Member Statements on PCR03: Make the Bodily Autonomy Working Group a Chapter Priority Campaign for 2026
IN FAVOR by Eduarda S
Vote YES to make BAWG a chapter priority campaign! Theyāre doing great work to support trans and queer rights across the DMV and they deserve our funding and support to continue their amazingness!
IN FAVOR by Mina/Nat S
As a trans woman, I want to let all my cis comrades know: at a time where we have become fascismās main boogey(wo)man, the nightmare of gender deviance that the far right whips its supporters into a frenzy about, cis society at large is not showing up for us like you might think they are. Polls show that rather than being trans-accepting, cis society is largely trans-apathetic; and while we may celebrate this as a win for our community (āat least they donāt hate us!ā), we know that indifference is cold comfort when faced with constant state repression: stripping our healthcare coverage, our freedom to move, our safety, our ability to participate in social necessities, our ability to resist harassment and violence in society or even in prison. We canāt even name our oppression without getting banned from social media, or even name ourselves.
What is the one organization that has stood up for us through all this? DSA. DSA has been the strongest ally of the movement, and I say that as a trans socialist. The nonprofits and the legal aid orgs do their best, donāt get me wrong, but we face a political problem and we canāt nonprofit our way out of it. We need DSA organizing to stop fascist consolidation against our people.
In a period of continued fascist assault on our rights, where we wake up to new threats to trans peopleās freedom weekly or even daily, it is vital that funds be made available through MDC DSAās priority campaign process to resist these attacks and to enshrine our rights in law. I encourage everyone to read the BAWG Priority Campaign proposal which includes clear, specific examples of work done over the past year on this front, as well as clear proposals for how to move forward with the work and where the funds will be used, on rapid response and legislative campaigns across DC, Maryland and Virginia.When compared to the other priority campaign proposals, I think the specifics on display in the BAWG proposal are very laudable and inspiring. The Yes on All 3 campaign is an incredible organizing opportunity in Northern Virginia, especially in conjunction with working on trans safety and representation in schools including FCPS and other school systems. We have seen how Fairfax and Loudoun Counties are flashpoints in the so-called ātrans debateā with national impacts, so NoVA trans rights work is vital work for the whole country. Sanctuary Maryland will be a huge legislative effort at the Maryland state level and helps us work with Baltimore DSA and other chapters. Finally, I encourage everyone to remember that there is an element of this work which is rapid response to rising threats; priority campaign status will ensure that when we need to mobilize people or funds on short order, we will have that opportunity.
In an era where it seems like no one is on our side, DSA is, and this proposal allows us to make that case to trans people in the metro region and nationwide. I encourage everyone to vote YES on Bodily Autonomy as a priority campaign.
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IN FAVOR by Cindy D
Keeping Bodily Autonomy as a chapter priority campaign in 2026 is critically important for challenging the growth of fascism and building a Democratic Socialist future. At this moment in history, reproductive justice and transgender existence are under attack by the Trump administration and the broader right. We have to fight back. The Bodily Autonomy Working Group (BAWG) already has a track record of fighting and is geared up for an active year of ongoing work. Priority campaign status not only provides resources to sustain important work but also signals to the rest of the chapter and to the larger community that gender issues reallyare a priority in Metro DC DSA
Both the Reproductive Justic and Trans Queer Liberation arms of BAWG put forth a vison of bodily autonomy that goes beyond liberal conceptions of choice and individual rights and sees gender and sexuality politics as inextricably linked to other anti-racist, anti-capitalist work going on in the chapter on health care, housing, abolition, immigrant and international solidarity.
IN FAVOR by Ken B
The Bodily Autonomy Working Group has done fantastic work in 2025 and utilized their priority funding effectively. They have achieved impressive legislative wins in only a short time and managed to use mutual aid in a way that is actually organizing a mass movement. In 2026, they will be able to continue this work, and potentially partner with Electoral and Abolition to work on the Yes on All 3 ballot measure campaign to ensure reproductive freedom, protect gay marriage, and restore voting rights to felons in Virginia. At a time when repro freedom and lgbtq rights, in particular trans rights, are under vicious attack by Trumpās fascist regime, it is critical that we continue to prioritize this organizing. Please join me in voting to renew BAWG as a priority campaign in 2026.
