Hey. Yo.

Link to full article on OTW website.

Hey. Yo.

Call your US senators!

TLDR::

Bill 9495 would allow the US government to kill OTW and Ao3. (And any other organizations that help LGBTQIA+ or homeless or immigrant or womb-having or etc communities!!) Call your 2 US senators and tell them NO!

Full text of the bill.

I see this is bad, but I don't know my senators.

No problem! Enter your address here, and you'll get your 2 senators and your House Representative. The House has already passed this bad bill. Call the senators. Their phone numbers will be listed under their names.

I don't know what to say, though.

Very little, actually! I just called my two senators.

One had an "Opinion Voicemail" set up for me to say, "Hi, my name is [XXX] and I live in your state. I want you to vote NO on 9495. It's very bad and I feel very strongly about this."

For my second senator, I said the same thing to a staffer with a tally sheet.

No one is expecting you to defend your opinion or to give your reasons. You can explain yourself, but you won't be talking to the senator directly. No need to worry about sounding super-political or ultra-smart.

Does this really work?

Yes, actually! What makes it work isn't that any one of us gives a speech so powerful that we single-handly change the hearts and minds of the US Congress. It's a group effort.

When hundreds of us call and bitch about it to each of our senators, that's 100 senators from 50 states with 100 headaches from all the calls.

Some senators are cool and already agree to vote NO on 9495.

Some senators need to be made aware of just how many of us there are. We're watching. We're voting.

Do your duty as a US citizen. Keep AO3, its writers, & its readers safe.

Call and Complain.