in their own work. And, you know, what I can say about Reproductive Justice 101 trainings, because I have participated in a good many of them, and I've also had an opportunity to facilitate them and there's always something new that I learn whether I'm training or whether I'm participating and I like to encourage people you know to make that something that they implement on a regular basis you know it's not a one and done type of thing you know because the the work of reproductive justice i believe is lifelong you know so i like to encourage people take our rj 101 take it a couple of times take somebody

else's you know there's there's so much to to be gathered um from these trainings so anyone who's interested you can visit our website um to get more information about those and we'll have that website link in the episode description absolutely and probably just direct links to that rj101 training so people can just drop right in and check it out um so i'm curious about what brought you to uh the doula and doing this uh the birth justice he's tenant of reproductive justice so without sounding too airy fairy it's been a very serendipitous journey um what can I say there was a time um in my career that I would have people who would ask me randomly do you support people in birth and I hadn't at the time and I had a few other kind

of uncanny experiences like that that just kind of became a bit of a north star for me you know like okay this is something that I may need to be paying attention to and um like I mentioned earlier it was around 2017 we were finding about finding out about the maternal mortality issues and um like I said I've I've I've been an advocate in a previous life I worked in mental health nursing which is where I first learned how to advocate for people um and so yeah it just was a no-brainer you know that black women routinely are not listened to when we are in health care spaces and to be in one of the most vulnerable uh set of circumstances that anybody could be in when they're pregnant, you know, to not have the support of their providers, you know, to be

neglected and not listened to. It just, I just felt like not on my watch. I cannot stand by and know that folks are being affected in this way and that I can do something about it. i don't think most people really think about how vulnerable you can be during that process i think that a lot of what we learn unfortunately is from media um and pregnancy looks uncomplicated you know there are jokes about the weight gain and things like that and then the birth process is made to seem not perfect but you you said something about that vulnerability during that time can you can you talk a little bit more about that because i don't think people get just what that means um without sounding too hyperbolic pregnancy can be life-threatening

you know i don't think that's hyperbolic at all no i think that there's it's very it's proven it is yeah but it's it's way more dangerous than we consider you know um just the the natural process alone um i'm not to go too far off but i'm thinking about um hearing a traditional midwife say once that pregnancy will reveal your weakest link so physiologically you know if there are underlying issues that that people are experiencing these things can come to the surface and you know be potential health risks uh and and we just we don't consider that enough um and then also i have to speak to the postpartum period specifically because this is a time when we're seeing a lot of the losses, you know, because we

have this worship of children and worship of birth. And what I mean by that is that we can get so focused on making sure that children are born that we're not giving attention to the health of the people who are carrying them and then once they have these children you know all eyes are in in other directions you know when when a person is pregnant everyone around them is ready to help they want to make sure that that pregnant person is okay that they have what they need and once that baby arrives a lot of times nobody's looking at them anymore you know that's the reason why we're seeing preeclampsia in in postpartum and postpartum hemorrhage and postpartum mood disorders you know because people just don't give the same type of attention and care

to people after they've given birth that they do to people who are pregnant i just realized i was i'm taking furious notes and i just realized i kind of disappeared from the screen. So if you're watching the podcast, I'm still here. Dr. Sue is not teleporting. That'd be fun though. I was just thinking of all those things that go into that. Like we've had some pretty famous people saying the postpartum depression doesn't exist. And again, that's where a lot of people are getting their information. And then you look at the really minimal maternity leave we give folks and the real fight in some places and the complete lack in some companies in the u.s of paternity leave um and it's it's hard sometimes for communities to come together

like like you said because we kind of stopped focusing on the people who are doing the caregiving of the child and it's all about that baby at that point um but i'm just thinking about all those links you know that we're looking at this as like a whole it's not just this one issue it's all those things that are out there and yeah now i'm just getting angry which usually happens on the show if we're doing our job right we get we get dr sue riled up a little bit um so coming back to sister song how did the organization come to be so um first it was really about the creation of the tenants and the framework of reproductive justice and the term was created uh, by black women, uh, who understood that you couldn't separate reproductive freedom from racial