IN FAVOR by Julia P
BAWG is great no notes theyāre doing amazing please vote YES letās GO!
IN FAVOR by Jo S
Hello comrades. My name is Jo and I am one of the Stewards of Metro DC DSAās Queer Section. I am writing to ask for your support of the Bodily Autonomy Working Group (BAWG) for Priority Campaign.
It goes without saying that this year has been incredibly difficult for the queer community. The trans community especially has faced attacks from all sides, including from Democrats who claim allyship. As federal protections for Trans people dissolve, local communities must step up.
Thatās exactly what the Bodily Autonomy Working Groupās Trans and Queer Liberation Campaign is doing through organizing for Trans Sanctuary Resolutions. Cities and counties pass these resolutions to protect against discrimination on the basis of gender identity and to codify a refusal to cooperate with laws that criminalize trans people and gender affirming care.
We successfully passed Sanctuary resolutions in Alexandria and Arlington. This year in Arlington, we worked with LaColectiVA to also pass a Migrant Sanctuary Resolution, ending local voluntary collaboration with ICE. Now weāre organizing to pass trans sanctuary resolutions in Prince Williams, Fairfax, and Loudon counties, as well as sanctuary at the state level in Maryland.
One of Trumpās first Executive Orders upon taking office sought to ban life-saving gender affirming care for children. The Childrenās National Hospital in DC was one of the first hospitals to comply in advance by ending prescriptions for puberty blockers and hormone therapy. BAWG immediately acted, instituting a successful pressure campaign. This included rapidly acting in coalition with other organizations and labor unions, a huge letter writing campaign, a rally of ~200 people, and pressure on the DC Office of the Attorney General. This organizing resulted in a crucial win, Childrenās National granted a temporary reprieve, buying families time to find backup options and avoid sudden gaps in care.
This summer, Trumpās Department of Education threatened to pull funding for several Northern Virginia schools if they donāt remove policies allowing children to use the bathroom of their choice. Our comrades have maintained pressure at school board meetings, pushing boards to refuse to cave to these bigoted efforts despite sometimes aggressive opposition.
In 2026, we hope to use our experience to assist other DSA chapters to fight for protections in their locality, and have connected with the Queer + Feminist Commission at the National Level to do this.
We also hope to organize closely with the legislative committee to support the passage of three amendments to the Virginia constitution, including for reproductive freedom, restoring voting rights to felons upon their release, and to remove the stateās same sex marriage ban that is currently overruled by Obergefell v. Hodges.
All of this is in addition to BAWGās amazing work in Reproductive Justice, which supports access to emergency contraception, abortion, naloxone (narcan) and more. As a whole, this working group is truly the heart of queer and feminist work in DSA. BAWG is uniquely effective in bringing in and developing organizing skills among women and queer socialists. Our voices push the chapter to imagine a socialist future outside of the binaries that maintain oppressive power structures. This is absolutely necessary for the health of our chapter. A socialism that is not united with feminism and queer liberation is a socialism that cannot win.
This year has presented many challenges, and next year the battles will continue. In this moment, it is our duty as socialists to make the protection of our transgender and queer brothers, sisters, and siblings a priority. That is why it is necessary for BAWG to be a priority campaign in the upcoming year.
Thank you.
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IN FAVOR by Adele B
Iām writing a member statement IN FAVOR of granting the Bodily Autonomy Working Group (BAWG) priority campaign status in 2026.
Iām a founding member of BAWG, and Iāve been a member of Repro Justice for the past three and a half years. I saw that in 2025, BAWG relentlessly led the fight for bodily autonomy in the chapter, with an intense schedule of attending and organizing protests, lobbying to pass legislation to protect trans people, hosting large sexual and reproductive health care kit packing parties, distributing mutual aid across DC, and organizing political Trans Day of Visibility and Trans Day of Remembrance events to give working class trans people a space to thrive.
