| | | | |  | | By Catherine Kim | With help from Rishika Dugyala, Jesse Naranjo, Ella Creamer and Teresa Wiltz
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POLITICO illustration/Photo courtesy of Juana María Rodríguez | What’s up, Recast friends! My name is Catherine Kim, and I’m an assistant editor at POLITICO Magazine subbing in for Brakkton. President Joe Biden invited Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the White House despite human rights concerns in India. Tomorrow marks a year since Roe v. Wade was overturned. But today, we’re focusing on the debate over bodily autonomy. The fight for bodily autonomy is on. The Supreme Court’s striking down of Roe v. Wade a year ago today wasn't an anomaly, according to Juana María Rodríguez, professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley and author of “Puta Life: Seeing Latinas, Working Sex.” There have also been attacks on disability rights, restrictions on sex work and LGBTQ people. Since the ruling, transgender rights have become the latest flashpoint. These efforts are all related, Rodríguez says, because they are all meant to restrict bodily autonomy among certain populations — which is directly linked to one’s freedom.
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“It is really something much deeper and more profound, which is your personal autonomy — the fact that you have a right to own and control your own body,” she says. “So I'm seeing a cluster of issues come together that are really about this very fundamental desire.” These attacks are led by people who resist change and hope to preserve the status quo through control, Rodríguez says, and what’s a more effective way to do that than to limit the power to control one’s own body? According to Rodríguez, this isn’t an unprecedented phenomenon. Nazi Germany, too, strived to control its people by stripping them of their bodily autonomy, banning abortions, sterilizations and contraception for “Aryan” women. Rodríguez sees eerie — and troubling — similarities between today’s culture wars and World War II-era Germany. Nazis, she points out, destroyed the world’s first trans clinic in Berlin. ◆◆◆ This interview has been edited for length and clarity. THE RECAST: When did you start connecting the dots that all these issues were related to bodily autonomy? RODRÍGUEZ: I am not the only person connecting the dots. I want to say that the language of personal autonomy and bodily autonomy is language that has been taken up by activists all over the world for a really long time. It's so fundamental. It's so basic. What I think I'm doing in the context of the United States is seeing these attacks and seeing this same issue popping up over and over again, which really is this threat to our right to determine what we want to do with our own bodies. It's connected to a lot of issues that people are thinking about — these individual decisions that we make. It's really about individuals having a right to make these decisions that affect the most core aspect of, really, what we do with our bodies. THE RECAST: So if I understand correctly, the connecting dot is a power trying to take over our rights to bodily autonomy, taking over our freedom when it comes to our own bodies? RODRÍGUEZ: Absolutely. And I think the irony there is that the Republican Party, which at one time was the party of small government, is telling people how to dress. We have to understand that cross-dressing was illegal in this country. It used to be that you had to have at least three items of gender-appropriate clothing or you could be arrested. Now these bans on drag are a return to these kinds of policies that are about attacking people’s right to bodily expression, bodily autonomy and the right of people to really measure risk and harm for themselves. |  Drag artist Vidalia Anne Gentry speaks during a news conference to draw attention to anti-drag bills in the Tennessee Legislature, Feb. 14, 2023, in Nashville. | John Amis/AP Images for Human Rights Campaign | THE RECAST: Why are they banning bodily autonomy? What is the significance of it? RODRÍGUEZ: I think right now we have a generation that is not content with the rules they have been handed. They are not content with the rules of gender and sexuality. They are not content with the rules of work. They are not content, and they are questioning things. Young people, like all of us, want freedom. They want to express themselves. They want to think about these ideas together and come up with new rules. At this time when people are saying, “Yeah, let's make some new rules about what gender can be about, what family can be about, what business casual can be about, what work can be,” [others are saying], “Let's put more and more restrictions on people's freedom.” So I think all of these things are really about challenging these most fundamental freedoms because I think people are starting to enjoy them, are trying to say, “You know what? I can live differently. I don't have to follow the rules of my parents or of what society has said because they have not served us.” So I think these restrictions are really just that they're trying to kill our joy. THE RECAST: How do these attacks particularly harm vulnerable populations like people of color or low-income people? |  | RODRÍGUEZ: So the thing is these attacks on bodily autonomy are carried out through systems of state surveillance. The work that I did on sex workers in the 19th century up until now is about systems of surveillance. And so these systems of surveillance, who are the people that are going to be surveilled and criminalized for abortion? Who are the people that are going to be surveilled and stopped because they're suspected of being sex workers? Racialized populations, immigrant populations, the unhoused are constantly under state surveillance. The people bearing the consequences of it are always the poor and the working. I talk to my students about this all the time. There's a [UC Berkeley] fraternity row, right? I don't really see cops up there so much. They're not really out there looking for underage drinking. They're not really out there seeing who's smoking a joint because you still have to be 21. They're just not patrolling the area. They're over in East Oakland, where those kids are stopped every 15 minutes. And that police record follows you for the rest of your life. These are the small ways that the racial politics that this country is steeped in really impact all of these aspects. THE RECAST: As someone who has been paying attention to these attacks on bodily autonomy, has there been a time in history when it was targeted like it was today? RODRÍGUEZ: I think really the time in history that we really do need to look at is the moments before the rise of fascism in Germany. Absolutely, if you think of the ways in which racial politics and sexual politics kind of came together in the rise of fascism — this kind of belief in those two ideas of sexual purity and racial purity. [In the current day,] how we're seeing racialized discourse is a little more subtle. But the stuff around gender and sexuality is not.
