The Women With a Vision episode. In this episode of PDIS: People Doing Interesting Stuff, I talk to Deon Haywood, the Executive Director of Women With A Vision, Inc. (WWAV). Founded in 1989 by a grassroots collective of Black women in response to the spread of HIV/AIDS in New Orleans, Louisiana, Women With A Vision is a social justice non-profit which focuses on the most urgent issues faced by women, especially women of color vulnerable to criminal justice involvement. Originally focusing on health promotion and community outreach, Women With a Vision over the years has expanded its activities to include policy-level initiatives to address various forms of structural violence that negatively affect women and communities of color within Louisiana and elsewhere. Today their major areas of focus include Sex Worker Rights, Drug Policy Reform, HIV Positive Women’s Advocacy, and Reproductive Justice outreach.

Their mission statement says "We envision an environment in which there is no war against women’s bodies, in which women have spaces to come together and share their stories, in which women are empowered to make decisions concerning their own bodies and lives, and in which women have the necessary support to realize their hopes, dreams, and full potential."

Haywood became WWAV's Executive Director soon after Hurricane Katrina, in 2005, and in 2009 oversaw the launch of Women With a Vision’s NO Justice Project, an ultimately successful campaign to combat the sentencing of cis and trans women arrested for street-based sex work under Louisiana’s 203-yr-old “crime against nature” felony-level law. This resulted in a federal judicial ruling and the removal of more than 700 women from the sex offender registry. She was also the representative from the U.S. South to the 2013 Frontline Defenders Dublin Platform, has testified in front of the United Nations Global Commission on HIV and the Law and been honored with numerous awards by groups across the United States in recognition of her leadership at the intersection of HIV/AIDS, harm reduction, LGBTQ rights, reproductive justice and anti-criminalization and ending mass incarceration.

I was passing through New Orleans in December, 2017, and Deon was gracious enough to spend some of her holiday break with me and to tell me about her work, how she got involved, how she and Women With a Vision define Reproductive Justice and make the distinction between that and the politics of Reproductive Rights, and how RJ principles intersect with harm reduction practices and philosophy.