Over the past year, Iāve seen our working group burst with new members, and with our momentum, we have reestablished the Socialist Feminist and Queer sections, and built out more than five robust teams within BAWG itself to address trans sanctuary policies, to track legislation, to onboard our future members, to implement our communication goals, to distribute mutual aid, and to research abortion access. In addition, we have a crew of folks dedicated to working with the street team, a host of folks willing to plan and coordinate our events, and a squad of people who are getting trained in security. We have members willing to work on addressing accessibility concerns, and others to help with internal processes. I say this to assert that we are constantly building, growing, and providing new tiers of leadership for folks to get involved.
In addition to the above, in affirming BAWG as a priority campaign for 2026, Metro DC DSA will elevate the voices of women, queer people, and trans and nonbinary folks, all of whom make up the vast majority of our working group. As a priority campaign, BAWG will, as it always has, prioritize creating a welcoming space for LGBTQIA+ people to develop organizing skills critical to the health of our chapter.
I urge you to vote yes so that we can prioritize planning our events that weāre already working on for 2026, which include our largest care kit packing event in the face of cut funding from organizations that we work with to get our mutual aid supplies like Plan B, pregnancy tests, and condoms. I urge you to vote yes so we can continue our work in three Virginia counties to pass trans sanctuary. Please vote yes so we can protect what progress we have obtained through decades of struggle and build upon the history of organizing for queer, trans, and womenās liberation. Thank you.
IN FAVOR by Joe R
Iām writing a member statement IN FAVOR of making Bodily Autonomy a priority campaign in 2026.
After seven years watching sympathetically from afar, I finally decided to rip off the bandaid and join DSA when the organization passed the resolution for a Fighting Movement for Reproductive Justice and Trans Liberation at the 2023 national convention, and because socialist feminist and repro justice organizers were the first to welcome me and help me become the organizer I am today. As co-chair during the first year of the Trans & Queer Liberation campaign, we spent nearly seven months as the leading force behind the successful push for the first trans sanctuary resolution in the state of Virginia in the city of Alexandria, which expanded to Arlington this past May. From Project Sanctuary to defending gender-affirming care and trans kids from far right attacks both locally and nationally, BAWG organizers in this chapter have developed a highly replicable model for what such a fighting movement looks like and has both existing campaigns that can be built upon in 2026 and an extremely exciting opportunity to mobilize the base theyāve built in NoVA to vote Yes On All 3 and enshrine felon voting rights, marriage equality, and reproductive freedom in the state constitution.
IN FAVOR by Hina A
Iāve been an active member in BAWG since I joined the DSA and it has always been a welcoming working group, which I canāt say about others Iāve ventured towards. Building on the work that has already been accomplished, BAWG has a chance to do something revolutionary and it is absolutely a core value of DSA to promote diversity. Designating BAWG as a priority campaign is a no-brainer and it will continue to build the DSA movement and the socialist movement.
IN FAVORA by Alex W
My argument in favor of granting the Bodily Autonomy Working Group (BAWG) priority campaign status for 2026 is threefold.
1. I believe that the DSA should be for all the people of America, by all peoples of America. No working group encapsulates that belief like BAWG and their campaign of āBodily Autonomy.ā BAWG is made up of a significant amount of women, queer, and transsexual/transgender individuals, like myself. While I do not have the statistics, I am inclined to believe that this working group has the highest percentage of these people in the entirety of the Metro DC DSA. This is important not only in amplifying the actions necessary to advocate the bodily autonomy of these people, but also in its diversity as a pool for recruitment, allowing marginalized people like myself to have an inclusive starting point within the DSA without feeling like an outlier. I joined the BAWG for this reason, and it has allowed me to have a foothold from which to expand my horizons into other work and service at the DSA.
2. The rights of women and transgender people have been under attack for over a year now with the current presidential administration, and longer than that in discourse during the previous administration. Abortion and rights to contraceptives of all kinds are under threat. The rights of transgender people are not only under threat, but are actively being stripped away (i.e. new passport legislation). In order to fight this, to advocate for ourselves, and to aid each other we need funding.
