The start of something new

When I think of my inbox—an abundant wasteland of algorithm-generated ads I didn’t sign up for and celebrity gossip alerts I definitely did—it stresses me out. This is, apparently, a feeling endemic to email at this point—there are studies—and if you imagine your inbox in Second Life terms, it’s like inviting your best friends, your boss, maybe your landlord, advertisers, rando spam dudes, and utility companies (I already paid my gas bill, National Grid!), all to the same 24-7 party, which happens to be inside your brain. I don’t know about you but I’m not really trying to do that!

So with The Meteor newsletter, we are hoping to edify and surprise you and your inbox with engaging, urgent writing that illuminates something about the state of the world and all its dreadful and delightful vagaries.

You can read more about that in our debut essay below, in which Jennifer Finney Boylan writes beautifully about transformation, birth, and rebirth. And after that, Shannon Melero‘s interview with the activist and Columbia student Deja Foxx, who helped organize a dance protest on the 49th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Also, a few of the things we’re thinking about and need to share with the group chat. Settle in, we brought snacks. —Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, Editor at Large

---

YOU NEED TO SEE THIS

Something New Is Waiting to Be Born

BY JENNIFER FINNEY BOYLAN

Wake up, I said to my wife.  You have to see this.

It was the middle of the night, but she hauled her giant, nine-months pregnant self out of bed and followed me to the front porch.

There in the skies was Comet Hyakutake, with a tail as big as a kite.

It was a frozen night in Maine.  Icicles hung down from the gutters; our breath came out in clouds.

Nine years earlier, I had courted Deedie in Washington D.C., where she worked for the Studio Theatre.  I was passing my days then as the dumbest professor ever on the faculty of Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, and that, my friends, is saying a lot.  During the drive down the Gladys Noon Spellman parkway,  from my city to hers, I sometimes listened to a then-popular song called “Crazy Fingers.” It contained the line, “Something new is waiting to be born.”

She had been orphaned two years earlier and my own dad had died the year after that.  There we were, in our mid-twenties, bearing all this grief.  I had an additional and private sorrow, too, the burden of being trans and having no language to describe the thing I felt.  It was a hard time.

There are times, even, when I cannot wait for my generation to die off so the young people can finally take over.

But during the year that we found each other, and (eventually) married, our lives were transformed. In a very short span of time, we had gone from two broken souls to what we were now: a couple standing on a porch on a cold, silent night, watching a comet illuminate the skies.

When our son was born—just a few days later—we heard the cries fill the operating room. Deedie, light radiating from her face, tears streaming down her cheeks, looked at me and said, That’s amazing!

Later that night, home again, I walked alone beneath that starry sky and looked up at the comet. From the woods came the clear sound of water rushing over rocks beneath snow.

You hold in your hands (or, more likely, behold in pixels) the debut issue of The Meteor’s newsletter, spearheaded by editors Julianne Escobedo Shepherd and Shannon Melero and sustained by The Meteor, a group of feminist-minded writers, artists, and activists. For the last year, we have been gathering together in hopes of creating something new.

We believe in something as impossible as the power of love to heal grieving souls, or—who knows?—as glorious as the sight of a wild comet in a cold sky. We believe, in short, in the power of words, images, and stories to advance gender and racial justice and equity to transform the world.

We are inspired by the idea of the meteor, of its force and impact. And by Audre Lorde, who wrote, “I am going to write fire until it comes out of my ears, my eyes, my nose holes—everywhere. Until it’s every breath I breathe. I’m going to go out like a fucking meteor!”

It was a meteor, of course, that killed the dinosaurs. We know that the writers and artists we admire are killing a few dinosaurs, too: the dinosaur of racism. The dinosaur of homophobia. The dinosaur of injustice. The dinosaur of transphobia.

There are times I think of myself as a dinosaur, too: since I came out as trans 20 years ago, the discourse around trans lives has become more nuanced and complex and inclusive, just as the discourse around feminism itself has changed and matured since I first started calling myself one in the 1970s. All of that change is good. Transforming what has come before is exactly what each new generation is supposed to do. There are times, even, when I cannot wait for my generation to die off so the young people can finally take over.

In the meantime, something new is waiting to be born.

There we were, my loved one and me, on a cold night, watching Comet Hyakutake. I stood behind her, my arms resting on her giant belly. Something—someone, in fact—stirred within. I felt that. A few days later, I looked into his eyes for the first time. I said, Hello, Sean.

