What.

Do weddings.

Instagram, and.

Toxic relationships all have in common? They take your money and you can't get it back.

Sixteen grand somewhere in there, gone.

There's no legal solution for the fact that you.

Married an asshole. Welcome to The Doe.

I'm X.

Mio. We're diving into the stories.

Surrounding the moolah, baby. The good, the bad, and the unexpected.

Yeah, we're talking about it all.

The Doe is out now, wherever you get your podcasts.

Can't get enough of.

Your.

Favorite Lemonata Media podcasts? By subscribing to Lemonata Premium.

Today, you'll gain access to.

Fun and.

Inspiring bonus content from.

All of our podcasts across the Lemonata Media Network. As a subscriber.

You can.

Listen to never before heard interview excerpts, behind the scenes.

Segments, and continue to uncover new.

Ways to make life suck less through all of our exclusive subscriber audio. Check out a free trial of Lemonata Premium today in the Apple Podcast app by clicking on our podcast logo and then the subscribe button. Lemonada.

Getting here this morning was a little bit of a cluster, but we're here. Parking in Nashville is always a headache. I was driving around for an hour this morning because I was like, I don't want to pay $40 for parking. Then I wasted all that time because I end up paying $40 for parking.

Parking isn't cheap at the Tennessee State Capitol. Tia Freeman's been here a handful of times, but that doesn't mean she knows exactly where she's going.

So if you've never been in this building, you're probably going to get lost. I've been here three or four.

Times and I get lost every time. I get it. The place at first is like a maze of sameness.

I stumbled upon the wrong room when I first got up here, but I'm chill, I'm a listen until I figure out where in the world is Carmen San Diego.

Tias finally finds the right place all the way up on the eighth floor.

We're in just two little rooms set up with food, breakfast, T-shirts, pens, foldersers so that we have the right information for what we're going in to do today. So far it's been a little hectic, but very productive.

Tia is here for a lobby day organized by Healthy and Free Tennessee. The event brings people to the Capitol to spread awareness about reproductive justice issues like abortion and trans health care. Both were banned in the past two years, the latter specifically when it comes to gender affirming care for youth. While she's there, Tea will go to an advocacy training on how to talk to politicians, attend a parenting panel, and lastly, talk to her legislature, Senator Charlene Oliver. They've never met before. Well, not exactly.

I have not spoken with her before in a legislative capacity. Once upon a time, I accidentally stumbled in a club and it was her birthday. I celebrated her last birthday with her, but I don't think she would probably remember that. Like an age in chaos, those things happen to me.

As you can probably tell, Tia is outgoing and chatty, the type of person who totally would make friends with her senator uninvited at her birthday party. She's a sex educator. Her company is called Slippery When wet, which is maybe the greatest thing I've ever heard. As an activist, her upbeat energy comes with a sense of defiance that's contagious, even when she's talking about stuff like abortion bans.

We lost. Legislatively, we lost, right? However, we're fighting. Every day we're showing up. We're fighting. We're getting people care. We're fighting. We're telling people where they can go. We're fighting. I think it's important to remember the fight. There's fun in the fight. There's fire in the fight. There's passion in the fight. This is not the last they're going to see of us.

Turns out that day in February, Tea was right. Just over a month later, that same capital would be absolutely packed with protesters and plastered all over the national news.

Lawmakers walk.

Through a sea of.

Protesters, emotions.

Overflowing just days after yet another tragic shooting.

What do we want? Love and control. When do we want it now?

Reporter Blaze Geaney with Nashville's public radio station WPLN was there.

This is usually where lobbyists sit at right here, but during the protest, I mean, these floors were packed with people. It was loud. I mean, obviously, I'm just speaking and you can hear a echo. Just imagine hundreds of people in here screaming and chanting, and it almost gets stuck in your ears almost and you go home and you still hear it.

Not one more. These protests started after the Covenants School shooting in March when a shooter killed six people at the Christian school, including three nine-year-old children. Sadly, we have heard this story before, but for Tena Sands, it felt like something was different this time. The Capitol had never seen anything like it.

Even just walking into the building, you had to walk through hundreds of moms, kids, all protesting, holding signs, really wanting lawmakers to acknowledge that there was a need for gun control in the state. People were upset.

But it wasn't just about gun control. In March, Tennessee had also passed a drag ban outlawing drag performance in public spaces. Oh, yeah, they came for the drag queens. It was the first state to do so, with several others jumping on the bandwagon. The state had also passed the ban on gender affirming health care for youth. Then in April, just when you thought the Tennessee House might be taking a little rest from the chaos, they expelled two of their members for participating in a protest on gun control. Both members, Justin Pearson and Justin Jones were black.

This morning, growing outrage after Tennessee's Republican-controlled.

House voted to expel two Democrats..

State.

Representatives, Justin Jones and.

Justin Pierson were.

Expelled on a.

Party-line vote.

After they led a gun.

Reform.

Protest in the House Chamber last week in.

Response to.

The school shooting in.

Nashville that left six people, including.

Three children, dead.

This move sparked even more outrage in protesters, and you probably heard about it. It was all over the national news. Geany says it led to an abrupt end to the legislative session.

I don't think session was supposed to end on April 21st. I think it was a rush by Republican lawmakers to get out of here because they didn't know when the protest would stop. I mean, I didn't know either.

People were fighting back, and to many it felt like for once their representatives were too. Jones and Pierson were taking a stand.