justice, economic justice, climate justice, and the other intersecting struggles. And then it was in 1997 that the organization was formed, uh, Sister Song Women of Color Reproductive Justice collective by 16 organizations of women of color from four many communities including Native American, African American, Latina, and Asian American women who came together and wanted to be able to represent themselves and their communities and advance the perspectives and needs of women of color. It's amazing it's just it's incredible and and you know you find so much of of our history and our and justice work so many times it that work is largely done by black women in america finding those those causes and those issues and fighting for everybody

um so there's there's for those of us that know about this it's almost no surprise that black women identified that the tenets of reproductive justice, identifying it and organizing around it and advocating for it is just incredible, incredible work. I'm probably going to use incredible very many times this episode, listeners, so make a game out of that if you'd like. So I touched on a little bit of Sister Song's mission in the introduction. I meant to say quote because i did quote um what was on the website but can you give us a little bit more information about the goals and the missions of sister song uh yes and and you you really were very succinct with it just if i could reiterate you know that sister song is a southern

based national membership organization and that our purpose is to build an effective network of individuals and organizations to improve institutional policies and systems that impact the reproductive lives of marginalized communities and that can look a multitude of different ways yes and um has what since you've been with sister song have you noticed like what's the evolution been of sister song and the work that that you do maybe more and more trainings um conventions that you go to so the evolution um i i will say that i um had the the privilege and the honor to be a part of some of the evolution with the uh inception of our birth justice uh team

because I came in and helped to create that aspect of our work, which has been huge just to even see the response that we get to our programming. For instance, we have our Birth Justice Care Fund, which supports black and brown and marginalized folks, birthing people, providing them with doula support, lactation support, maternal mental health support, as well as providing essential birthing items. And again, like I said, that's been huge. We serve people in Georgia, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Florida with that program and have been supporting folks with this initiative since I want to say 2020

when the pandemic first hit so that's that's been huge if I could just speak to that alone just our birth justice work yeah that's that's incredible I don't know if many people who aren't in spaces around reproductive health, reproductive justice, or women's care know the difference between a midwife and a doula? You're absolutely correct about that. And the way that I like to explain it is that the midwife is the person who is responsible for the clinical aspect of a pregnancy, and the doula is the person that's going to hold your hand. now the doula will do more than just hold your hand but i i like to paint that picture to just make it a little bit more clear because you know doulas also offer um educational support and

physical support and that there is some overlap in the roles but just hard and fast midwives or clinical. Doulas will provide that emotional support. I have so many places I want to go before. I kind of want to veer off track though. So Charlie, I didn't know if you had anything else along birth justice. Let's go. Take us on that journey, Dr. Sue. Thanks. I wanted to go back to one of the frameworks because it's something that I talk a lot about in my classes. And these are, you know, traditional college students for the most part, and it's the concept of intersectionality and i have this cute little video i play from somewhere that's like two minutes long because i you know i feel like i can if i can shove it into two minutes they can get it

but can you can you talk about what maybe you can do a better job than i do to explain what intersectionality is um because i think sometimes people are like well why if i identify as male why should i care what women are going through or if i don't live in that marginalized community and so i'm already starting to give away what the definition is i'm gonna i'm gonna stop talking so okay i i want to paint a picture because i feel like that will be helpful um but just imagine that you have two or three girlfriends that are going out one night right Right. And. Women going out at night have to be careful. Right. Exactly. Because of the potential and the risk for violence.

Black women going out at night, that's a whole nother level of danger. Mm hmm. But black and queer women going out at night, that's a whole nother level of danger based on their identities that can be affected by oppression, systematic oppression. So it's really just about recognizing that people who have multiple identities that tend to be marginalized have to be centered when we are advocating because if you focused on the people who are most marginalized everybody is going to be supported by the changes that are made for them yeah that i mean i may steal can i steal that from my class yeah sure um because the way i mean i we talk about the definition and it's it's how you know

we're not just what we see it's all these different levels that you know there may be hidden disabilities we may our orientation may not be out there and i'm always trying to convince everyone that you may share an identity that you don't have out you know publicly with other people who are going through the same struggle but because you're not talking about it because you're focused solely on i've met you and i put you in a box and we're not anything alike but there's so many levels to this um and i do i try to lend with like when we make it better for one, we make it better for all. And it just, it's that adolescent brain. It's not quite developed there yet. But it's something I'm hearing more and more for people who are going into healthcare