I hope you’ll enjoy The Meteor Newsletter, and that you’ll find in these pages signs of hope, signs that the hard days we are all living through are not without their joys. I am hoping we can all write fire together and find a way of living in this new world with love.

Wake up. You have to see this.

Jennifer Finney Boylan is the Anna Quindlen Writer in Residence and Professor of English at Barnard College.  She is a Trustee of PEN America and a Contributing Opinion Writer for the New York Times.

---

WIN SOME

Ain’t No Party Like an Act for Abortion Party

BY SHANNON MELERO

On January 22, a group of activists, dancers, and abortion providers convened on the steps of the Supreme Court to commemorate the 49th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. What might have been a mournful gathering over the current state of abortion access was actually… a great, if very cold, party. “There are doom headlines almost every day, so the energy that we brought was singing, dancing, prayer, and sermon,” says organizer Deja Foxx, a 21-year-old activist, content creator, Columbia student, and founder of  Gen Z Girl Gang.

This week, I spoke with Foxx about The Act for Abortion protest and her dedication to the abortion movement. I also tried my best not to say “back in my day,” but as a geriatric millennial, it was almost impossible to avoid.

SM: Something I’ve seen with the current movement is that there is an urgency to use the word abortion versus “pro-choice,” whereas–and not to date myself, but I’m a little older than you–when I was first getting involved, we called it “shmashmortion” because “abortion” was just one of those words you didn’t use so freely. Why do you think it matters so much to call it what it is?

DF: Some of that progress has come because of bold storytelling. People have found and built community around their experiences and used that to create change. I think we’ve come to a point where there is no sidestepping the issue because the other side isn’t sidestepping; they’re going directly at it. So some of this is a direct response to the pressure being put on this movement and on abortion in particular.

SM: The next evolution of the abortion movement will be dictated by young people like yourself. What’s the next step?

DF: We are at an inflection point. As we sit here today, it seems likely that Roe will be overturned, and I think in this moment, a lot of young people have come to be, rightfully so, distrustful of institutions—whether that be the government or news—and we’re striving to find alternatives. When our government, our elected officials, let us down, when they don’t show up for us, when they target us, when they restrict us, it is on us to be there for one another. Some of the action steps that we can take today are donating to abortion funds, supporting indie clinics, sharing information about the abortion pill, or calling our elected officials and holding them to account, especially around the Women’s Health Protection Act.

SM: How do you think people can overcome the fear that comes with discussing the topic? Because I know some fully grown adults who will not even think the word abortion in front of their family members.

DF: My advice to any storyteller is to do what is uncomfortable but not what is unsafe. There is a difference. But share what is uncomfortable. See what you can excavate from yourself because having those uncomfortable conversations is important. I think if you’re having it with the right person, someone who cares about you, or someone powerful who can create change, that’s really the one-to-one work that makes a difference. Know that abortion is normal, birth control is normal, sex is normal—and if you bring your personal story, you are an expert in it. You are an expert in your experience and you don’t need to do a ton of research or have a fancy degree—your experience is enough.

SM: I would imagine that in the years you’ve been doing this, people have told you that you’re too young to speak with authority on these issues. How do you respond to that?

DF: I have gotten that many times. I question then if I’m too young, what makes someone else not too male or too white or too rich or too privileged or too distant, right? I refuse to be told that I’m not qualified when I’ve lived my experiences. A lot of the work that I do is about shifting the culture around what we mean when we say people are “qualified” or “experienced.” That means inviting young people.

---

WHAT'S GOING ON

• With Roe coming up at SCOTUS, and the voting rights bill having been defeated (for now?), this excellent piece in the Boston Review seeks to “foreground” the arguments made in Angela Davis’s 1981 essay “Racism, Birth Control, and Reproductive Rights” (readable here), in which she wrote that the illusion of “choice” left out women of color and poor women—points that remain unfortunately salient.
• “Cash aid to poor mothers increases brain activity in babies.” Yet another reason to expand federal aid!
• In other SCOTUS news, we can all stop tweeting for Justice Breyer to retire now. Elie Mystal, justice correspondent for The Nation, has some suggestions for Breyer’s replacement, including D.C. Circuit Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, CA Supreme Court Judge Leondra Kruger, and SC District Court Judge J. Michelle Childs, whom Biden just appointed in December.