They were doing what they thought was right. Whether it was right for the rules, obviously, no, they broke rules. But that doesn't mean that the rules shouldn't have been broken.

Especially when the rules are made by people who don't look like you. Tia Freeman, again.

A lot of our legislators are white males, older white males, right? They have not lived our lived experiences. They don't have the support or lack thereof that we have, right? And so unless we come, unless we make our demands known and apparent and repetitive, they're not going to do this work. And I get it, the walls look tall and they look impenetrable. But what I've seen throughout history is that people have made changes.

And that change, despite how urgently it's needed, often comes very slowly.

These things are decades and centuries in the making, right? And so instead of getting overwhelmed by how hard and how high the wall is, we have to show up because every day we chip away at it a little bit more until one day comes crumbling down.

Every day, Tia and her fellow activists are doing the work, chipping away at the injustices they see, gun violence, the ban on abortion, the attacks on queer and trans people, the loss of federal funding for family planning and HIV prevention. The work doesn't just mean political organizing. It means creating community and building a more inclusive and intersectional movement, one that goes beyond Roe, because as we know, Roe was never enough. This is The Defenders, a show about the fight for freedom in a post-Roe America. I'm your host, Gloria Rivera.

I'm your host, Sam B, this week, what the abortion fight looks like on the ground in one of our country's most restrictive states.

From protests to abortion trainings and drag shows, we'll see how a whole community is rising up and how.

Abortion is just the beginning of a bigger fight for bodily autonomy in Tennessee and in the country.

In Tennessee today, abortion is illegal. In fact, providing an abortion is a felony. Do so when you are facing up to 15 years in prison. The ban applies from the moment of fertilization. It doesn't include exceptions for rape or incest. The only time you can get an abortion is if your life is at risk and even getting lawmakers to agree to that was a contentious and drawn-out legal battle. Imagine a bunch of politicians and lobbyists trying to determine just how close to death a person needs to be before their doctor can legally help them. With those stakes very much in mind, Tia knows the importance of showing up and making her views known, visibly known.

Can you read your.

Shirt really quick?

Oh, yeah. My shirt says, Mife and Miso, and Miso, and Miso, and Miso. It's from abortiononourownterms. Org.

Mife and Miso stand for Mifepristone and Misoprostol, two pills used in medication abortion. We'll hear more about those later. Today, Tia is meeting with Senator Charlene Oliver, one of the few black representatives in the Tennessee State Senate. Our field producer, Laura Boach, is with her.

How are.

You feeling.

About this coming up? I feel great. I feel out of place looking at all these white people on the wall. Wolves be like, We're here now. Who are.

The white.

People on the walls? I have no clue. But there's nothing but.

Finally, she gets to Senator Oliver's office.

Hi. Nice to meet you, Tia. Nice to see you. Nice to see you. I have that same shirt, and I wore it yesterday. Okay, I didn't know what to wear today, but I felt like I had to wear something that made a statement. And so I was like, Yeah, I got to go with my abortion pill. I got to go with abortion pill. I'd love to see my folks in here. You know, that's what I say on the walk-in. You look familiar, Tia. I don't know why. I stumbled upon your birthday party last year. I don't.

Know if I got there. So either Senator Oliver has an amazing memory, or Tia is just incredibly memorable. Personally, I think it's the latter. Anyways, on the wall in Senator Oliver's office, there's the black power fist painted with vibrant colors on a backdrop of the American flag. Not something you'll see in most legislators' offices in Tennessee. Tia quickly launches into why she's there.

It's just discussing what are your views on the things going on? What are your stances on reproductive justice, abortion access, and then gender affirming care, and- Yeah. I mean, first of all, a lot of these issues are very personal to me because I've lived them. As a black woman, I've got three kids, and I'm a sexual assault survivor, and I've had an abortion before, and so I know what that's like. I do think that having abortion is a medical procedure. It's health care. I just find it really hypocritical, but also just a slap in the face that we have a bunch of white men who are making these decisions for us who have never spit out a baby. You just don't even know what that's like, bro. You don't understand. Just the shift, right?

Senator Oliver explains that as a Democrat governing in a deeply red state, her hands are basically tied.

The most I can do is vote no on these bills, even though I know we're outnumbered as Democrats. We're out in fight to make sure that we can get people's rights back. I don't think the work only happens inside this building. As an organizer, we need to be coordinating on the outside. Yeah, this 100 %.

Coordinations working on the outside. That's exactly what Tia is doing. She tells us that her work goes way beyond advocacy at the Capitol.

I understand that politics plays a substantial role in our liberation, However, my primary focus is not the legislative landscape. My primary focus is creating communal infrastructures to insulate us from legislative harm, because one thing that my identities have taught me is that the government and state violence is always going to come for us, right? And culture changes first. Politics doesn't happen, and then culture shifts. Culture shifts, and then we get the politics as a fallout.

Tia is realistic about the possibilities of political change, especially in a state that's so red. It's hard not to be cynical when your districts have been gerrymandered to the point that your congressional map looks like a jigsaw puzzle. Like, how exactly do you get progressive issues passed in that environment? That's something that came up with another senator that day, Senator London Lamar.

