by Sarah’s Report One Day Before the Next Steering Committee Meeting of DSA’s Campaign for Trans and Reproductive Rights on November 20
By Sarah Milner and Judith Chavarria
See also report #1: DSA’s Campaign for Trans and Reproductive Rights, and report #2: Time to Move the Campaign Forward
At our last meeting on November 6, the Steering Committee of TRBACC created three subcommittees – administration, outreach, mass action – responsible for organizing key areas of the campaign. These committees have since also begun meeting. While this was a step forward, we were unable to reach consensus around what the timeline for the work of these subcommittees should be.
Let’s forge an active, fighting campaign!
While outreach has been explicitly tasked with outlining a plan for communicating with chapters, administration and mass action do not have clear short-term direction. A month and a half into this campaign, we’re still struggling to commit to the fighting vision DSA convention delegates voted for. If we hope to change that, then we need to be honest about what’s not happening.
Without a blueprint
Thus far, we haven’t arrived at a strategy for building the coalition we’ll need to run a successful campaign. While DSA is a formidable organization, we can’t fight for bodily autonomy alone. It’s important that TRBACC seeks to build the widest movement possible while putting forward independent messaging and demands. However, we need time in order to do this right – and we’re less than two months away from the campaign’s public launch.
On this note, we are also yet to begin preparing for the January kickoff. There are a lot of exciting ways to organize this kickoff, from bringing in coalition partners to inviting international contacts, DSA electeds and members of our national committees. But most importantly, we need to make sure a significant number of DSA chapters are brought together for a rousing event that sets the tone for our campaign. If we’re going to do this successfully then we can’t continue to go without a concrete plan of action.
The real issue at play is that no one is taking initiative on these things. Without a lively exchange of ideas, strategies, proposals and the willingness to see through, we’re going to continue to fall behind the political moment. What gives us our strength as socialists is that we’re capable of being the best fighters for every issue – proving this is going to take more than what we’ve given so far.
The mass action subcommittee needs to get the ball rolling on the kickoff, and the administrative subcommittee needs to start doing outreach to other parts of DSA now. As Judith writes in her article for our coming Reform & Revolution magazine “Organizing a Fighting DSA Campaign for Bodily Autonomy”:
Every part of DSA has a role to play. The National Electoral Committee should encourage DSA elected officials to actively promote the campaign and make the struggle for bodily autonomy a legislative priority; creating socialist consciousness by synthesizing these battles with the labor movement gives a paramount role to the National Labor Committee; building an international movement around the rights of trans refugees will require close coordination with the International Committee; and the Queer Socialists Working Group can become a permanent home for the movements we build for queer rights.
Without the members
In addition to the issues surrounding our timeline, the meeting had notably low attendance. This is a natural consequence of staffing a committee with priority placed on ideological diversity rather than practical commitment to quickly implementing an effective campaign. Despite this, there are immediate ways to begin correcting our course.
Alongside concrete measures taken to get important work done, we also need to create areas of responsibility for expanded participation. DSA members who didn’t make it onto TRBACC or currently want to get involved should have a way to do so, helping committee members with the tasks that aren’t getting done.
The reality is that TRBACC is currently behind schedule.
The reality is that TRBACC is currently behind schedule and not on course to have a successful January kickoff. We haven’t picked a date, contacted anyone, set forward demands or strategy, advertised, contacted chapters about participation, set internal goals, or even developed a timeline for getting these things done. With expanded capacity and input from rank-and-file members, we can begin to catch up while forging a dynamic relationship between the committee and the wider organization.
This should also be reflected in the cross-committee coordination we seek to establish through the administrative subcommittee. A successful campaign will not only mobilize chapters and win material gains, it will also help mature DSA as an organization and prepare it to lead similar priority campaigns in the future.
Where do we stand?
TRBACC needs a clarity of purpose which it so far lacks.
At this meeting we also discussed demands. While this helped clarify committee members’ thoughts, we weren’t able to make significant progress on a final decision regarding our program. But our program is of significant importance. As Sarah wrote in her previous report:
[W]e need an offer for coalition partners and others to start discussion about what we want to achieve together through a united front. While DSA can and should link demands to our socialist vision of a society based on gender, racial and economic justice and the abolishing of capitalism, we can aim to fight together with others for:
- Medicare for All, including
- free abortion
- free transition care
- every union contract should include these until we have M4A
- Overturn all trans bans and abortion bans
- Union protections and housing justice for all: workplace rights and housing rights are two issues of essential importance for queer people and people who need abortions.
DSA can and should link the struggle for these demands to the need to build independently from the Democratic Party, toward a democratic socialist force that can actually organize the fight for these demands.
To this end, Sarah will be submitting a proposal to finalize a program which includes these demands at the next TRBACC meeting. Sarah will also be submitting a proposal which includes a plan to contact all DSA chapters. While more decisions need to get made fast, we are hoping that these proposals can help kickstart important areas of work and open up space to start thinking about the upcoming weeks and months of the campaign.
As the largest socialist organization in the country, we think DSA is capable of intervening in the struggle for bodily autonomy while furthering the cause of socialism in the process. We are worried that this potential will go unrealized without an honest assessment of where we’re at.
If we hope to show a mass of queer and working class people that they should join DSA in this campaign, then we can’t afford to be passive in our approach. Let’s forge an active, fighting campaign!
Sarah Milner
Sarah Milner, she/her, is a rank and file union organizer and member of Portland DSA and Portland State University YDSA. She co-chairs the Trans Rights and Bodily Autonomy Campaign. She has previously been the co-chair of PSU YDSA and of Portland DSA’s Electoral Working Group. She spent two terms on the chapter Steering Committee. She is a member of the Steering Committee of Reform & Revolution caucus.
Judith Chavarria
Judith Chavarria (they/she) is a Steering Committee member of DSA’s Reform & Revolution caucus. She is a member of Centre County DSA and of DSA’s Democracy Commission.