professions, which I'm really happy about. I'm hearing that word pop up every once in a while, or I didn't hear it before. So I'm encouraged by that. But I think it's important that we're having conversations about looking beyond what we see because there are layers there you know we we unfortunately talk very openly now about how women should you know carry their keys in between their fingers and become like you know self-defense experts but then there are those added layers that we so rarely talk about because we a lot of times people find that layer overwhelming especially if they don't live it i find sometimes in my classes that when the women start talking about all the all the things they do to protect themselves at night that the men kind of shut down

because they never thought about it before and so i i find that sometimes when i do talk about reproductive justice and we start and because it is such an all-encompassing concept some of my students and some of the folks i talk to and i want to set in the real world like school isn't real um like i start talking about all these issues and they're like this is just overwhelming and they shut down because it's the first time they're really thinking about the oppression that's happening at so many different levels and not that it's i mean it's kind of is our job to help shepherd them through that but like when you start explaining these concepts and again we're going to put the link to the rj101 trainings in the description do you ever run into those

people who are like i'm getting it but now i'm overwhelmed and i don't know where to start i would say yes and and i i would dare say that you know when i was first learning about rj i had a couple of those walls where it was like whoa this is new information for me i got to process this yeah so how do we help them other than by telling them to take the training multiple times i think by um reminding people that implementing reproductive justice into their work and into their lives is lifelong meaning that it's not anything that anyone is expected to get in one training you know that it's it's about making the commitment you know that you want to support the end of reproductive oppression

you know and and oppression overall and in all of its various forms so don't don't try to you know swallow everything in one bite you know people have to give themselves grace because you're also talking about um the shifting of a person's identity because of the shifting that's taking place in their consciousness you know and that can be extremely disorienting i i give people grace you know because when you've been accustomed to thinking a particular way all of your life it takes time you know to fully transition into another way of thought yeah that's that's fantastic thank you I know we've sorry Charlie you're about to I just want to echo what Shanti said that it's uh when you're embarking on this journey of education and

something that is dismantling so much of our social conditioning lifetime social conditioning and you're starting to recognize those pieces and then learning the new tenets, it is so critical to have grace. It's not a pass-fail kind of journey. It is, as Shanti, you said, it's a lifelong journey. When you start to gain that awareness and your eyes open more and more

as you kind of come out of the woods of mainstream social conditioning around a lot of these issues. Yeah, and what was built over hundreds of years cannot be undone because you got a clue and i don't mean that the way it came out but like because you just learned about it you you can undo it we'd like people to use their power and privilege to help others but you're not going to undo those systems in one day um it is it is it is for the long haul um and it's i know charlie you and i had this discussion when we were talking

about the world being a dumpster fire right now or for the last year and change um someone had said to me like we don't need you to do the fight every second of every day because if you burn out we we don't have you to fight for us so if you're finding yourself being overwhelmed it's okay to take a step back and be like i didn't know it before and i know it now and i can do this again you know i can take 10 minutes or a day um you don't have to fight this fight every second even though people are living it every second it it can't be it can't be you one person who's going to undo the system but it's overwhelming and we want to acknowledge that and for those of you who are like using this opportunity to jump on the sister song website and do some research on

this um you're gonna be pissed and and we well as a new yorker i feel like everyone should be angry all the time because i feel like that's where we get the most stuff done but it's okay for all the things you're feeling so if you're just learning about this and you're angry that you never learned about it before um where you're angry at the levels of oppression um i went through what i thought was a pretty good education and then i learned all about the sexual abuse of that we were doing to women of color in the south up until the 60s i mean forced sterilization and and i was pissed that like i'd gone through entire phd in this field like why hadn't i learned this so whatever you're feeling is okay and if it feels overwhelming that's okay too

if you need a if you need a few minutes you need a day to dust yourself off and get back up and do it like we need you in the fight long term so and if i could just add one more piece to that just that joy is a part of the it's a part of liberation too you know it's a part of the work and it's something that can happen simultaneously it's necessary that we incorporate joy and pleasure and celebration, I think about that one quote, and I know I'm going to get it wrong, but folks who were active during the beginning of the AIDS crisis talking about how we would bury our loved ones in the morning, we would fight the system in midday, we would dance all night, you know, and how all of those things are important.

you can't extract the joy from the process because you you lose hope that way yeah so just knowing that with the day-to-day we don't have to do this work in a solemn type of way you know it doesn't have to be depressing every day because life life the dumpster so so true i'm so glad you brought that up which in a roundabout way in my brain, well, Charlie, you're about to say something. No, go for it. Are we going in the same place?