You all got any questions? Yes, ma'am. So one, thank you, and I appreciate the work that you're doing. So big up to that. But my question is about at the same time that we're having all of these attacks on abortion access. We're also having attacks on gender-affirming care. But a lot of times when we're discussing women's health and women's reproductive issues, especially on the topic of abortion, we tend to leave outside of the conversation of gender-expansive people, trans, and intersex people. So how do you think that in conjunction with our attacks on trans people and their existence, how will this affect and how are you working to help that? That's a lot. I know that's a lot. It's a lot because you may not like my answer, but I'm a legislator and I got to be strategic. I have to keep those separate because if I combine them, everything dies. I get the support. I can get more women behind this and bring this along under it versus lumping them together. Because you'll be surprised how many progressive Democrat people are on this side and they'll debunk the whole thing. It makes it hard because you want to do more, but you can't sacrifice what you're doing over here.

So you try to walk a fine line. But at this point, everybody gets on under us.

What Senator London is saying is unfortunately what we hear from a lot of politicians. I have to keep those separate because if I combine them, everything dies. In other words, we have to pick and choose our issues rather than build a bolder, stronger, more inclusive coalition. This has become the standard operating procedure for our politics. But it's also incredibly short sighted because, of course, these issues are connected. And when they're siloed, they're a lot easier to target. We're seeing that play out now with abortion and gender affirming care. The thing is, Tia's work can't separate those things. After Roe fell, she started the Beyond Roe Collective, a group that provides on-the-ground support and education around abortion and reproductive justice. They do trainings, direct action, and even have a community cabinet with contraception, period products, and Plan B, all available for free. That's because for Tia and the Beyond Roe Collective, the work needs to go beyond just abortion.

I've always been someone who believed deeply in intersectionality, even before I had the language to articulate that. My identities intersect. I am not Black first or a woman first or a queer first. I am all of the things all at once. We live intersectional lives, and so our politics need to reflect that. Also, as a Black person, anything that's done to somebody else is going to hit my door. If I'm talking about reproductive justice and reproductive justice framework says I have the right to have a child, to not have a child and parent the child or the children that I have, and safe and healthy environments. How can I do that if police brutality is a constant problem in my neighborhoods? How can I do that if I'm facing housing instability? How can I do this if I don't make enough money or a livable wage to support my family? Decisions made under duress aren't choices, right? That's coercion. I think that people have to understand that the freedom to make actual choices is what we're fighting for.

This distinction is important and very much influenced by SisterSong, a collective of women of color founded in the 90s who have pushed for a larger and more inclusive approach to reproductive rights. Actually, that reproductive rights and reproductive justice are different things. Justice is about having the freedom to make many different choices, not just having the legal right to an abortion. So if you're pregnant in Tennessee, it's fair to ask yourself, will this child be safe if they're queer? Will they make it home from school today or become another statistic in our epidemic of gun violence?

Tia.

Has pondered these questions because she's also a parent to a five-year-old son. Like many parents, she's also had abortions. The first, when she was in college. She was about a year from graduating when she realized she was pregnant.

When I found out, I was devastated. Weeping in the bathtub as the shower water runs on my skin. Like, R&B music looking outside longingly. Like, look, there goes my life. I was devastated. It wasn't until I was able to schedule my appointment, I paid to be able to go through the procedure and had the procedure that an immense sense of relief was let go.

Tia's second abortion was in 2021, a few years after she had her son. It was not a hard decision for her.

I know the lifestyle that I wanted to live. Financially, I didn't want to try to manage multiple children. Mentally, I know that first year, postpartum was horrendous for me, and I did not want to go through that again. That was another easy decision.

And one that she made publicly with no shame.

I blogged my second one. I did it during the pandemic. I was just like, Get ready with me to go to the clinic.

In true tea fashion, the day after her abortion, she did a Q&A on Instagram Live.

I will be talking about my abortion. I had it yesterday, so I'll be talking about what it was like during a pandemic, and then I'll be answering anybody's questions. Yeah, that's it. I'm pretty much an open book.

She did a full play-by-play of her abortion, including the pain medication and the cramps she felt during the procedure.

It feels like… I don't want to say contractions because contractions were a bitch. It feels nothing that severe. But it has the same cycle. If you have cramps in your cycle, it has those waves.

After sharing her story so publicly, Tia got a lot of responses.

I think that's when it really hit me how difficult and tumultuous of a place abortion was. But getting the people's responses being like, Oh, my God. Thank you so much. I didn't know about this.

It's sad and true. Abortion is stigmatized, so our knowledge around it is limited. Tia is trying to change that. She is radically open with her community, not only on Instagram. Through the Beyond Row Collective, she organizes self-managed abortion trainings, that is, trainings on how to use the abortion pill to have your abortion at home.

Tennessee sucks. We're a referral-aggressive state, and so what that looks like is how do we still get people access to education and resources?

And do that in a way that doesn't get her in trouble with the law.

According to the World Health Organization, if someone was to self-manage their abortion, this is how that person would self-manage their abortion. Because there's no air quotes. Air quotes, right? Because it's not illegal to share information.

Tia isn't the only one doing these trainings. This past spring, she partnered up with another group, Abortion Care Tennessee, or ACT. After the break, we're going to talk to an activist from ACT, and we'll hear more about medication abortion. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation believes everyone should have a meaningful opportunity to thrive no matter who they are or where they come from. But right now, people in the US and across the world are confronted by enormous challenges, from catastrophic climate change and pervasive inequities to attacks on democracy itself. Institutions at every level are struggling to provide solutions that work for all people. And there's a growing lack of faith in each other and even in the possibility that progress is possible. That's why the Hewlett Foundation supports a diverse set of creative thinkers and problem solvers who engage across differences, advance constructive dialog, and address institutional failures. Whether through its work in gender equity, democracy, environment, education, or the arts, the Hewlett Foundation seeks to harness our collective capacity to build a world where all people have the opportunity to thrive. Learn more at hewlet. Org. Women's bodies are at the center of today's cultural conversations.

