A Patchwork of Access: Young People Deserve Better

Young people deserve access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive healthcare—but those needs aren’t always easy to acquire in the United States. Diana Thu-Thao Rhodes, Vice President of Policy, Partnerships, and Organizing at Advocates for Youth, sits down to talk with us about the barriers young people face when in need of sex education and sexual and reproductive health services.

Young people’s access to sex education in the United States isn’t a pretty picture; a patchwork of legislation at the federal and state level impact sex education, meaning there isn’t an overarching federal bill that mandates safe sex education. State policies include a wide-range of practices—for example, 39 states and D.C. mandate some form of sex education or HIV education, but what is included in those lesson plans vary across the country. State-by-state and school-district-by-school-district lessons could be abstinence-based, abstinence-stressed, or must include teachings on certain topics, leading to entirely different education experiences based on where young people live and go to school.

On top of facing a patchwork of sex education legislation, young people feel disproportionate barriers to accessible sexual and reproductive healthcare. Many young people may not feel that they can make their parents aware of their healthcare needs, may not have access to transportation or money, or may not feel supported by the current health infrastructure where they live if they are transgender or gender expansive. Similar barriers make young people jump through a variety of hoops to access abortion care, as well. In addition, if a young person does not want to inform a parent or guardian in a state that requires parental notification, young people must seek a judicial bypass, a legal process that necessitates permission from a judge to receive the procedure. Six-week abortion bans, like the one recently passed in Texas, will undoubtedly and unduly impact young people who need access to abortion care.

To better support young people in their access to sexual and reproductive healthcare and sex education, we must advocate for policies that ensure young people’s confidentiality when accessing sexual health services, pass legislation that expands sexual health service access across the country such as the Real Education and Access for Healthy Youth Act (REAHYA) and the Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA), address state-by-state patchwork comprehensive sex education legislation, remove forced parental-involvement laws, allowance of over-the-counter oral contraception without age restriction, and strengthen protections for LGBTQ youth and gender-affirming healthcare. A culture shift is required to support the health and rights of young people—young people’s sexuality is a natural part of adolescent development and cannot be shamed, ignored, or met with silence.

Links from this episode

Advocates for Youth on Twitter
Advocates for Youth on Facebook
Abortion Out Loud campaign
Free The Pill campaign

Transcript

Jennie: Welcome to rePROs Fight Back, a podcast where we explore all things reproductive health, rights and justice. I'm your host, Jennie Wetter, and I'll be helping you stay informed around issues like birth control, abortion, sex education and LGBTQ issues and much, much more-- giving you the tools you need to take action and fight back. Okay, let's dive in.

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Jennie: Welcome to this week's episode of rePROs Fight Back. I'm your host, Jennie Wetter, and my pronouns are she/her. So y'all, I just started watching Sex Education and listen, I don't know which one of you is responsible for not telling me that I should be watching this, but y'all are in trouble. I cannot believe nobody told me that I should be watching this and to be fair, some people probably did and I just didn't do it, but I just started watching it. It feels extra fitting to be watching Sex Education right now, because this week's episode is on youth access to sexual and reproductive health services. So it all felt very timely that I started watching it and I was doing my interview with Diana and I was like, oh yeah, perfect timing to be watching Sex Education right now. So I'm enjoying it. I'm sad that I didn't watch sooner, but that means I get to now watch with three seasons out. So that's super exciting. And also very exciting is there's a new season of the Great British Baking Show. I haven't started it yet. I am very much the person who's going to let it finish and then I'm just going to binge the whole thing I don't want to do the week by week. And then like when I binge the whole thing, I will probably binge like all of it, not just this season, because it is just the comforting, happy, warm place. And we could all use a little bit of that right now. So yeah, super excited to start watching the Great British Baking show. As soon as that ends, other than that, things have been fairly chill. There was the big rally for abortion justice that took place across the country. And then DC, this past weekend, I did not go, I think I've talked about this with y'all before, but I have noticed in the last several years that really big crowds give me really bad anxiety. So I have done the things I can do to support the rallies that I would like to attend from the outside, unless they're small and I can go. So I'm a little bummed because I would love to have been there, but I just, I don't know, something... I get really get really anxious when I'm in big crowds. So not so fun anymore, which is a bummer. Um, but I'm glad it was a big success and love to see all the people coming out to support abortion justice. So that is exciting. And with that, I think we'll go to this week's interview. I am super excited to share with y'all this week's conversation. I got to talk to Diana Thu-Thao Rhodes at Advocates for Youth, and we talked all about a full range of sexual and reproductive health services and youth access and ways that it needs to be fixed. And I think it was a really important and timely conversation. So I hope you enjoy my conversation with Diana.

