Facing Workplace Changes as Telework Restrictions Threaten Current Position

The fight for bodily autonomy connects reproductive rights and transgender rights as we resist government intrusion into personal medical decisions.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Petition Drives in Nebraska
• 1:07 Bodily Autonomy & Religious Law
• 2:30 Getting Active in State Politics
• 4:18 Stonewall Democrats & Danica Rome
• 6:48 Democratic Convention Delegate Success
• 9:00 Telework Restrictions & Career Change

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

One of them is protecting women's rights to access to abortion and the other is to overturn an action by the state legislature where they allocated money from the state coffers to go to private education. It's the voucher bills where they want to defund public education and fund religious education and that's unconstitutional under the Nebraska statute. So that'll be it, but we are also doing a petition to repeal the law that enabled it. So I decided to be my activist self and go to Dundee County and get signatures in Dundee County and, surprisingly enough, I got quite a few folks signing the support our schools and I got quite a few people to support the abortion amendment so that we can put that on the ballot and let people decide. And basically, let's put it back to where it was with Roe and get the hell out of the women's lives and let them make medical decisions for themselves themselves. And we've seen constantly across even Republican states when we do constitutional amendments to protect the right to access to abortion.

Speaker 1: 1:12

They get passed and that's what people want and people don't want the right-wing extremism of the doctor in your bedroom, the government in your bedroom, the government in your doctor's office, you know the government interfering with your, your, your prescriptions and so, and bathrooms, and what bathroom you can use. It's like the trans I don't want to say agenda, but the trans rights and access to medical care is is so intertwined with women's right to abortion and to receive care in related to reproductive issues, and what some of these laws end up doing is hurting women. There's nothing to protect women. Hurting women there's nothing to protect women. It causes them to. You know they refuse to allow an abortion when it's medically necessary because it will harm the reproductive system of a woman who may want to have children.

Speaker 1: 2:16

So it's so intertwined with bodily autonomy and trans rights and it's trying to get the government involved in enforcing their religious views and that's not what we do in this country. And so it was fun. I went back, met with a bunch of my high school classmates, got a bunch of people. We set up outside the post office for part of the day and got people as they were coming in getting their mail and went up outside the post office for part of the day and got people as they were coming in getting their mail and went up to the historical society that had some programs on and sat outside there and it was good listening to a lot of the folks.

Speaker 2: 2:55

Good, good. So are these your high school friends?

Speaker 1: 2:59

These are not my high school friends. After I got done with my reunion, I drove back to LA picked up some stuff, and I had to drive hurriedly back to make it back to Omaha Because, as part of my getting involved in politics, I'm actively involved with the Democratic Party now in Nebraska. I'm on the Douglas County Central Committee. I'm on the Douglas County Central Committee, I'm on the State Central Committee and I'm the vice chair of the State Stonewall Democratic Caucus, and so we had our first ever Lavender Gala fundraiser for the Stonewall Democrats in you have a picture for that too, right?

Speaker 1: 3:40

Yeah, and our guest speaker was Danica Rome, who is state senator from the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Speaker 1: 3:47

So Mike and I got to pick her up at the airport and then we had this fundraiser at the Cornhusker Hotel in Lincoln and that is Danica and I and that's the board of the Stonewall Democrats and we have started really getting actively involved as a caucus in politics. We were part of the group that was behind censoring the state senator that we did earlier. There was the reason why LB 574, the gender affirming care ban and abortion restriction ban Nebraska was the first one to actually combine those into a single bill. Yes, was passed on a very slim, it was a one, it was a single vote. And one of those votes in favor of this, in fact, was a co-sponsor of these bills, was a Democratic individual from Omaha, and so we went to censure him for what he had done, basically basic core values of taking away individuals' rights to autonomy rights to autonomy. And so the Stonewall group has become incredibly active on things, and so we got to do the fundraiser and we got brought Danica in and she was incredible.

Speaker 2: 5:14

And she was this one, she holding her shoes.

Speaker 1: 5:16

Yes, she was talking about when she first ran for the assembly in Virginia, about the shoes that she had and they were not very good and how she totally wore them out by walking through the district. And she said, as a queer candidate, you have to put in the shoe leather, you have to put in the work, and that we can make it happen. We can convince people that we are someone who knows right from wrong, someone who knows how to help the community. And she has been incredible In fact was subsequently elected to the state Senate there. So she was an incredible guest. To have come speak to us was very uplifting and helped us raise $6,000 for our caucus so we can get out and we can meet with queer youth and we can start letting them know that there's a community available for them, that they have political power, that if we get together and we use it, we can do things, we can make changes, and so it was fun.

Speaker 2: 6:32

Okay, good so, and thank you for sharing all your journey this past year, sharing all your journey this past year, and also, you mentioned that things gonna change with your current career. Right, it's the reason I brought this up. I don't know if you want to share, but but because, since we were talking about you know, have you start some shows here and and you also have some other projects on the side that you're I've got a lot of things kind of going in in in the burner.

Speaker 1: 7:05

Um, um. You know, two weeks ago we had the state democratic convention, right, uh and uh. I ran for the position of elector, uh, and as we talked about the electoral college and all that, uh, I ran to be the person that signs the Electoral College certificate that goes to Congress for the second congressional district. And I almost won but didn't quite get it done. But I was elected as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. I think I was actually the highest vote getter in my district caucus.

Speaker 1: 7:39

So a lot of people were inspired by what I've had to say and entrust with me the ability to go to Chicago and uphold the democratic values that we have. So that was fun. So in August I'm going to be spending a week in Chicago at the Democratic National Convention. And before I had done that I have a friend out here who I'm pretty close with, who when I was celebrating her birthday with her up at Hearst Castle and stuff talked about. You know I didn't know if I was going to get elected a delegate or not, but I said, if I do, would you like to go to Chicago with me for the week and she was like all for it. So when I told the folks in Nebraska you know I was going to bring my girlfriend from LA, who is a hair and makeup person, because that's what she does and they were like what? We were just talking, we need to find somebody. And so I'm like not only going to go back and do that, I'm going to make sure that we are the best coughed delegation in the entire convention. So I've been doing that but, yeah, it does look like I may be having some time on my hands.

Speaker 1: 8:54

My office has decided to institute restrictions on teleworking. I've been able to telework for 13 days a month from my house in Omaha. I run a section of the DA's office and over the course of the four years that I've been in charge, I've lost resources, I've lost people, but the work that we do is like tripled. So I've somehow managed to triple my production of my section with fewer resources, and it's all because we're able to telework and we're not spending, you know, an hour and a half, two hours a day commuting back and forth into the office. So we get much more work done. But they've decided to institute that they're only going to allow a single day of teleworking a week, and so that's going to make it practically impossible for me. Thank you.