I'm almost certain, but so I want you to go. I wanted, if you feel comfortable talking about Sister Chong's work in the faith area, is that where you were going to go? Yep. Yeah, because to me, when I think about faith, especially how faith is seen in a lot of the Southern states, there is a lot of joy and there is a lot of just life affirmingness. Oh, that wasn't a word, but we know Sister Song is doing some work in the faith community. So if you feel comfortable talking about that a little bit.

You know, what I would say about faith and RJ is that they're not opposed. You know, there are a lot of people who would think that reproductive rights and faith are pitted against each other, but they don't have to be. And I think it's important to remember also that some of the same values within the faiths of different religions, like having love for your neighbor and justice and peace, are directly connected to the concept of reproductive justice. You know, I personally, if I can add this and I connect this with that last tenet of bodily autonomy, everyone having the right to bodily autonomy. I really am a firm believer that when we can get to a place where we have reverence for one another's, our humanity, we won't have to struggle so hard for justice. If we can just really access our own humanity and see the humanity in other people, it won't be so hard. you know and again these are tenets that are taught in many different religions you know having that love for one another well that's so powerful that's so powerful because we are

all just trying to human together we all have this condition of humanity and um and we're all trying And so when we can find that community and that purpose and give space for each other in that way, that's so powerful. So I'm the pessimist. What's up, New York? And so for me, I turn around and I, you know, see the things that haven't changed. I was recently talking to some of my students when we were talking to access to basic reproductive care about, you know, the number of clinics, especially in urban areas that shut down during COVID. And whoops, we forgot to reopen them. And they happen to be in the areas where people already have problems getting access to, you know, things like food.

Now we're limiting their access to care. I have a thousand reasons to be angry and to be not hopeful. so i'm going to try to be optimistic or i'm going to let you be optimistic is there anything you're seeing in either the birth justice space or the reproductive justice space anything that's giving you hope please say yes because otherwise i feel i mean i'll feel vindicated if you say no but yes and i would say um just the way that people are leaning into community you know in a way that I don't think we've seen in a long time there's this this quote I might butcher this one too from I think American Gods ago something like family is who you survive with

when you have to survive even when you do not like them and I think I think we're there you know where people are recognizing that regardless of whatever type of differences they may have on the surface like we're all in this together all hands on deck you know we need everyone who is on the right side of this fight you know what i'm saying to to come together so just seeing the ways that um people are are supporting one another uh coming together and in community um is really what gives me hope you know okay fine the west coaster in me is really happy that you see hope because now i get to pick on dr sue in a beautiful way i just because to me i see the things that's

driving us together um a lot of what's happening across the country right now especially um in minnesota like we're seeing all that and i know you're seeing like the community come together but i'm still angry about the fact that they have to and so that's just it takes both of us though to make the world go around it does and you know when when we think about community and community having to come together think about all of the communities that have been destroyed by this system yeah you know we we deserve to be able to come together in community and the circumstances are horrible you know but as um aspects of our system crumble in front of us the rebuilding is also happening simultaneously

you know where people are thinking about okay whatever we we stand to lose what will we build and put in its place and i think for people to even be able to entertain the idea of a future beyond this moment that's that's where the hope lies as well i believe it's just to play off that first i was in a a large meeting of something or other and people were saying oh you know we're going to get back to where we were we're going to undo what's been done and I I was getting angry which again I just take as a matter of who I am and then finally said someone said we don't want what we had it was broken and I was like that that's that that was it like I needed someone to name that I didn't