Jennie: Hi Diana. Thank you so much for being here today.

Diana: Hi, thank you for having me.

Jennie: Before we dig into the topic, do you want to take a second and introduce yourself and include your pronouns?

Diana: I can do that. My name is Diana Thu-Thao Rhodes, I use she/her pronouns. And I'm the Vice President of Policy, Partnerships and Organizing at Advocates for Youth—we’re a national reproductive and sexual health and rights organization that centers the needs and voices of young people.

Jennie: So I am so excited to have you here today to talk about young people and access to SRHR. I feel like this is one of those things I've talked about, like on the global side, since we talk about global and domestic on the podcast, but I haven't done like a deep dive on domestic. Like it's come up a little bit, but not like a singular episode devoted to it. So I'm super excited to have you here to do that too.

Diana: Yes, you too. I'm excited to talk about this and such an important issue area and population to really kind of dive deep when we talk about SRHR issues.

Jennie: So I guess maybe the first place we should start is where a lot of young people get introduced to this, right? And that's through sex education. So what does young people's access look like to sex education right now?

Diana: Yeah. Thank you for that question. And you know, it's funny as we get this question… Advocates for Youth works a lot on comprehensive sex education. And I always have such an unsatisfying answer for so many people because it is such a patchwork of policies and practices. When it comes to sexuality education for young people, there are a multitude of policies and practices, both at the federal and state level that impact young people's access, affects education. So there really is no kind of overarching federal policy mandate requirements for sex education. And while there are funding streams, like the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, CDC’s Division of Adolescent School Health, and other funding streams that provide funds for states, and community based organizations to provide more comprehensive approaches to sex ed, it's not a be all end all, and it definitely does not reach all young people. And so then we go to the states and the state policies are a wide range of patchwork policies and practices where we have, you know, 39 states and DC that mandate some sort of either sex education or HIV education, but when it comes to what actually is required within that, that varies across the country, whether it's abstinence-based, abstinence-stress, if it's school districts teach sex ed, that it must include X, Y, and Z, and that X, Y, and Z differs from state to state. And then down to school district to school district education is such a home rule type of, uh, area in our country that a young person in one school could be taught something or have a certain experience in their sex ed classroom and their friends, just a few miles away can have a completely different experience. And then we get into the various ranges of curriculum that's available that fits the standards that these school districts and states require. And you have a population of young people who are experiencing such different curricula, teaching styles and programs in their classroom, which then means we have young people who have wildly different experiences and understandings of their sexual health, healthy relationships, communication, and all of the factors that are involved in comprehensive sex ed.

Jennie: Yeah, this is one of those areas that probably brought me in to repro, uh, because I like…many had the Mean Girls style of sex ed, like, you know, you have sex, you're going to get this horrible disease and you're going to die. And that was like it. So it really was not helpful in any stretch of the imagination and harmful, right? There's a lot of stigma that, and shame built into that. I mean, it didn't help that I was at a Catholic school and had sex ed from a nun. So like the shame was like extra built-in, but yeah, it's not helpful.

Diana: And there's so much stigma and, and stigma not just, you know, built into the curriculum, right? These fear and shame-based abstinence only until marriage approach that maybe you and many others received, that Mean Girls approach. We still use that meme in many of our slide decks, but, but at the end of the day, you know, we know that sex ed includes so much more information and should [include] information about sex and sexuality relationship, contraception, is LGBT inclusive, culturally responsive and provides skills young people need to make healthy decisions. And unfortunately, through various federal administrations, and of course, kind of what we're seeing in the states as far as even the school boards and community-based battles that we're seeing is that sex ed really gets the heart of so many different issues, unfortunately, that become over politicized. And unfortunately, either are just in with fear and shame and stigma or is non-existent for so many young people.

Jennie: And I guess the next place that, you know, young people often encounter sexual and reproductive health is through either STI care and birth control. And I know they often will go together, but I also know that the laws don't always go together. So I don't know if you would rather handle them separately or together.

