Take Action

From Amplify:

A teenage girl at Oakton High School in Fairfax County was recently suspended for two weeks - and may face expulsion - for taking a prescription birth control pill on school property. In fact, this punishment is more severe than if she had been caught high on LSD, heroin, or another illegal drug.

You can sign a letter here telling the Fairfax, VA school board that birth control pills are not on par with loaded handguns or heroin.

While signing the letter, check out all the other action you can take at Amplify. What a kick ass site:

Amplify, a project of Advocates for Youth, is an online community dedicated to sexual health, reproductive justice, and youth-led grassroots movement building. Amplify isn’t about making the world suddenly perfect – it’s about change, about standing up for what we believe in. It’s also a place to celebrate the incredible work we’re doing across the United States and around the world. And when it comes to sexual health, reproductive justice, and making sure that the rights of young people – all young people, everywhere – are respected by those in power… Well, there’s an awful lot of work to do.

You can call it whatever you want – idealism, friendship, faith, duty – but there’s something out there that each of us is willing to stand up and fight for.

Often it comes so naturally we don’t even recognize it, or the moment feels so small we doubt that it matters. But these little acts of defiance and compassion and understanding add up to something much bigger. Together, and maybe without even realizing it, we are already changing the world.

Other times, you know exactly what activism looks like: signing a petition, meeting with a school administrator or elected official, looking someone in the eye and asking them to join a cause. We are working together to change our communities, our countries, and the world.

Amplify is a place to come together for a larger cause – the movement that we, as young people, have to lead. No one else is going to do it for us.

And that’s just fine, because we’ve already taken matters into our own hands.

I just love it...it actually makes what I do here look like very, very small beans.

h/t Feministing