NSA INTERCEPT — THREAT LEVEL 2 — FISA CODE 23.4 — UNENCRYPTED

WHATSAPP COMMUNICATION DOMESTIC — NAMES AND IDs REDACTED

BEGIN EXTRACT: 09:33

VOICE 1: Are we all on?

VOICE 2: I think so. Are you — is —

VOICE 1: No names, please, okay? Let’s just confirm that the people who need to be on this call are on this call. Is the person we’re talking about on right now?

VOICE 3: I am.

VOICE 1: Okay. Okay. Look, I’m not going to get angry here. What’s done is done. You did what you thought you needed to do and —

VOICE 4: I just cannot believe — what were you thinking? The whole integrity of the Court —

VOICE 2: Hey! I promised that we were not going to yell, okay? The whole point of this conversation was to figure out what to do next. Can we not yell?

VOICE 4: . . . irreparable damage . . . from some reckless Gen Z . . .

VOICE 1: Hey! Let’s not get into the rights and wrongs of leaking a Supreme Court document. We’re all on the same side here, all trying to figure out what to do next. So, okay, we don’t want to know who you are because that would put our organizations in jeopardy —

VOICE 4: Roberts has the marshal out shaking the trees for you. Honestly we shouldn’t even be on this call . . .

VOICE 1: But okay, okay, help us out here. What do we need to know going forward?

VOICE 3: Um . . .

VOICE 2: Just tell them what you told me, okay?

VOICE 3: Well, okay. Look, I know what I did was unusual and outside the norm —

VOICE 4: Outside the norm?

VOICE 3: But when I read Alito’s opinion I knew that our side is just not ready. We are just not prepared for this.

VOICE 4: What? WHAT? Listen, kid, I have spent my adult life working for the reproductive rights of women and —

VOICE 3: See? Right there! Women? You’re erasing any man with a uterus.

VOICE 4: I’m what? A what?

VOICE 1: I’m with you. Our organization is pretty good about this kind of thing. We’ve searched all uses of “woman” and replaced them with “birthing person” —

VOICE 3: That’s also considered offensive. It implies that the ability to give birth is the most central part of a person’s identity. Why not dancing person or singing person or performance-art person or empathetic-body-work person? Who also happens, if moved by choice, to be able to give birth to a fully autonomous additional person? Or not.

VOICE 4: See, I’m looking for a slogan I can chant on Brett Kavanaugh’s lawn and that ain’t it.

VOICE 3: My point is that we need time to get our language inclusive and embracing before the opinion is handed down. That’s why I leaked the opinion.

VOICE 2: Tell them what you’re suggesting.

VOICE 3: It’s just that people in my generation don’t see gender roles the way people in yours do. We don’t think of women’s rights — we think of the rights of people with uteruses and shadow uteruses.

VOICE 4: I’m gonna regret this, but what’s a shadow uterus?

VOICE 3: Many trans women have experienced physical sensations not unlike menstrual pains, leading researchers to identify a region of the trans body as the shadow uterus. These women have abortion rights too.

VOICE 4: Am I being punked?

VOICE 3: And sometimes you’ll hear activists and comedians say things like, “Hey, if men could get pregnant you could get an abortion at an ATM.” And that’s just so transphobic and hateful because of course men can get pregnant, and if we really want to reclaim abortion rights in this country we’re going to need our trans and nonbinary allies.

VOICE 1: Okay, well, fine. Maybe we’re out of step. What are you suggesting?

VOICE 3: That we take the time between now and the decision to refine our language. Maybe instead of talking about “women” and “women’s rights” we talk more about “abortion folx” and “birthing people by choice and by wish-cast” having the right and the power to “manifest” an abortion.

VOICE 2: I have this all written down, by the way.

VOICE 3: We will need to workshop the language. But the other side will just be saying something simplistic like, “Hey, look, that’s a baby and we shouldn’t kill it.” Which will give our side the opportunity to really explore the nuances and liminal spaces around the genderqueer identity and redefine the entire notion of what a uterus really is. I mean, what is it? Maybe my idea of a uterus is different from yours. Maybe yours is more, I don’t know, testicular?

VOICE 4: I’m hanging up now.

VOICE 3: I’m just saying that it’s not as easy as it was in 1972 to just say, “Hey, women are the people who have the babies.” That’s not how it works anymore. And our language needs to reflect that.

VOICE 1: But women are the people who have the babies.

VOICE 3: If that’s your opinion, maybe you’re really on Alito’s side.

VOICE 1: You know what? Maybe I am.

END EXTRACT: 12:05