|  A demonstrator holds a sign at the All Black Lives Matter Solidarity March on June 14, 2020, in Los Angeles. | Sarah Morris/Getty Images | THE RECAST: How should we respond to these attacks against bodily autonomy? What does taking action look like? RODRÍGUEZ: To me, taking action means forming coalitions. It means seeing that connection between these things and not getting hung up on petty squabbles. Abortion is a right for every single person that needs an abortion, and we need to say that loud and proud. That it's not just for women — it's for anyone that needs an abortion. We need to understand the way these issues impact all of us. The rights for bodily autonomy are not secured by the courts. We can expect to see a series of other decisions about people's basic fundamental rights eroded. It is scary that I mentioned Nazi Germany, but it is absolutely the moment that we're facing right now. It’s like: “[Let’s] choose a vulnerable population, a vulnerable minority population that no one's really going to want to defend and go after them. And by stripping away their rights, we’re going to start eroding all of these other ones.”
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| “So let's go after trans people. Let's go after homeless people. Let's go after marginalized populations that are already the most vulnerable, that nobody's going to defend their rights.” We are going to defend their rights. ◆◆◆ Is it just us? Why does the short holiday work week always feel extra long? Friday couldn’t get here sooner. We’re guessing you feel the same, so we’re sending you off for the weekend with some must-reads and must-sees: Protesting Modi — Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) isn’t just boycotting Indian Prime MInister Narendra Modi’s joint address to Congress, reports Nancy Vu. She introduced a resolution condemning his crackdown of religious freedom. Abortion in a Post-Roe World — In this photo essay, Myah Ward looks at what life is like now for the Red River Women’s Clinic, a North Dakota abortion provider forced to move to Minnesota after Roe was struck down. Taking on the Machine — Yonkers Council Member Corazon Pineda-Isaac, an Afro-Latina of Dominican descent, is running to become the first person of color and woman to be mayor of New York’s third-largest city, reports Julia Marsh. The Democratic primary is on Tuesday. Mihret Sibhat’s tragicomic novel, “The History of a Difficult Child,” is about a young girl finding her voice in the wake of Ethiopia’s socialist revolution. It’s out on Tuesday. Pharrell Williams’ debut Louis Vuitton collection went on show this week. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look. Check out Meshell Ndegeocello’s jazzy-futuristic new album, “The Omnichord Real Book.” And while you’re at it,take a look at her new video for her song, “Clear Water,” too. | 
| Poorna Jagannathan plays an author who sits down to interview her nephew Nick about sexuality and trauma in “I’ll Show You Mine.” It’s available to watch on Vudu and other streaming sites. Rauw Alejandro and Bizarrap drop an EDM track, “BABY HELLO,” and attend a pool party on the moon with some extraterrestrial guests. In “Average Joe,” a man becomes embroiled in a violent underworld after the death of his father, who stole $10 million from a Russian mobster. Stream the series on BET+ from Monday. Little Simz joins a band, skateboards and makes graffiti art in her super cool visual for “Gorilla.” | 
| TikTok of the Day No. 1: Dawg
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