“I am a deliberate and vulnerable organizer.”
This is the mantra of Jess Louise (they/them/she), All-Options’ Indiana Organizing Manager. Having brought a wealth of community organizing and development experience to All-Options’ first organizing role, Jess joined the team in the summer of 2022, just days before Indiana passed the first post-Roe abortion ban in the country.
While barriers like abortion bans have immediate and disproportionate consequences for historically marginalized groups, Jess Louise believes that shifting from rapid response to long-term strategy is crucial to understanding and meeting the needs of these communities.
Reflecting upon their recent one-year anniversary with All-Options, Jess shared their thoughts on the importance of community outreach, intentional vulnerability, and self-care to building and sustaining power for the long haul. (This interview has been edited for length and clarity).
Joining All-Options post-Dobbs
Coming into an inaugural role at All-Options with my background of leadership in grassroots organizing, it was liberating to imagine how we could push against the boundaries of institutional and grassroots organizing and get curious about what can be created in the absence of justice. I’ve done a little bit of everything, and I bring that approach to organizing — figuring out what you can make with a bunch of ingredients, and coming up with a recipe that works.
Initially, I focused on base-building, community outreach, and political education. At the first event I attended in this role at the Indiana State House, I addressed the general public and shared with them that we need to rely on each other. A question I asked myself at the time was, how can we mobilize the urgency and eagerness felt by supporters in ways that are effective for those who are the most impacted by restrictions on abortion care?
“The patience required to build rapport and trust within communities is always bumping up against the urgency of the moment.”
All-Options is a resource hub. People don’t necessarily need us to be holding events, giving speeches, or taking these types of actions. People need to know how to access abortion care, what risks are involved, and what resources they can utilize to make informed choices. Everyone wants to put out a statement, hold a rally, or be in the news. But how are we changing the material conditions of the most systemically marginalized folks who are at a higher risk of being criminalized by these violent policies? How can we build a strategic plan that considers them? Understanding All-Options’ role has helped shape and inform the way that I approach bringing people in.
Community outreach and engagement
Misinformation is a huge concern across organizing and movement spaces. People don’t know their rights concerning abortion care, access, and reproductive choice in Indiana, where we have some of the highest rates of maternal mortality, eviction, substance use and relapse, criminalization, and incarceration in the country. Education is a huge benefit, as well as a hurdle we must overcome in order to get trustworthy information to people that they can share with others or feel empowered to seek out themselves.
For example, I remember one time packing up the Plan B kits after tabling at Pride with my mom, who said, “I didn’t know you were allowed to pass out abortion pills!” I told her, “No mama, that’s emergency contraception.” I had to explain the difference between terminating a confirmed pregnancy and stopping a fertilization process to her. My mother is indicative of folks from a lot of systemically marginalized groups who may technically have access to a resource, but have no support in internalizing that information, using the resource, and following up if needed.
We need to find ways to facilitate conversations so people can learn, be vulnerable, and fill that deficit of support in ways that are sincere and intimate. Good organizing allows you to be vulnerable with folks, and people respond to that sincerity. While I may not have experienced some of the things that folks we support have experienced, I want to remain committed to making sure they aren’t without.
I can take myself too seriously, but I’m quick to inject humor. None of this is real! The laws are made up. These state lines are made up. The only things we can hold fast to are our cultures and traditions. I make sure folks understand that they don’t have to perform joy. It’s okay to just be in a space, feel welcomed, figure out how to participate, and take away something to hold onto for later.
Community outreach establishes rapport so that when you do have differing ideologies, you can decide with integrity, sincerity, and vulnerability what you might need from each other. The patience required to build rapport and trust within communities is always bumping up against the urgency of the moment. We must meet people in their vulnerability in ways that will intrigue and empower them, not shut them down. I can say honestly that I’ve never regretted the patience I’ve exercised with others, even if it has challenged what I believe.
Self-care in social movements
Self-care is essential in a position like this. People will see your boldness and vulnerability, they’ll see you being deliberate, and they’ll gravitate towards it and want to consume you in a way that’s not sustainable. Being Black, queer, non-binary, femme-presenting, and seen as a fixer, requires me to find the balance between how I care for myself and how I march forward with the charge that I feel, whether that’s ancestral or present.
People see me as perfect, bold, big, strong, and purposeful, but I feel small sometimes. Having people you can feel small with is invaluable. Being small, human, and imperfect, and not feeling like I have to be negotiated out of my very big feelings sometimes is really what holds me together.
By being deliberate and intentional about what I can do that will meet, shape, and sustain the needs of others, I can serve both myself and my community. That intentionality helps me not to exhaust myself in a way that I can’t easily bounce back from. It also models for others the care that they can have for themselves and their community without compromising what’s best for themselves.
Part of advocacy is getting people to realize the power they have. There’s power in being vulnerable. Power isn’t an army tank going down the street; power is sharing with your neighbor that you have a need and trusting that it will somehow be met from sharing with each other. That act of sharing fulfills an internal need, and I believe that when we lean into each other and away from the carceral state that seeks to limit and restrict our reproductive choice, we’ll experience freedom.