3. I have never before been a part of such a well managed group of people. The reproductive justice co-chairs Adele and Matt are especially incredible organizers and active participants in all events and tasks. With priority status and resources, I believe they could do so much more.
I urge you to support making the Bodily Autonomy Working Group a Chapter Priority Campaign for 2026.
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IN FAVOR by Jon C
I am writing this member statement in strong support of continuing to grant the Bodily Autonomy Working Group (BAWG) priority campaign status in 2026.
As a Transgender & Queer Liberation (TQL) leader, I see our work as the feminist frontline against growing global fascism. These reactionary forces use misogyny to rally supporters in their campaigns of repression, targeting whoever they deem most vulnerable.
As a genderqueer, bisexual, transgender femme elder, my entire life has been a battle against anti-gender, anti-feminist, and phobic powers. I tell comrades I lobbied for trans rights decades ago in a suit and tie. We who didnāt conform to binaries, who werenāt straight, had to fight every gate put up to deny us care. Finally, in the late aughts, the final barriers for nonbinary people to access care fell. In 2014, after a 13-year battle, Maryland passed the Fairness for All Marylanders Act, extending equal rights protections to trans people. Before that, my rights as a bisexual person were protected in state law, but not my rights as a trans person. My decades of living somewhat closeted ended, and I was able to start transgender healthcareāa process that saved my life and made me a better partner, parent, and community member. At the time, I was already a founder and leader in our bi support group. That experience led me to seek transgender support, eventually becoming a peer support facilitator and leader in multiple transgender groups.
As LGB rights and marriage equality became established law, reactionary forces turned their assault on us. We were caught between them and the āGay Inc.ā organizations that had always thrown us under the bus. Now, we represented a way for these bourgeois professional-managerial class (PMC) groups to fundraise and keep the lights on in their fancy offices. The identity politics of the mainstream Gay Rights movement has always been set up to benefit the most privileged sections of our communities. While I engaged in some trans and queer rights battles, I often saw working-class transgender perspectives suppressed. So, I focused on building support communities while searching for a political home.
Early this year, I saw a post about the demonstration at Childrenās National but saw it hours too late to attend. I live just down the street, and a colleague had failed to rally our group. I immediately filled out the BAWG interest form. Adele onboarded me, Lyra saw my experience, and now Iām a co-chair and a very active chapter member. Iām retired, on Medicaid, and revolutionary change is my retirement job.
I tell you my story because I am just one of the many new faces coming to BAWG. TQL grows its power with every new member. Many are seasoned veterans of these struggles, and I feel blessed and honored to work alongside them.
When I understood that BAWG fights not only for my rights as a queer trans person but also for reproductive rights, I knew I had found my home. Iāve done clinic defense and worked with Reproaction to expose the anti-abortion āclinicā on Maryland Ave in Capitol Hill until the pandemic hit. My transfeminist politics sees no separation between TQL and reproductive justice.
Going forward, I believe we have submitted a strong proposal to continue as a priority campaign. I am proud of what we accomplished with this yearās funds, proving our value as a key component and center of feminist socialism for our chapter. Our outlined plan connects us to other chapter and branch formations, to sibling DSA chapters, and to strong, ongoing partnerships with organizations doing aligned work. As socialists, our politics and work ethic are modeled in these coalitions. We need those in the enlightened middle class to join us if we are to win a better world for the working people of the world.
Please vote YES to grant BAWG continued priority campaign status in 2026
IN FAVOR by Emily N
Comrades, I am submitting this member statement to urge you to vote to make the Bodily Autonomy Working Group a priority campaign for 2026.
From Project Sanctuary, to hosting large-scale reproductive care kit fundraisers and packing events, to organizing alongside coalition partners across the region, the Bodily Autonomy Working Group has consistently delivered real, material victories this year. Their sustained success makes clear that this work deserves priority status in the year ahead.
