In This Issue:
Asian Pacific Islander American Heritage Month + #SexEdForAll + Bold is Beautiful

This month, we want to share the stories, perspectives, and voices of the Asian Pacific Islander American communities that show up day in and day out in our movement spaces. Happy Asian Pacific Islander American Heritage Month!

No matter where you live, you still have the right to safe and legal abortion care. None of the recently-passed abortion bans have yet gone into effect. We will be fighting back against these attacks with everything we've got. If you want to help Planned Parenthood stand strong against these and other attacks on care, please consider making a donation today.

Geena Rocero is a transgender Filipino American supermodel and founder of Gender Proud, a media production company that focuses on elevating trans visibility. Her great hope for the community is that every trans person is free to self identify, confronted with the fewest possible barriers.

We kicked off May with the launch of Sex Ed For All Month: Accessing Power, Information, and Rights. Sex Ed For All aims to empower all young people in their right to access sex education and care.

The truth is: Less than 40% of high schools and only 14% of middle schools across the U.S. meet the national guidelines for sex education.

Growing up as a Black woman, sex was a taboo subject in my community and you could easily be labeled as "fast" just for asking questions or being curious. It was considered a conversation reserved for adults — even though my parents, and some of my friends, were teenage parents themselves.

I grew up in New Jersey, where mandatory sex education curriculum was implemented in 1983. However, conversations around sex and sexual health were optional in my high school. We talked about anatomy, puberty, dating, and relationships — everything but sex. When it came down to it, our teachers just weren't comfortable talking about sex with us.

Everything I did learn was centered on white American culture — the female anatomy we studied looked nothing like my own, and the skits on relationships and dating weren't reflective of my social culture. I didn't know that as a Black woman, I'm about 40% more likely to die from breast cancer¹, about 3 times more likely to develop fibroids², and 3 to 4 times more at risk of a pregnancy-related death than white women³.

Education is one piece of fighting back against stigma and the systemic issues that affect us disproportionately, but we have to start somewhere — we all have the right to access sex education and care.

This month, key sexual health legislation — The Real Education for Healthy Youth Act (REHYA) and the Youth Access to Sexual Health Services Act (YASHS) — were re-introduced into Congress. These bills will expand access to sex ed for marginalized communities, like people of color and LGTBQ youth, and help ensure that all young people receive sex education by requiring that all educational material be medically accurate and based in science.

– Jamoya at Planned Parenthood

Send us Feedback:

 

1. Black Women And Breast Cancer: Why Our Diagnosis And Care Are Different

2. It's Not Normal: Black Women, Stop Suffering From Fibroids

3. CDC: Pregnancy-Related Deaths

Get the Details:

+ Netflix's 'Sex Education' Missed The Mark By Not Including Black Girls

+ From 'consent football' to 'pin the organ on the body': sex education around the world

+ A Black woman-led Philly non-profit hopes to revolutionize how we teach sex ed to girls

Read More:

+ Sex Education Bills Fight Back Against Trump's Abstinence-Only Plans

+ America's Leaders Need Sex Ed

  Asian Am Feminist Collective NYC
  Asian American Feminist Collective is an NYC-based group that grounds Asian American feminism in the present political moment. They host events that examine political issues facing their communities through a feminist lens and foster dialogue that explores the intersections of Asian American identity with issues of social justice. Their events are all about cultivating social change and lifting up community voices — guests include speakers like Fariha Róisín and Andy Marra.

Asian Am Feminist Collective produced an engaging series of stories written by their members called "First Times," which focuses on the lives of young people that are not normally or accurately represented in pop culture. Follow them on instagram @aafc.nyc.

Photo Credit: Ladygunn/Jena Cumbo

The right to make the most important, consequential, and personal decisions about not just our bodies, but our futures and our families is what our work is all about. And for so many mothers, like Adeline, the ability to make those decisions was possible because of Planned Parenthood. Check out Adeline's story.

Like most medicines, there are different brands of morning-after pills. They may be different prices, but they all have the same active ingredients and have the same effectiveness.

The FDA requires generic medicines to have the same active ingredient, strength, dosage, quality, and effectiveness as name brands — in the U.S., all over-the-counter morning-after pills use 1.5 mg of levonorgestrel to prevent pregnancy.

So why can they cost less if they work the same? Because the companies making generics don't usually pay for advertising, and they don't have to run the expensive clinical trials that the original brand needed to do to get FDA approval for that kind of drug. You can always double-check with the pharmacist if you're concerned about buying the right pill.

– Kendall at Planned Parenthood

What we're reading:

+ How Asian American Women Are Resisting Reproductive Injustice in the US

+ Lizzo Isn't Just Part of a Movement. She's a Movement All Her Own.

+ Gilead Will Donate Truvada to U.S. for H.I.V. Prevention

+ A High School Paper Profiled A Student Sex Worker — & Sparked A Free Speech Battle

TBH (To Be Honest) is a monthly newsletter dedicated to learning about our bodies, talking about sex and relationships, and challenging health inequity and injustice. Send us your feedback.

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