We face overt regulations that dominate the headlines, but we also face quiet regulations. They are so entrenched in our everyday lives that decisions around our bodies and how we feel about them are no longer ours alone to make. Because so much of what women experience is shrouded in secrecy, treated as an afterthought, or just blatantly ruled by societal expectations and norms, the simple act of exchanging stories becomes the most powerful tool we can use to stay informed. Introducing Unruly, an eight-part podcast from Flamingo highlighting the not often discussed ways women's bodies are subjected to needless oversight. Hosted by writer, curator, and Activist, Kimberly Drew, Unruly tackles conversations around body neutrality, wellness, capitalism, menopause, and more because information is power and your body is your business. Unruly is available wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more at shopflamingo. Com/unruly.

My name is Robin, and I am the Development Coordinator and one of the original founders of Abortion Care Tennessee. And what you all don't know is that you're existing in my dream sequence right now because when in my earliest visions of act, this is exactly what it was.

Act, aka Abortion Care Tennessee, is an abortion fund Robin Balderidge, co-founded in 2019. Robin works closely with Tia. She's introducing herself at the training that she and Tia organized this past April. Tia, unfortunately, wasn't able to make it due to a death in the family, so Robin took the reins. There are about 20 people here. They're at a bar and event space near downtown Nashville. As people trickled in, Robin started with a disclaimer.

For this training, Abortion Care Tennessee cannot tell anyone how to access pills in the state of Tennessee. What we can do is direct you to plancepills. Org and aidaccess. Org. As a community, it's up to us to help navigate care in a post road, Tennessee. I think that I can speak for a lot of us that feel like a lot of our lawmakers have really put this on us. So it's on us to take care of us.

She opens the training by sharing information about Mifepristone and Misoprostol, the abortion pills used to self-manage an abortion. Providing these pills to abortion seekers is illegal in Tennessee, but sharing information about them in this type of training is not. Of course, what is legal today may change tomorrow. Robin and other organizers know that. It's very much a gray area. But Robin is charging ahead. She does a quick demo of how to take these pills. Bucally, that means inside your cheeks, only instead of pills, they're using candy.

Okay, so what we're going to do with those little M&Ms, did everyone get M&Ms? We'll grab those now. Okay, and bucally, what that means is that you're going to take two tablets, you're going to take all four tablets and you're going to put two on the left side and two on the right side in between your cheeks, and you're going to hold them there, okay? So all four pills are left in the mouth, and we are going to hold them there for 30 minutes. So I'm going to set a Timer. You do not swallow them. So bucley is two here and two here. Can everyone see?

Someone in the audience raises their hand. Obviously, in this.

Situation, you wouldn't really care that much, but I'm just curious how bitter they are. Because these are M&Ms, they taste.

Really good. But like - They don't taste great.

No, like really bad? Like really bad or medium bad? It's like when.

You swallow an ivermectin and it doesn't go right in the taste is in your mouth. It's not as.

Bad as though.

Okay, so unlike M&Ms, the pills don't taste great. Good to know. No matter how small your question may seem, Robin is there for you to make you as mentally prepared as possible for the day when you might need to follow all of her very detailed steps. And she goes into way more depth on everything from cramps and bleeding to how to comfort yourself at home to encrypted text messaging to protect yourself. Her goal, just like Tias, is sharing information and building community.

What happens with these trainings is that they just naturally evolve into a community sharing conversation. Then it just became like this bouncing off, talking, sharing circle. That's what we all really need right now, not just to be able to access the information, but also to be able to process. It's everyone processing.

This type of community meetup is so necessary not just to share information, but also as a form of emotional support. It's like combined group therapy and medical advice, which, as nice as that sounds, can I just pause for a second to acknowledge how strange this is? The fact that these people have to go to a bar to get medical advice? Well, it wasn't always like this. I'm bringing back Samantha B, our go-to for processing the wild ride of ever-changing abortion rights to tell us what happened. How did.

Tennessee become so anti-choice? To understand that, we have to go back to September 2,000. Think flip phones, minimal security at airports, and season seven of Friends. That month, the Tennessee Supreme Court struck down a number of restrictions that made it difficult to get an abortion. And in doing that, they said that the Tennessee Constitution protected the right to privacy, including getting an abortion. Yeah, they confirmed abortion was protected in the state constitution. Now, you're probably thinking, it's the southcame in. I bet that pissed a lot of people off, and you would be right. But Tennessee was a lot more moderate then than it is now. Democrats mostly held control over the state House and the state Senate, and they were in and out of the governor's office. But all of that changed at the top of the 2010s.

It began last February with an offhand slap at President Obama's stimulus plan by a cable commentator.

Speaking from the floor of.

The Chicago Board of trade.

We're thinking of having.

A Chicago Tea Party in July. All you capitalists that want to show up to Lake Michigan, I'm going to start organizing.