  AND:

• Xintian Wang on the culture war in China being waged against so-called “sissy” men and boys
• “Remember that time, girl, at the baaahr in Belgium?” If you missed it: Gabrielle Union and Kaavia James are simply delightful
• Over in our corner, The Meteor has released a series of videos in which seven people share their abortion stories, making the ever-relevant point that abortion is a) NOT a scary ritual performed by ogres in the dead of night as antis would have you believe, but instead b) a routine medical procedure that betters the lives of those who choose it—patients *and* their families—in ways not commonly reported. As Sriya Sarkar says in her video, “I’m really grateful for that boring-as-hell abortion I got.” Watch them all here.

by Julianne Escobedo Shepherd

Roe on the line: An abortion access briefing

On December 1st, the Supreme Court will hear a case in which the state of Mississippi has asked the Court to overrule Roe v. Wade and end the constitutional right to abortion. Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization challenges a state law that bans abortions after 15 weeks; it will be the first time since 1973—the year of Roe v. Wade—that the Court will rule on a pre-viability abortion ban.

Meanwhile, 22 states have laws that could be used to restrict the legal status of abortion if Roe is overturned. And in Texas, Senate Bill 8 went into effect in September, effectively eliminating nearly all abortion care in the state.

Against this dire backdrop, what does the fight for reproductive freedom look like in 2022 and beyond? Join The Meteor and the United State of Women for Roe on the Line: An Abortion Access Briefing on Monday, November 29 at 6 pm ET to find out.

JOIN US NOVEMBER 29

We’ll hear from legal experts and grassroots organizers about the road ahead, including:

• Michelle Colón, co-founder and executive director, SHERo Mississippi
• Julie F. Kay, human rights attorney and co-author of Controlling Women: What We Must Do Now to Save Reproductive Freedom
• Mini Timmaraju, president, NARAL Pro-Choice America
• Moderator Susie Banikarim, founding member of The Meteor and award-winning journalist, director, and producer

Please join us for this informative free briefing and spread the word—everyone is welcome!

SIGN UP NOW FOR THIS FREE VIRTUAL BRIEFING

The Meteor Fund welcomes individuals with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. If you would like to request accommodations or have questions, please contact [email protected] in advance of your participation. Please note that we will make every effort to secure services, but that services are subject to availability.

This workshop is produced by The Meteor and is supported by The Meteor Fund, an affiliated charitable project of The Meteor. The Meteor Fund is fiscally-sponsored by New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity.

by The Meteor

One year till the midterms: Come learn what’s ahead

After historic voter turnout during the 2020 election, many states retaliated: This year alone, 19 states have enacted 33 laws that make it harder to vote, including those limiting early and mail-in voting, or establishing more stringent ID requirements. Many of these new restrictions are in states where it was already more difficult to vote, and the measures hit communities of color hardest. And while federal legislation like the Freedom to Vote Act could protect voters’ rights, Senate Republicans recently blocked the bill from receiving a floor vote.

With the 2022 midterm elections looming, there is so much at stake. What can we each do to protect voting rights in the year ahead? Please join The Meteor for One Year Till the Midterms: A Voting Rights Briefing on Monday, November 8, 2021 at 6 pm ET to find out.

JOIN US NOVEMBER 8 TO TALK VOTING RIGHTS

Advocates and legal experts will give us an overview of the current crisis and share how we can all take action. We’ll hear from Melanie L. Campbell, president and CEO of The National Coalition on Black Civic Participation and convener of The Black Women’s Roundtable; election law and voting rights expert Marc Elias, founding partner of Elias Law Group and founder of Democracy Docket; and María Teresa Kumar, founding CEO of Voto Latino, the country’s largest Latinx voter registration and mobilization organization. The conversation will be moderated by filmmaker Dawn Porter, founding member of The Meteor and director of “John Lewis: Good Trouble.”

We’ll learn:

• The current landscape of the voting rights crisis
• The issues at stake as we head into the 2022 midterms—and why protecting voter access now is critical
• Possible solutions to protect voters’ rights—and what’s realistic given our current Congress
• The most important steps we each can take in the year to come

Please join us for this informative free briefing and spread the word—everyone is welcome!

SIGN UP NOW FOR THIS FREE VIRTUAL BRIEFING

The Meteor Fund welcomes individuals with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. If you would like to request accommodations or have questions, please contact [email protected] in advance of your participation. Please note that we will make every effort to secure services, but that services are subject to availability.

This workshop is produced by The Meteor and is supported by The Meteor Fund, an affiliated charitable project of The Meteor. The Meteor Fund is fiscally-sponsored by New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity.

