The New Yorker - USA (2020-07-27)

14 THENEWYORKER,JULY27, 2020

reform, began enumerating the commis­
sion’s recommendations. Suddenly, a
young, neatly dressed woman seated near
the front stood up. “O.K., folks,” she said.
“Now it’s time to hear from the real ex­
perts. I don’t mean the public opinion
you’re so uninterested in. I mean concrete
evidence from the people who really
know—women. I can tell you the psy­
chological and sociological effect the law
has had on me—it’s made me angry! It ’s
made me think about things like forcing
doctors to operate at gunpoint.”
It took several minutes for Senator
Lent to collect himself and try to re­
store order. By that time, several other
women were on their feet, shouting.
“Where are the women on your panel?”
one woman said.
“I had an abortion when I was sev­
enteen. You don’t know what that’s like,”
another said. “Men don’t get pregnant.
Men don’t rear children. They just make
the laws,” said a third.
Senator Lent began, “If you girls can or­
ganize yourselves and elect a spokesman—”
“We don’t want a spokesman! We all
want to testify!” a woman cried.
“But wait a minute, dear—” the Sen­
ator began.
“Don’t call me ‘dear’! Would you call
a black person ‘boy’?” the woman shouted.
The committee quickly adjourned
the hearing and announced that there
would be a closed executive session in
an upstairs room.
Senator Seymour Thaler, who has
been long associated with hospital re­
form, and who is himself a proponent
of the Cook bill, was furious with the
women. “What have you accomplished?”
he called out. “There are people here
who want to do something for you!”
“We’re tired of being done for! We
want to do, for a change!” one of the
women replied.
Upstairs, police barred the door, and
the women stood outside shouting, “We
are the experts!” Women’s Liberation
sent in a formal request to testify, and the
committee replied that two women might
speak after the other witnesses had fin­
ished. The women were not satisfied (“It’s
a back­of­the­bus compromise!” “They
just want to stall us till the newspaper­
men go home”), but half a dozen mem­
bers of Women’s Liberation decided to
stick it out. All of them were under thirty,
and half were married. Two had had il­

legal abortions; one had had a child and

given it up for adoption; one had a friend

who had nearly died because she hesi­

tated to go to the hospital after a badly

done seven­hundred­dollar operation.

As it turned out, the women waited

for seven hours, sitting on the floor in

the corridor, because the authorities,

afraid of further disruption, would not

let them into the hearing room. Finally,

three women were permitted to speak.

They talked about their experiences and

demanded a public hearing that would

be devoted entirely to the expert testi­

mony of women.

The legislators would not agree to

this. “Why do you assume we’re against

you?” one senator asked. “Four of the

witnesses were for repeal. They said the

same things you’ve been saying.”

“There’s a political problem you’re

overlooking,” said the last of the women

to speak. “In this society, there is an

imbalance in power between men and

women, just as there is between whites

and blacks. You and your experts may

have the right ideas, but you’re still men

talking to each other. We want to be

consulted. Even if we accepted your defi­

nition of expert—and we don’t—couldn’t

you find any female doctors or lawyers?”

“I agree with you about the law,” Sen­

ator Thaler said. “But you’re just acting

out your personal pique against men.”

“Not personal pique—political griev-

ance!” the final speaker replied.

“All I can say,” Senator Thaler de­

clared, in conclusion, “is that you’re the

rudest bunch of people I’ve ever met.”

The meeting broke up, and everyone

began drifting out. “Well, we’re proba­

bly the first women ever to talk about

our abortions in public,” one woman

said. “That’s something, anyway.”

—Ellen Willis

1

APRIL2, 2020

LORENABORJAS

L

orena Borjas had a wheelie bag, and

in the bag she had the world. The

first time Lynly Egyes met her, Bor­

jas pulled a birth certificate out of the

bag. Egyes was then a lawyer with the

Sex Workers Project at the Urban Jus­

tice Center and had recently taken the

case of a young immigrant transgen­

der woman who was in jail, facing fel­

ony assault charges for defending herself

against an attacker—an exceedingly com­

mon predicament. “Lorena came into my

office and said, ‘I hear you need the birth

certificate for one of the girls,’” Egyes

told me on the phone. “I said, ‘Who are

you?’ ‘I am Lorena!’” Borjas also con­

vinced Egyes to take on a second case

that stemmed from the same incident;

the proceedings dragged on for about a

year, with frequent court appearances.

Borjas always came to the hearings and

brought supporters. “She felt it was im­

portant for the judge to see that these two

young women were loved,” Egyes said.

Borjas died on Monday, at Coney Is­

land Hospital, in Brooklyn, of complica­

tions from COVID­19. She left an orphaned

community of transgender women, es­

pecially Latina immigrant women in

Queens, and countless L.G.B.T.­rights

activists who looked to her for guid­

ance, inspiration, and love. About two

hundred and forty people gathered for

a memorial on Monday night, albeit via

Zoom, which added a layer of heart­

break to the mourning of a person whose

legacy was one of building commu­

nity, in the streets and in apartments in

her Jackson Heights neighborhood, and

of taking close, personal, physical care

of people.

Borjas was born in Veracruz, Mexico,

in 1960. At seventeen, she ran away to

Mexico City, where she lived in the streets.

At twenty, she crossed the border into

the United States, where she hoped she

would be able to receive hormone treat­

ments. She made her way to New York

City, where she studied for her G.E.D.

and then studied accounting.

“Back then, the trans community

didn’t have spaces,” Cristina Herrera,

the C.E.O. and founder of the Trans­

latinx Network, a group for transgen­

der immigrants, told me on the phone.

“We met at Port Authority—that was

the main place, because you could stay

indoors.” Herrera, who is from El Sal­

vador, came to New York in 1985, at the

age of fifteen, and met Borjas soon after.

“She was like the social worker in our

community,” Herrera said. “She was the

case worker.” Borjas guided other trans

and gay immigrants to the resources she