And what a Tea Party it would be. No tiny sandwiches, no scones, but all the racist conspiracy theories about whether or not the President was born in Hawaii. So fun. The Tea Party wave swept anti-abortion politicians into power across the country, and Tennessee was no exception. In 2011, the Republican Party won their first-ever trifecta, control over the ownership, the State House, and the State Senate. They didn't waste any time quickly gerrymandering the hell out of the state to make sure they could stay in power. Since then, Democrats have never won a single statewide election or control over either chamber of the legislature. In fact, today the Republicans have a supermajority. Of Tennessee's 131 state legislators, 101 are Republican. It has been one of the wildest political swings in the country, and it has had a massive impact on reproductive rights. Pretty much as soon as they took power, the new state government started pushing laws that made accessing abortion more and more difficult. A lot of these laws were supported by Tennessee Right to Life, one of the most powerful lobbying organizations in the state. Maybe you've been lucky enough to see one of their awesome ads on TV.

One of.

The most.

Shared celebrations in the United States.

Is birthdays. In the four decades since the.

Supreme.

Court.

Decided Roe.

Versus Wade, there's.

Been an average of 1.3 million.

Less birthdays.

Every year.

At Right to Life, we want to help more people experience a happy birthday.

And for my birthday this year, I'd love it if that Right to Life commercial had never existed, but we don't always get what we want. Anyways, Tennessee Right to Life has been around for a while. They were founded a couple of years after Roe was decided in 1975, and they have a lot of political muscle to throw around. Back in 2014, they launched a massive campaign to remove the right to abortion from the state constitution.

In 2000, something vital was taken from Tennessee.

The Tennessee.

Supreme Court ruled that our state's constitution was more liberal toward abortion than.

The US Constitution.

Vote yes on Amendment 1.

And restore life to Tennessee.

Wait, why am I crying? The music feels like a funeral. I mean, actually, it was for abortion rights in Tennessee. Amendment one passed by 53 % of the vote. Let me just clarify all of this in case you missed it. In 2000, the Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed that the Tennessee Constitution protected abortion. So by 2014, Wright to Life and their allies had passed an amendment that changed the state constitution. Lawmakers moved almost immediately to make abortion as difficult as possible.

The Tennessee.

Senate has approved a mandatory.

48-hour waiting period for women seeking to get an abortion.

In addition, senators passed a bill to place stricter.

Regulations on.

Abortion clinics. By 2017, 96 % of counties in the state did not have an abortion provider. Roe was basically dead in Tennessee. All of this led up to the passage of the state's trigger law in 2019. The law said that in the event Roe was ever repealed, a near total ban on abortions would go into effect. And of course, that is exactly what happened. The ban took effect in August 2022, and abortion has been illegal in the state ever since.

Well, if I have to hear a doomsday dissertation, I'm glad I get to hear it delivered by Sam B. But one surprising takeaway of all this, it happened fast. Today, this abortion ban in Tennessee feels like the status quo, like it's always been this way. But that shift happened over just 14 years, from 2000 to 2014. That is not a long time. While the work can feel demoralizing, it's also clear that we can mobilize, lobby, and the tides can change. Robin has had a front row seat to the impact this has had. She moved to Nashville in 2015. It was a stark difference from her time organizing in New York.

In New York, we were doing so much legislative work around Roe and keeping Roe and making sure Roe stayed, which obviously was really important. Then when I got to Nashville, what I saw specifically when I started volunteering and then eventually a year later started working in clinic, I was just like, Oh, they just can't access it. Even though we had Roe, I had no idea about stuff happening in these other states where they were finding these really crafty, manipulative ways to keep people from accessing it, even though it was legal at the time.

In our reporting for this series, we heard some version of this again and again. That is, things were already bad pre-jobs. Roe wasn't protecting a lot of people in the country who were dealing with barriers for decades. Robin saw that firsthand once she started working in the Nashville clinic.

So many patients were coming in and they had used every last dollar to get there thinking they were getting their abortion that day. I was having to tell them, Oh, no, we have this 48-hour waiting law. Then they'd be like, Okay, I'll get back here in 48 hours. And then I'd have to tell them, No, we actually have now a two-week wait for the procedure because this doctor just lost their privileges because they need hospital-admitting privileges to do this very simple outpatient procedure. Now it's longer than 48 hours. It's a 2-3 week wait for this patient.

These laws, the 48 hour waiting period, the one requiring hospital-admitting privileges for abortion providers have significantly chipped away at the protections of Roe v. Wade for years. Robin wanted to help people in Tennessee get abortion care beyond the support she was providing in clinics. So she started abortion care Tennessee. They launched in March of 2020, just as the country was first being hit by COVID-19.

We were like a community-funded organization trying to get off the ground during a pandemic when the community couldn't be together.

It was a slow start, but after a few years, they hit their stride. They had their first in-person fundraising event last April.

Then the Supreme Court leak happened, and a real shift happened in the way we talk about these things in general. I.

E, abortion funds were now in the spotlight. You probably remember seeing them pop up on every social media post around then telling you what you could do.

In the first two days after the Supreme Court leaks, we had close to $50,000 in donations. I literally thought it was like a glitch. I was on our PayPal thinking there's no way that this can be a real thing that's happening. It catapulted us to be able to actually fund abortion in Tennessee.

Overnight, Robin's small abortion fund was doing big numbers, and it felt like the people of Tennessee were sending a message.

They literally have just said, No. You're going to try and ban abortion, and we're going to make sure people in the community can get where they need to go.

Thanks to the influx of donations, ACT could still get Tennesseeans access to abortion. It was a lifeline.