Photo Credit: Getty Images

by The Meteor

Listen: Professor Anita Hill & Dr. Christine Blasey Ford

In 2018, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford stood before the Senate Judiciary Committee and testified that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her when they were both in high school, allegations he denies. Many of us watched—but perhaps the only person who truly understood what Dr. Ford was going through was Professor Anita Hill, who had appeared before the same committee 27 years earlier.

For the third episode of Because of Anita—our podcast about the legacy of Professor Hill’s 1991 testimony in the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas—Professor Hill and Dr. Ford sat down for their first-ever public conversation. The two women discussed their shared experiences, their lives beyond the hearing rooms, and their hopes for the future.

Professor Hill is the Professor of Social Policy, Law, and Gender Studies at Brandeis University and author of the new book Believing: Our Thirty-Year Journey to End Gender Violence. Dr. Ford is a professor at Palo Alto University and Stanford University School of Medicine.

Because of Anita is co-hosted by Dr. Salamishah Tillet, cultural critic at The New York Times, and Cindi Leive, co-founder of The Meteor; it’s produced by The Meteor and Pineapple Street Studios.

Listen now and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Photo credit: Bettmann / Getty Images

JOIN US IN LOS ANGELES FOR A SPECIAL EVENT WITH PROFESSOR ANITA HILL

Thirty years after Professor Anita Hill started a national conversation about sexual harassment in the workplace, how far have we come on issues of gender-based violence? If you’re in the Los Angeles area, please join Dr. Salamishah Tillet and Cindi Leive, hosts of our new podcast Because of Anita, for an afternoon exploring these issues—featuring Professor Hill herself.

Because of Anita: Truth, Justice, Race, Gender, and Power—30 Years Later will be held on October 16 from 3 pm to 6 pm PT at the University of Southern California. This special event will feature artists, scholars, and activists in dialogue, along with a special keynote conversation between Professor Hill, author of Believing, and Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women’s Studies at Spelman College. Visit The Meteor for updates. Rsvp now for this free event.

Presented by USC Visions and Voices: The Arts and Humanities Initiative and The Meteor. Co-sponsored by the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, USC School of Cinematic Arts, USC School of Dramatic Arts, and USC Gould School of Law. Special thanks to Audible.

by The Meteor

Because of Anita: Highlights from our hosts

In 1991, Professor Anita Hill told the Senate Judiciary Committee that her former boss, Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, had sexually harassed her. Thirty years later, you can still see the ripple effects of that testimony in our politics—and our lives.

That’s why we—hosts Dr. Salamishah Tillet and Cindi Leive—wanted to take a fresh look at the hearings. We’ve been working on this for months, and our new four-part podcast, Because of Anita, out today, shares what we’ve learned and what we’ve heard from politicians, artists, organizers, and scholars who were shaped by the hearings.

In the first episode—did we mention it’s out today?—we walk you through what actually happened that October weekend 30 years ago, with help from lawyer Kimberlé Crenshaw, who served on Hill’s legal team at the time; journalist Jane Mayer, who helped expose the hearings’ flaws; and actor Kerry Washington, who later immersed herself in the hearings for a film role as Anita Hill.

We had different, intersecting reasons for wanting to do this podcast. Salamishah had written about Anita Hill before, for Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019. Revisiting the testimony for that essay—and thinking about the impact it had on her back in 1991, as a Black student in a mostly white high school—was illuminating, and she wanted to share what she’d learned with a different audience. Cindi had known Professor Hill for years—but had never interviewed her, and with the 30th anniversary approaching, couldn’t stop thinking about how far away and yet immediate those 1991 hearings were.

Part of what we both loved about this first episode is the deep dive into what actually happened at the hearings. It’s kind of shocking to listen to in retrospect: the interrogation of Professor Hill’s motives (“are you a scorned woman?” asked one Senator, almost mockingly), the witnesses not called, the spectacle of an all-white, all-male panel ruling on the word of a Black woman. If you’re new to the hearings, we think you’ll be riveted.

And our guests gave us so much to think about. Here are some of our highlights from the conversations in the first episode:

Salamishah: “For me, it’s Kimberlé Crenshaw using Thomas’s ‘high-tech lynching’ line to show the consequence of our country not using an intersectional analysis…or paying attention to how racism and sexism mutually harm Black women and Black communities.”

Cindi: “Professor Crenshaw’s interview had me on the edge of my seat. She was part of Anita Hill’s legal team, and there’s a scene where she and her colleagues walk out of the hearing and run into a group of Black women kneeling and praying on the steps of the Capitol. Crenshaw thinks they must be there to support Anita Hill, but then she realizes that they are there for Thomas. She understands the tide has turned, and it’s a pivotal moment in her life. I had chills when we were recording this.”