Diana: Yeah. Well, let's see, let's start together and we'll separate, or vice versa. Um, but I mean, if we even go off of our previous conversation around sex education, right, where all young people have the right to access on as complete and accurate sex ed, then we move into the next kind of groupings of young people are, and those are the young people who are sexually active and those young people need additional resources and services, right? Like access to sexual health services, including STI/HIV services, as well as access to contraception. So one, you have to know your range of contraceptive methods that are available to you, and also have a language to be able to communicate that to a provider in order to even access contraceptives and the care you need. Right? And so, so much of even access to services gets crowded in access to sex education, but you're definitely right, the laws and policies and quite frankly, the kind of locations that young people can access care are so complex. And so while there's a number of schools that do have school-based health centers and nurse programs that do provide comprehensive information and care, that linkage to care for young people who are sexually active is tethered and not easily accessible, attainable, or even measurable. And so, so many young people do receive care through Title X clinics and obviously Planned Parenthood. And so, you know, one just even knowing what clinics they're able young people are able to go to, to receive confidential information and confidential care is, is huge. And while we know that young people communicate and have open conversations with their family, we also know that young people feel really strongly that they want their, especially their sexual health or sensitive healthcare services to be confidential, to have that privacy with themselves and their provider instead of mandating or legislating that guardians or parents need to know all the information before or get consent to receive care. And we know that policies like parental mandatory or forced parental consent or notification around any sexual health services reduces the number of young people to even go and access care to begin with-- confidentiality is such a key. And even having young people access care, feel comfortable accessing care, and we've seen confidentiality, confidentiality laws shift over time. And again, it is a patchwork across the states when it comes to what services can be confidential and what is not, right? And so again, we have, and I know I keep going back to this talking point of was the patchwork of policy and practice, but it really is when it comes to young people, especially those under the age of 18. And then we get into the other barriers that all people face when it comes to accessing care, right? Which should pose to affordability, which it goes into transportation or, or where there's clinics available in your area, et cetera. And all of those get exacerbated…

Jennie: For sure. And something, we definitely talk about more in the global context, but I'm sure it comes up just as much domestically, but I don't hear it as much because I'm maybe not in the right spaces, is also needing friendly providers, right? Like if you go to a clinic and the provider shames you, or is not welcoming and affirming, that really taints your experience for going back to see somebody to provide services, you need, even if it's a different provider.

Diana: Yes, that's 100% accurate and true and Advocates for Youth, we do have staff who work with providers to support and do trainings on youth friendly services. And those trainings are informed by our young people, themselves who are accessing care and shared with us, what is youth friendly and what is not right. And even down to, you know, the times that clinics are open or how far in advance you have to make an appointment or the language that providers share when young people are sharing, you know, why they need care, which then goes into being sexually active. And we know that the core of all of the stigma related to access to sexual health services and education for young people is the stigma around young people and sexuality, young people and sex, right? And that's why having properly trained providers and nurses and youth serving professionals and even educators to ensure that the services they provide are youth friendly, that are inclusive, that are relevant to young people and create a space for them to feel comfortable, to continuing, to seek care. And we also know that, you know, for all of us that ever age we are, but also our various identities and backgrounds plays a part in our comfort. And then also our longevity and seek seeking care. If I, as a young person was made to feel shame or fear going to the doctor or going to a provider and seeking care and continuing with the care that I need, if that is a, you know, a difficult experience, uncomfortable experience, that's going to impact the future of my sexual health or the future of my health, generally, as far as going continuously to seek the care that I need. And, you know, we know that that starts when we're young and that starts in so many different places, including young people seeking services or seeking sexual health care. So that is 100% an issue on the domestic side and a hundred percent what young people are experiencing every day.

Jennie: And while I'm sure I know the answer to this, and it's going to be a patchwork again, what about young people trying to access abortion care?