want to go back to where we were I want to go to somewhere we haven't been yet which is a place where these levels of oppression don't exist and it's not built into the system because if if when we build it into the system we can't expect people to be able to change it because they're already being they're already being put down by the system in so many different ways they're being made i don't want to say powerless um but yeah i think yeah oppressed thank you um but it took that moment of someone going but it was broken before why we're trying to get back there and I was like yeah that's so maybe it does all need to crumble so we can build it better I think that's the thing that that sounds the most hopeful to me is that there

are many people who believe that the rebuilding will be a better version well and that's and that's what we work towards I mean I would I would argue that's probably one of the implicit tenets of sister song and the work that sister song is doing is believing that they um that the work that's being done is building towards something stronger bigger and more inclusive and community driven most definitely most definitely so that brings us to the whole point of this which was not just an open fan letter to sister song part of what what the podcast on is and let me just if you're listening to this the podcast on is being run all this week by literally thousands of different podcasts on all sorts of topics everything from uh relationships

and sexual health to finance and data and electronics and technology and fashion and all sorts of things so um but what happened was we they were trying to create this community of podcasts from around the world to highlight the work of nonprofits um so how can people if people listening to this and like yes i want to help i want to do something and we're gonna learn yeah we're gonna learn we're gonna have the link to the organization sister song in the in the description we'll probably also put the and the one to the rj101 training and the one to a straight donation because money is important but is there any outside of donation is there anything that folks can do to support the work that you're doing? I would say definitely if you're not

familiar with our organization, visiting our website at sistersong.net to learn more about our programming and our initiatives and also follow us on social media and help to uplift the work that we do you know by sharing stories sharing about the organization with folks that you know I also want to highlight that our let's talk about sex conferences coming up this year in August you know which is an an amazing experience if you've never had an opportunity to participate uh definitely that's a conference that you would want to attend um so keep uh follow us on social media for updates about the conference as well as visit the website great and the conference is in chicago this year

right yes so i my students i know i keep coming back to my students but they're the ones who keep me in touch with the real world. And they always say, I can't do anything. And I'm like, I try to explain to them that if I say something on social media and you don't know me, you're not going to listen to me. But if your friend is saying it, you're more likely to listen. So if you're listening and you're like, I don't know what to say, post something about SisterSong. Share the website on your social media. Follow them and say, I just follow them. Or if there's some great piece of So if something comes out on social media, repost it, reshare it, make it part of your story. I don't even know the words anymore because it's changing so often.

I think people forget that you don't have to be an expert to share resources. And the more you can get this out, even if you don't know what to say about it. You see a great thing from SisterSong on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter or X or whatever we're calling it these days. And you're like, oh, that was great. You don't have to know what to say. You can just share it and say, this is great. Look at it, read it, watch it, support it. And if you're feeling like it, donate.

I mean, fortunately, money makes the world go round. This is capitalism. So, yeah. But I think people forget the power of social media sometimes. Sorry, go ahead. I was going to add, also consider becoming a member. You know, we've got some great trainings for our members. and we keep folks in the loop because we're building a movement, you know,

so for anyone who doesn't have a movement home, you know, who is interested in learning more about reproductive justice, like we encourage you, come on over, spend some time with us. That's great. Wonderful. Well, Shanti, we are so incredibly grateful for you and the work that you and Sister Song are doing to advance reproductive justice for marginalized communities and everyone just as we discussed a little bit just now to learn more about sister songs work and how you can support or get involved

be sure to check out the links in our episode description and show notes there you'll find ways to donate volunteer become a member share resources and i want to thank you again shanti so much for taking the time to be with us today for this podcast on um so incredibly honored and grateful to learn even more about the work that you all are doing. It's incredible. So everyone, I want to wrap this up with saying please keep the conversations going. Talk about this with people in your circle, as Dr. Sue mentioned, on your social media. Challenge all of the ways that marginalized communities are impacted by inequity throughout the life cycle. You know, as we talked about it really does impact reproductive justice across the lifespan. Advocate for reproductive

justice and reproductive freedom. So with that, I want to thank you all for listening. Shanti, again, thank you, thank you, thank you. And we'll catch you all next time on Unzipping Taboos. It's been a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you for watching!