Everything with ACT was just blowing up. It was finally like all of these opportunities that I had wanted within our community of people wanting to fundraise for us and people wanting to have meetings with me and do interviews.

Robin was doing fundraisers, media interviews, and very much became the public face of ACT. They even got a shout out from Haley Williams of Paramore in billboard magazine. But all that newfound support came with a downside. Robin says as her public profile was growing, anti-abortion extremists were targeting her.

My car was broken into a few times and they took personal documents. They took only my registration and insurance card and stuff. There was one day where I came home and my door was unlocked and I was living alone. I never didn't lock my door. There was a few times where I came home and people were idling in front of my house. Then when I pulled up, they did a very dramatic pull away. The brakes on my car were messed up. After I had just replaced my brakes and the mechanic was like, I have no explanation for why these breaks would go out.

These small but questionable things all happen in a short period of time. At first, Robin had no idea why.

It was my dad who was the one who threaded all this together. I think in the first time in years up until this point that he had mentioned what I do, the phone got really quiet and he said, Well, aren't there some people that are probably pretty mad at you right now for what you do? That clicked it all together for me. I was like, Oh, yeah.

She moved out of Tennessee in October 2022, fearing for her safety. She isn't the only one. Threats of violence have become increasingly common against abortion providers, especially post jobs. Tia has also had concerns with her personal safety.

I'm a parent. I have to make contingency plans. I've talked with my family about the state of affairs and what that would look like. Hey, so there might be a day where I get arrested for something, right? My grandmother lives with me. I moved her in when I had my son. In that instance, I would already have someone at the house like, Hey, I have to call my grandmother because she's got to pick him up from school today because I'm going to jail, right? Somebody do this, right?

There's a lot of scenarios Robin and Tia have to plan for in this post-Row world. When we were in Tennessee this past spring reporting this episode, we got them in the same room to talk about it. On a day at Robin's friend's house in a suburb just outside Nashville, we talked over noodle bowls and banmini.

It looks nice. Sorry, how many regular napkins?

No, it's perfect. This is how I eat at my house all the time.

-paper napkins. -except I'm never at a table on the couch.

And pretty soon they found they had a lot in common.

So at the training we did, I offered myself, I was like, apart from Act, I'm an abortion doula. You can take a card if you're managing your own abortion. You just want to reach out to me. I have a burner phone and an encrypted number.

I need to get a burner.

I mean, when I bought a burner, I was just like - I'm.

Not that badass yet. No, that's what I mean. Because that's how - Here's the thing.

I'm going to tell you the same thing that my best friend said to me. I was like, I am not a person who should have a burner phone. This is so insane. I am not this person. I'm holding this thing in my hand, and I'm just like, What am I doing? What am I doing? And she was just like, This is imposter syndrome, babe. You are this person. You've been this person.

I guess I just never thought about it because to me, I'm like, burners are for people who are into illegal activity. But it never.

Clicked to me. To clarify, Tia and Robin are not doing anything illegal. But the way the laws are going, it can feel that way to them at times. All the burner talk aside, Robin and Tia are doing what they can to protect themselves. But at the end of the day, the fear of criminalization and this legal gray area isn't stopping them.

For me, I'm just like, if I stop doing this work and no one's doing this work and we're all just letting abortion being illegal, what do I have? I don't have freedom over my own fucking body. I can say, What have I got to lose? Because, yeah, I don't have a child to come home to or whatever, but there is a just like, And? I can't be a free person. So then what am I fearing? Some days it's different, but today I am just to come from it truly. Try and stop me.

I think people are immensely stubborn, right? And people have a deep, seeded, almost primal desire for freedom and autonomy and agency. And even before Roe, there was a robust network of people, right? Even when people were dying, it didn't stop people from going and getting back alley abortions, right? Because I think when you're talking about a need, there's no other option, right? And so I think the longer they keep Roe illegal, or at least not nationally legal and accessible, the longer they give people on the ground to build stronger infrastructures.

In a sense, Roe being overturned has given way to a growing network of community support. Things like abortion funds, self-managed abortion trainings, abortion doula, collectives, and practical support. It's all making the movement that much stronger.

One thing that I've been raised with is nobody got us like we got us, right? I think that there should have already been infrastructures in place because abortion, even with Row, wasn't accessible to all people. We should have already been establishing these communal infrastructures because there is no liberation without community.

Tia and Robin believed deeply in the power of community, of lifting each other up and creating a world where you can always access abortion, despite what the law says. After the break, we see that community power in action. With HelloFresh, you get farm-fresh, pre-portioned ingredients, and seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstep. So don't skip trips to the grocery store and count on HelloFresh to make home cooking easy, fun, and affordable. That's why it's America's number one meal kit. The holiday season can be hectic, and that's where HelloFresh's 15-minute meals come in. These quick fixes help you get a wholesome meal on the table in much less time than it takes to get delivery. Just like always, HelloFresh's ingredients travel from the farm to your door so you know they're fresh and everything arrives pre-portioned so you can get right to cooking very quick. I love Hello Fresh. I just made the sweet chili chicken bowls with chicken thighs, Jasmine rice, bell pepper, and candied peanuts. I cannot believe I made this in my own kitchen. It was so good. In case you missed it, Hello Fresh is so much more than delicious dinners. They also can help take the hassle out of every mealtime occasion with easy breakfast, quick lunches, and snacks all delivered along with your weekly box.