Diana: Yes, yes you are. Right. Yes. As far as young people accessing abortion, they'll say I get a patchwork of policy and practice, but you know what we know with the hundreds of abortion restrictions passed at the state level in the last five to eight years that we've seen and it's happening right here. And right now, as we're seeing in Texas and other states, what we also know is that young people are disproportionately affected by these restrictions like waiting periods and other restrictions, because they're less likely to be able to afford, to travel, to take time off of work or school or to schedule an abortion. Right? These restrictions are such big barriers for anybody at any age, at any point in their life. But it's exacerbated. If you're young, if you're in school, if you have less access to transportation, to finances and to quite frankly, your own autonomy and your own schedule, right? And to add onto that, the unique challenge that young people under the age of 18 face are these forced rental involvement laws, whether it's forced parental consent or notification that requires young people to receive either consent or another institution for either both or one parent or guardian in order to even access abortion care to begin with. And so if young people do not feel like they are able to safely or are launch to notify a parent or guardian, they have to go through a process called judicial bypass, which essentially is going before a judge to make the decision whether or not that young person can have an abortion or not. Right. And so every front, there is someone and some restriction and barrier to a young person under the age of 18 to even access care. And we know that the longer you wait to seek abortion care, the more out of reach the affordability reduces safety, all of these different aspects when it comes to the timeline of seeking abortion care. Add on top of that, figuring out a really complicated judicial system, having someone represent you, someone supporting you to navigate a judicial system, waiting for your court appearance, prepping for a court appearance, and having a judge stand before you and needing for you to plead your case to a judge and having them stand before you to, to make a judgment whether or not you're able to get the care that you need and deserve. And so these parental consent laws and judicial bypass procedures are just an added barrier and restriction for, for young people, especially those under 18 who really, you know, don't have readily available access to abortion care and adding on top of not just these, the judicial bypass process or parental involvement laws, but the other range of restrictions that your state, depending on what state you live in, already have when it comes to waiting periods, or if there's only one clinic in your state or other restrictions that we see day to day. So definitely young people have experienced so many barriers and the barriers that do exist are exacerbated because of their age and where they're at in their lives.

Jennie: Yeah. I mean, just thinking back to like, you know, when I was younger, like some of those barriers would have been pretty daunting, like having to go in front of a judge or just like, all of these ways that it keeps getting pushed out of reach of young people for this access to basic healthcare. Some of those just would have been really insurmountable.

Diana: Exactly. And quite honestly, as a grown woman in my thirties.

Jennie: Yeah. No, now I wouldn't want to.

Diana: Yeah. So many up in your healthcare just period is difficult and challenging. If I have to get something notarized, I'm like, where do I even go for that? What does that even mean? But that's what some of these parental consent or notification laws required is a notary, right? So if me, where I'm at in my life would have to kind of Google “where do I get a notary”, imagine being 16 and balancing school and maybe a part-time job or all the various different things that we, you know, go through as a young person-- having that as an adult. And so, you know that as you said, I think the word that you described, insurmountable, is 100% the correct descriptor. And I will say for the judicial bypass, the young people that we work with have experienced judicial bypass over and over again, share with us that they feel criminalized, that they have to go to court because you're in trouble and you've done something wrong essentially, right? Is what they believe. And, and being in a courtroom before a judge had made them and pleading their responsibility and their decision-making justifying their decision making and their responsibility made them feel criminalized all for needing access basic healthcare.

Jennie: Well, I feel like it plays, we've seen this come up recently as we’re talking about young people in Texas right now, and that because of it being a six-week ban, there's just no way for them to go through judicial bypass in time to make the six week ban.

Diana: A hundred percent. There's, you know, the six-week ban is so harmful and so dangerous. And also unrealistic, right, for so many people. And we also know that young people don't necessarily have regular menstrual cycles and have not been tracking their menstrual cycles in the way that someone who has had their period for decades has. Right? And so this is like a six week ban, right, in that it creates an impossible situation for anybody accessing care and especially young people for all the reasons that we talked about already. But what I will say is that, you know, while I'm saying, like reiterating the patchwork of harmful policies and practices for young people, when it comes to access to sex ed, when it comes to access to contraceptives, when it comes to access to abortion. What I do see in our work here at Advocates and with the young people we work with is that that young people help each other out. That the systems and elected officials and quite frankly, many adults in their lives have failed them and are not putting in policies that protect them. And so they are taking it in their own hands, as far as providing mutual aid and peer support and peer education and creating networks of young people to help other young people receive the care they need and the information they need when the systems around them has failed them.

Jennie: I always the things that I've see like young people doing now around so many issues, not just reproductive health, like I am just always so impressed by just how strong they are for fighting for all of these things. When I think, I wasn't back in that time. And I just… it's really heartening to see how much change they're fighting for now.

Diana: Definitely. And, you know, young people are leading the movements… And young people always have. We've been on the front lines of those working for the rights of Black and Latinx, Asian Pacific Islander, Native American, Muslim, immigrant, refugee youth, and young people understand that reproductive and sexual health and rights and justice go hand in hand with ending racism, Islamophobia, ableism, climate injustice, and all forms of structural oppression. And so that kind of concept that we talk about when it comes to intersectionality, you know, young people live that day to day and understand that there's an inextricable link. They go hand in hand. And so, yeah, young people, whether it's in the reproductive and sexual health rights and justice, racial justice, or other forms of ending oppression, are at the front lines, doing such incredible, inspiring, and quite frankly, bad-ass work to further, further the rights for all people.