At a moment when bodily autonomy ā especially for gender minorities ā is under relentless attack by fascists at every level of government, BAWG has stood firm in defending our communities and expanding the circle of people engaged in this fight.
BAWGās organizing is one of the clearest examples of DSAās big tent in practice: a full range of tactics, all deployed strategically, and all producing results. Iām proud to support BAWG in becoming a 2026 priority campaign, and I hope youāll join me in voting to ensure they maintain this status.
IN FAVOR by Georgia H
Iām Geo, one of the co-stewards of the DC branch of the Abolition Working Group, and I am asking you to vote Yes for Bodily Autonomy Working Group (BAWG) to be a priority campaign of our chapter for 2026.
In DC at the close of 2025, federal overreach is more blatant and visible than ever, narratives and policies of criminalization are expanding to cover more and more activities and groups, and MPD is emboldened to target violence towards already-marginalized people. Our shared struggle for dignity, justice, and liberation is bound up in each other, and one place that is incredibly clear is in the struggle over our bodies themselves, and our autonomy over our own appearance, actions, and health. For queer and trans people, this means the solidarity and community that keeps us safe to show up as ourselves in public spaces, that helps us push back against harmful and misleading legislation that capitalizes on fearmongering and bigotry to score political points at the expense of actual peoplesā rights. For people who use drugs, and people who believe in the right to autonomy as well as care, this means access to resources like test strips and Narcan to make safer and more informed choices, and to be able to assist when we see a community member in danger. For people at risk of unwanted pregnancy, this means access to no-questions-asked emergency contraception like Plan B.
There is a (white, cis, hetero, Western-chauvanist) patriarchal tendency to discount the type of labor, and by extension the type of organizing, that centers relationships and care. I urge you to push back against assumptions that organizing that centers the bodily dignity and everyday needs of people, and particularly marginalized people, is somehow less impactful or less important than other kinds of organizing. Showing up for each other is the work, and it is how we learn to connect and be in solidarity with each other in deep and sustainable ways. In addition to the material mutual aid and community-building and -awareness that BAWG brings to the work of our chapter, they are also carrying out the proud queer community tradition of always looking for ways we can build our skills to keep each other safe when the structures of the state are built to be weaponized against us. Letās put our money where our mouth is in terms of solidarity, and fund this work because it is the work of shared survival and it is a labor of love.
IN FAVOR by Alex Y
The Bodily Autonomy Working Group has been one of the most active working groups and has had some of the most interest among new members this past year. That alone is the sign of a healthy and well functioning working group deserving of priority status. However, that is not the only reason to vote to make it a priority campaign for another year. It has been fighting one of the constant and important fights against the Trump administration and the response by localities to threats from it. We know this fight wonāt end anytime soon and the trans community especially has been attacked. It looks almost certain the Supreme Court will try to interfere with birth control options again potentially any time during the remainder of the current term next year. We must remain ready and continue to protect the LGBTQ+ community and the right to Reproductive Justice!
IN FAVOR by Leah T
My name is Leah T. and I am writing in favor of making the Bodily Autonomy Working Group (BAWG) one of our chapterās priority campaigns in 2026.
It goes without saying that bodily autonomy has never been guaranteed the way it should be and that it has instead been under fierce attack for as long as I can remember, with the attacks getting stronger and stronger. And BAWG has been on the frontlines fighting for our community.
Whether tracking and fighting back against harmful legislation, packing and distributing reproductive health care kits (which has also led to a strong partnership with EC4DC and cross-chapter collaboration with Street Team), fighting for trans studentsā rights in schools in NoVA, protecting peopleās access to both gender affirming care and abortion, and funneling members into two of our sections (the Queer Section and the Socialist Feminist Section), BAWG has strengthened our chapterās mission and directly impacted peoplesā lives for the better.
With even more exciting work on the horizon, including a Narcan distribution system and a burgeoning relationship with NYC DSA through the Socialist Feminist Section, itās imperative that we continue to fight for bodily autonomy by making BAWG a priority campaign.
Stand up for our rights and vote for BAWG!