Go to hellofresh. Com/defendersfree and use the code Defenders Free for free breakfast for life. One breakfast item per box while subscription is active. That's free breakfast for life at hellofresh. Com/defendersare free with code Defenders Free. Hellofresh, America's number one, Mealkit. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. The days are getting shorter and your mood might be fluctuating a little bit. Do you have the support you need to manage this time of year with all of its emotions? It is normal to be stressed during the holidays, so finding the right therapist can be exactly what you need to keep yourself motivated and moving. As you maneuver those highs and lows, it can be so, so helpful to have a trained professional there to support you. Plus, for a lot of people, a therapy session is that weekly self-care check-in they've been needing. For me, I always say, Hey, I can't paint my own nails, so of course I need a therapist. Knowing my therapist is there and well-versed in my own backstory and ready to help enlighten me as to what is actually going on in my life and how I can show up for that, it's an anchor, a regular dose of introspection and support, and I end up feeling a lightness to my week.

If you're thinking of starting therapy, give better help a try. It's super convenient, flexible, and fits right into your schedule. You can do it all from the comfort of your own home. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist. And switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. Find your bright spot this season with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp. Com/defenders today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P. Com/defenders.

She is a fucking leader. She is a soldier. She is an incredible drag queen. It is my absolute honor for you all to see this. Please give it up.

For Vedalia and Gentry.

Brothers.

And sisters.

Pride.

Is a powerful thing. In these.

Trying.

Times, we pray.

We.

Cry.

We cry hard.

But...

Vedalia Ann-Gentry is on stage performing to Laura Bell Bundy in a big curly red wig and sparkly blue jumpsuit.

You can't.

Break.

The.

Gateway. You can't.

Break the gateway.

No matter what you.

Preach or say.

She's one of several drag performers giving their time and hottest looks to Abortion Care Tennessee's Spring Fundraiser. They're at the same bar in Nashville where Robin held the abortion training. As the show kicked off, Robin gave a little speech to the audience.

This was always going to be a drag show. Drag was always going to be a part of our brand from the very beginning. And the reason for that is because we are all advocating for the same thing, which is bodily autonomy and freedom of expression for all people. And the sentiment of abortion no matter what, drag forever no matter what, is that abortion is not going anywhere. What we say in this field is that we do ancient work. And so we're here. Act is here for you. We will take care of you if you will take care of us and keep that momentum up. That's what this is. It's radical community care.

As people chatted and ordered drinks, cocktails like My Body, My Choice and Miffy and Miso, the show got started with standup from local comedians, including a set from M. K. Gannon.

If I can be vulnerable for a second, in my life, I've actually had two abortions. I've had two... Thank you.

So.

According.

To my punchcard, the next one's free.

So that's fun.

Like a sandwich.

From Jersey Mike's. That's fun.

From there, it rolled into drag performances like the one you heard earlier from Vidalia. We asked Vidalia why she was there that night supporting the abortion movement.

If you look at this list together, if you look at abortion rights, the drag ban, the gender-affirming-care ban, the removal of protections for interfaithfaith, interracial and same sex marriage, the removal of money for HIV care. I myself am HIV positive, so I'm HIV positive, drag queen, visibly queer, living in the south. There's a lot of intersectionality that's being taken advantage of, abused. I think that the real point is to terrorize, bully and scare out a liberal voter base. Unity is really what we need to be looking to. Unity, intersectionality, reaching across these proverbial bridges to people who are maybe not exactly like us.

Vidalia is echoing something we heard from many activists in Tennessee, the need to approach our organizing and coalition building with intersectionality. That need was stronger than ever amidst the recent shooting, the capital protests, the bands on drag and gender affirming care. A lot was going on politically in Tennessee at the time, but Robin was determined to bring together the community despite all the unrest.

It was always going to be a drag show, and then we saw the bands coming and we doubled down on the drag to be like, Nope, we're not fucking going anywhere. Not only are we radically caring for our community members, we are also sending a message that the people of Tennessee demand access to abortion, whatever that looks like. If most of our GOP lawmakers are not going to show up for us, then we'll show up for each other.

That's exactly what they did that night at The Drag Show.

I would say at least 90% of the people in that room had been the same people that were packing the capital for the last two weeks. It was so many deeply, deeply grieving people, and I was one of them.

At the event, Robin was emotional. The past few weeks had taken a toll, and the fear of gun violence was top of mind for her.

When it comes to an event like this, we can ramp up security, but what can you do to ramp up security if someone wants to come in here with an assault rifle? There's literally nothing you can really do to increase security to prevent a tragedy like that. It really is a radical act for any of us to be here tonight.

There was a real feeling of resistance, defiance, and joy in the room that night. You could practically see it on attendees' faces as the evening wrapped up.

Yeah, it.

Was a really joyful night. Yeah, joyful is the word of the night.

That's the perfect word for it, joy. Remind you that.

We're not.

Alone and I don't know, maybe change is.

Possible, hopeful.

I don't know. Maybe. We all said, I actually feel hopeful right.

Now.

Because we've gotten a lot of bad news lately and it's been really hard. Yeah, feeling alone. And today was.

Just like.

A community belonging, hope, joy.

All those things.

At the end of the night, Robin felt the same.