Jennie: Okay. So I guess one other area we haven't talked about yet is youth access to gender affirming care. And I feel like this again has been one of those areas where we've seen a real uptick in attacks from conservatives on youth access to this care.

Diana: That's definitely… and this last legislative cycle, right? So many states introduced anti-trans legislation and really anti-trans youth legislation, right? Targeting gender affirming care, but also targeting sports, targeting schools and locker rooms in schools, right? And this is part of a wider anti-LGBT and quite frankly, anti-trans agenda over years, right? You've seen policies like this, be enacted policies like this be introduced, but because young people, especially those under the age of 18 or where systems and institutions have control, like healthcare matters, like education matters, like what happens in schools. This is what we're seeing. And it's incredibly harmful, incredibly dangerous, and not based on any medical accuracy when it comes to gender affirming care or science, when it comes to sports. And really what we know is that, you know, what we know is that young people face, especially LGBT young people and trans youth and gender non-conforming youth writ large, experience such wide ranges of bullying, of violence, of unsafe environments in schools. And so what we should really be putting our political power in is making schools safe and supportive environments and making healthcare settings safe and supportive environments for young people. And for young trans and gender expansive youth, it is incredibly disheartening and painful to watch the litany of anti-trans legislation. And especially those who are pushing these harmful bills, because it really hits at the heart of, of young trans and gender expansive youth. And it's not necessarily saying that you don't have access to the care you need. It's saying that you don't deserve to be who you are. And that's at the heart of what this legislation does and says to so many trans young people, regardless of the intricacies of regulation of what the bill says at the end of the day, if you're a trans young person living anywhere in this country, what you're seeing is adult politician saying that you don't matter, and that's dangerous for the emotional health and wellbeing of all young people and especially those who are, who are trans or gender nonconforming, gender expansive youth.

Jennie: Yeah. I, yeah. I worry about all of those kids who are young people who are having to hear that like day in and day out. And, you know, it's treated as like a political football or something to score points off, but there's like real harm being done to those young people.

Diana: Yeah. And again, when I was saying earlier, even the litany of bills that have been introduced and the kind of very toxic rhetoric and narrative that trans youth are hearing again, when young people, when the systems are failing young people, young people are incredibly resilient and come together. And so at Advocates, we have such amazing cohorts and leadership councils of young Black and brown, and trans youth, young people living with HIV, and [other] young people who come together and build community. We have an amazing council of our Muslim youth leadership, a council of young people who are doing work at the intersection of combating homophobia and Islamophobia, right? And these spaces, you know, are, are created and young people really work together to provide mutual aid, provide services, to provide, to provide information about services and information about care, but also just to hold one another in such and build community and build safety and support, and quite frankly love in moments where the world is telling you that you don't matter.

Jennie: So what needs to happen to improve access to sexual and reproductive health services for young people? I know not a small question at all, right?

Diana: So what needs to happen is we need to not only have a policy shift, but we also need a culture shift. And so we do need to expand and ensure policies that ensure confidentiality for young people, accessing sexual health services and all sorts of health care services from the start of services to the end, we need to, you know, pass legislation like the Real Education Access for Healthy Youth Act that, that ensures comprehensive sexual health, education, and access to services for young people across the country. We need to remove parental involvement laws. Like we see in states across the country and shift those laws. When it comes to young people accessing care, we mean federal legislation, like the Women's Health Protection Act that will ensure that, you know, all of the other state restrictions no longer exist. They can entity barriers to care. We need over the counter oral contraception to be available regardless of age with no age restriction. So all people, including young people can access oral contraception at their local pharmacy…and we need protection for LGBTQ youth in schools and in healthcare settings and, you know, access to gender affirming care. And, and while all of these are policy areas in which there are kind of concrete changes that need to be made, we need a culture shift when it comes to young people and sexuality, sexuality is normal. It's a natural part of young people's development. And young people should be given the skills to protect themselves and plan their futures. So when sexuality is approached with silence and shame, we know that young people then face gender based violence, increased risk of unintended pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, unhealthy relationships, bullying and discrimination against LGBT youth. And so we need to shift the dynamic and the paradigm around young people and sexuality and see it as a normal, natural part of adolescent development. And when we do that, then all of these other areas won't be approached with silence and shame, which then leads to so many other issues that create harmful environments for young people. And so the policies are incredibly important, but we really do need to shift our culture when it comes to young people and sexuality.