Salamishah: “Back then, for lots of Black people racism trumped sexism. Thanks to Hill, and so many other Black feminists, we have a more complex understanding of our oppression, and our resistance to it, today. Another moment that stuck with me is when Jane Mayer notes that the research she and co-author Jill Abramson did for their book Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas revealed that there was a high probability that Thomas lied under oath. But as Mayer went on to tell us, ‘There are no statute of limitations for investigating a Supreme Court Justice. And I think that this subject still should be opened up and looked at again.’”

Cindi: “When she said that, I asked her jokingly, ‘Jane, I wonder who would be the journalist to do that investigation?’ But she demurred and said she’d leave that for a new generation. And given Thomas’s importance on the Court, I hope that happens.”

We hope you’ll subscribe so you don’t miss an episode, including a personal conversation between Professor Hill herself and Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, whose 2018 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee echoed Hill’s experience 27 years earlier.

Upcoming guests also include scholar Dr. Barbara Ransby, Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun, producer Drew Dixon, legal advocate Fatima Goss Graves, journalist Irin Carmon, and ‘me too.’ founder Tarana Burke.

Because of Anita is co-hosted by Dr. Salamishah Tillet, cultural critic at The New York Times, and Cindi Leive, co-founder of The Meteor; and it’s produced by The Meteor and Pineapple Street Studios. Listen and subscribe now on Audible, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

by Cindi Leive

Because of Anita: A podcast about the testimony that changed everything

Thirty years ago this fall, in October 1991, Professor Anita Hill delivered groundbreaking testimony in the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas. As the world watched, she sat in front of an all-white, all-male Senate Judiciary Committee and testified that Thomas had sexually harassed her years earlier, when he was her boss.

The hearings ignited conversations around race, gender, power, and sexual abuse that are as relevant today as they were three decades ago. Now, Because of Anita, an exclusive four-part podcast series, examines the legacy of Professor Hill’s testimony—and both what’s changed and what has not in the years since then. Co-hosts Dr. Salamishah Tillet, cultural critic at The New York Times, and Cindi Leive, co-founder of The Meteor, sit down with politicians, artists, organizers, and academics—all of whom have been shaped by the hearings, including:

Because of Anita is produced by The Meteor and Pineapple Street Studios. Making it has been a powerful, illuminating experience for us—we're excited to share it with you. Sign up now to hear every episode when it airs.

Listen now and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Photo credit: Bettmann / Getty Images

by The Meteor

Abortion access after Texas: Come learn what’s ahead

This month, Texas effectively eliminated nearly all abortion care. Senate Bill 8 (SB8), which bans abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, decimates access for close to 15 million Texans, and will hit Black, Latinx, and immigrant birthing people hardest. And as you’ve probably heard, it even offers a $10,000 bounty to anyone who successfully sues someone for facilitating an abortion after six weeks. What’s more, over a dozen states are poised to enact Texas-style laws, and this fall, the Supreme Court will hear a case that explicitly asks the Court to overrule Roe v. Wade.

So what can we do about this bleak landscape? Come join The Meteor for the workshop After Texas: The Fight for Abortion Access on Monday, September 20, at 5 pm ET, to find out.

JOIN US MONDAY TO TALK ABORTION ACCESS

Organized in partnership with the Center for Reproductive Rights and moderated by Dahlia Lithwick of Slate, this free virtual event will feature experts from the front lines: Amy Hagstrom Miller of Whole Woman’s Health Alliance, part of the coalition to stop SB8; Jenny Ma, one of the CRR attorneys representing the providers in the upcoming Supreme Court case; and Jessica Pinckney of Access Reproductive Justice in California.

We’ll learn:

• What Texas SB8 means for other states around the country
• What SCOTUS could do—and how you can make a difference
• Proposed solutions, including the Women’s Health Protection Act and the Department of Justice’s new lawsuit against Texas

No subject knowledge or organizing experience necessary—everyone is welcome!

MISSED THE WORKSHOP? WATCH IT HERE

The Meteor Fund welcomes individuals with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. If you would like to request accommodations or have questions, please contact [email protected] in advance of your participation. Please note that we will make every effort to secure services, but that services are subject to availability.

This workshop is produced by The Meteor and is supported by The Meteor Fund, an affiliated charitable project of The Meteor. The Meteor Fund is fiscally-sponsored by New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity.

Photo Credit: Alyssa Schukar/Center for Reproductive Rights

by The Meteor