The biggest takeaway is always how much fun everyone's having. And that always makes me emotional, this space of joy, but knowing what everyone's been through. I'm real proud. We really did it. I mean, we're still doing it. There's so much. We're up against so much, but this was the goal, bringing people together, neighbors helping neighbors, and ideally doing that while having a really good time.

Not to mention the fundraiser was a huge success. Robin says they raised around $7,000 for Abortion Care Tennessee that night. That money will go directly to fund people's abortions. This type of on the ground support is meeting a real need in Tennessee, and the community is coming together to push back. But how they do that is different in Tennessee than it is in Texas or Florida or any restrictive state, because this is our new reality. There are 50 different states, 50 different approaches to reproductive rights, 50 different definitions of where freedom starts and ends. It's a constantly changing landscape, and Tia and Robin are trying to keep up. They told me that means getting out of a defensive position.

We weren't playing offense like we needed to be playing offense, right? They were making all the shots and we were just responding. Now we're thinking, how can we get back in the game? I feel like this is one of those they had us in the first half, but we coming back, right? Exactly.

That's a good way.

The game is not over.

Game is not over. I think that there's a lot of people who are coming in who've got the fire. Now we just have to figure out not just how to mobilize on these one itsy-bitsy moments, but how we build movements that are intersectional and who are long-lasting. Because if you look back in our history, none of these movements happened overnight. We're not getting Roe back tomorrow. I had to break anybody's heart because Roe is not coming back tomorrow. It's not coming back next year, right? And it shouldn't because Roe was in hell. The bar.

Was in hell. Roe was in hell, i. E, Roe is not protecting everyone. It was the baseline, the lowest bar possible in the eyes of Tia and Robin. But that doesn't mean we should give up on legal change altogether. Nope. It means we can create something stronger than Roe because we deserve better, not just a return to the system that failed us.

The system needed to topple. Do I like the way that it happened? Am I happy that we didn't have the structures in place when it toppled? No. But now I think it's going to be like from the ground up, reexamining of who did... All of the people that were up in arms when Roe v. Wade was overturned, it was all the white women that Roe v. Wade protected. Those were the people frantically DMing us.

Yeah. I think we as a movement have to learn how to center the most marginalized outside of just talking points. It's one thing to get up at a rally and say, You know who this is going to hurt? Poor people, queer people, Black people, communities of color. But the rally was held at 11 o'clock on a Wednesday. Baby, those folks are at work. Exactly. We can't create movements the same way we did the last time because it didn't work.

We can't create movements the same way we did the last time. The intersectional approach that Tia, Robin, and other activists in Tennessee are taking gives me hope. It's a total reimagining of what the movement is about. The right to choose an abortion, yes, but also the right to bodily autonomy in a more expansive sense. Because once these issues get siloed and separated, they're easier to target, which is exactly what we've been seeing with the hundreds of anti-LGBTQ bills introduced this year. Beyond that, Robin and Tia's work centers community rather than the courts. Sure, legal rights have a place, but they're not the ultimate goal. The goal is freedom, and the path there is through community, joy, and connection. There's something radical and incredibly sustaining about that. Next week, we'll learn about the ban on gender affirming care for youth in Tennessee, which went into effect in July 2023. We'll look at what it means for trans youth in the state.

Trans healthcare.

Is.

Saving lives. It's suicide prevention, if you think about it.

Taking that away is...

You.

Can't do that. There's more The Defenders with Lemonata Premium. Subscribers get exclusive access to bonus content like extended interviews with organizers, abortion providers, and experts. Subscribe now in Apple Podcasts.

The Defenders is a production of Lemonada Media.

We're your hosts.

Gloria Riviera. And Samantha Bee.

Munna Danish is our supervising producer.

Lisa Foo is our producer.

Isara Asavez and Tony Williams are our associate producers.

Ivan Kureiv and Natasha Jacobs are our audio engineers.

Music by Hannah Sprown with additional music by Natasha Jacobs.

Story editing by Jackie Danziger, our VP of narrative content.

Fact checking by Naomi Barr.

Executive producers are Jessica Cordover-Kramer and Stephanie Widdleswax.

Additional production support by Laura Boach and Julie Carly.

This series is supported by Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and Levi Strauss Foundation.

Follow The Defenders wherever you get your podcasts or listen ad-free on Amazon Music with your Prime membership. What's up, everyone? I'm Delaney Fisher.

Comedian and serial entrepreneur. And I'm Kelsey Cook, comedian.

And, I.

Swear this is real, a world champion, football player.

On our.

Podcast, Self Helpless.

We dig into everything from heartbreak to career burnout to the wild.

Stories from our 20s and.

The many anxieties we've experienced along.

The way. We're often joined.

By guests.

Who range.

From.

Celebrities to renowned health experts.

And together, we'll.

Unpack big.

Topics like deciding whether or not we want kids, building your dream career, strengthening self-trust, and much, much more.

So join us every Monday for an unfiltered, entertaining.

And honest conversation with friends where you don't even have to leave.

Your house. If you're not wearing pants, we will never know. That's right. So listen to Self.

Helpless wherever you get your podcasts..

I am a.

Cook.

And someone that.

Passionately believes.

Complex problems often have very simple solutions like sitting down together and.

Sharing our stories.

Now, guess what? I have a.

Podcast.

Longer Tables.

Where I do just that.

Each episode.

Features brilliant people like.

Stacey.

Abrams, Ron Howard.

And.

Jane Goodell.

Talking about food, life, and everything in between. Listen to Longer Tables.

Whatever you get, podcast.