Jennie: For sure. And I feel like that's one of those things that people feel like they're not doing anything. So I know we've often have that conversation around like talk about abortion, like take away the stigma around it. And I think a lot of people don't understand why that's so important and is actually a real ask to make change and like in the same way, right? Like you need to shift the culture in order to enable the environment to make the change we need.

Diana: A hundred percent, definitely. And, you know, even with like abortion, we want to remove stigma and talk about abortion. Talk about the topics that folks don't talk about and talk about them in affirming ways. And let's say with young people in sexuality and access to their education services and care, you know, we, sex ed has become like the butt of the joke when it comes into popular culture, right? The Mean Girl's name or other, any other kind of teen movies, that trope is such a strong one. And it's funny because so many people in this country understand that because they had such poor sex ed in school, but that shouldn't be the norm. And that shouldn't be okay. Right? And so really kind of pushing back have so many of these narratives of young people and sex or young people in relationships, or even how we talk about, you know, decision-making as a youth. I think, I always think working with young people and then people as kind of our constituency base and for their rights, it's such an interesting area or interesting population… I guess, because it's the one identity that all of us were at one time, it is, one of the identities that everybody who works in this field who's making decisions has experienced. And yet the further we move away from that time, the easier it is for us to stigmatize ourselves at that age and anybody in that age range, right? Going through those experiences. And I always, I find it such an interesting dynamic that, you know, so many decision-makers when I go into offices can make jokes about their time as a teenager experiencing sex ed or, you know, what they should have learned in school or whatnot, but can't really see that it's actually a real issue. They make light that they were, you know, teens who can't make decisions or, you know, the concept of bodily autonomy is not real if you are a teenager. You know, all of these types of very stigmatizing things. And yet all of us were that age and we all deserve the right to have bodily autonomy and make decisions. We all made decisions when we were in high school and in college, and those decisions are incredibly important and we've looked out, we need to put value on it, but I always found that to be such an interesting dynamic when talking to adult allies or adult decision makers when it comes to young people's lives.

Jennie: Yeah. Uh, yeah. I, I joke about mine now, but also see that, like how harmful it was and don't want anybody else to have it.

Diana: Exactly, exactly. It should be stories, should be kind of pivot points, right? These are the moments like this. I have this and no one should have this rather than I had this and we all went through it. So everyone should too and figure it out along the way, because that is definitely not helping and actually harming so many young people and young people who turn into adults and continue their sexuality in mines.

Jennie: Okay. So we always like to wrap up with action. So what can the audience do to make this happen?

Diana: Yeah, so I think there's a number of campaigns that young people are leading when it comes to reproductive and sexual health and right, including, you know, we at Advocates, we have our Abortion Out Loud campaign. We also have the Free, the Pill campaign, which is a wider movement, but young people who are working towards freedom, the pill over the counter without age restrictions. So joining campaigns that are in partnership and led by young people is such an incredibly important way to not only take action, but elevate the voices of young people and work side-by-side with young people on the issues that impact their lives and then, you know, donate to local abortion funds. And there's a number of abortion funds there that are run by young people, including, you know, the Buckle Bunnies fund in Texas, right? And there's so many great abortion funds in Texas, as well as donating mutual aid support-- the mutual aid efforts in your community, especially those that are run by young people. It's such an incredibly important part of our movement and always has been continues to be so, especially on reproductive and sexual health care right now. And so really, you know, align yourself with young people, engage and take action in the campaigns like young people are, partners were leading themselves and donate to, you know, the groups that are led by young people who are, who are doing this hard work and who are providing the services and care and information to their peers when the adult systems have failed them.

Jennie: Well, Diana, thank you so much for being here. It was so wonderful to get to talk to you.

Diana: Yes. Thank you so much for having me and doing the entire episode on this topic and I really enjoyed our conversation. So thank you.

Jennie: Okay. Y'all I hope you enjoyed the conversation with Diana. It was really great to get to talk to her about youth and youth access to SRHR. It's really important and often left out topic. I think, you know, there's still a little bit of that stigma around talking about young people and sex. And so it's really important that we're having these conversations.

Jennie: Thanks for listening everyone. And we'll see you on our next episode of RePROS Fight Back. For more information, including show notes from this episode and previous episodes, please visit our website at reprosfightback.com. You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter at RePROS Fight Back, or on Instagram at reprosfb. If you like our show, please help others find it by sharing it with your friends and subscribing, rating and reviewing us on iTunes. Thanks for listening.

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