Twelve years ago (1992), my husband Tom and I marched in a Pro-choice March in Washington, D.C. when senior Bush was president. At that time, I was not involved with Planned Parenthood but soon made the decision to be involved. When I heard last year there was going to be another "March for Women's Lives" in Washington D.C., Tom and I both immediately thought, "Here it is 12 years later, and the whole issue of reproductive freedom is in more jeopardy than before. We have gone back, rather than forward on this issue, especially in Texas where several anti-choice laws were passed last year to limit a woman's access to reproductive freedom."

I am past childbearing age, but thinking not only of our three daughters but also of our two granddaughters, we immediately called our travel agent and got our plane and hotel reservations, determined to march again. At the same time, we were fighting a battle with the religious radicals in Austin who were trying to keep us from building a Planned Parenthood clinic so that we could be "guarantors of choice" for all women in our community.

Here we are in D.C. on the Saturday before the March, and it is inspiring to see so many supporters walking around the city, young and old, male and female, wearing badges in support of this March for Women's Lives. I just hope our political leaders will hear our cry.

Today started out with my friends wanting to sight see, I had to convince them to attend PPFA's festival in Dupont Circle. We ended up spending the entire afternoon at the festival, making shirts, collecting materials, listening to amazing speakers, and talking to marchers from all over the world. It was emotional for me, because after meeting all of these wonderful people, it makes me sad that our President still wants to take there rights away.

So, I'm in the hotel with my teen educators. I've been here all week at an education conference for Planned Parenthood;the teens just got to town an hour ago. Two of them have never flown and are very excited to be here. During my lunch break, I walked over to Dupont Circle and saw all the Planned Parenthood booths set up. it was so great so be around so many PRO CHOICE people. It made me feel like my job was even more important.

I was in a plane for 5 hours, and as soon as I arrived at Washington I realized that it was all worthwhile. I am very excited about being here. I never imagined that there would be so many people that think just like me.

I am so excited to be here and it is a wonderful experience. It was my first time going on a plane and I think that it was worth the long ride to come to D.C. and represent Austin. I am going to have great time at the March tomorrow.

I am very excited to be here, and to be be surrounded by tons of women who share the same beliefs as I do.

I am very excited to be here in Washington to be a voice at the Women's March. I never thought I would get an opportunity like this. I really looking forward to tomorrow and to meeting new people.

The March exceeded my expectations regarding numbers and the sense of passion. The estimated number when Tom and I went twelve years ago was 500,000, and this March far exceeded that. I was most impressed with the cross section of America that was represented - it was a sea of faces of all colors, rural and urban, young and old, male and female. Just meeting people from all walks of life and every corner of America and hearing their stories or reading their banners were exhilarating and made the journey worthwhile. On this day, we were united for "women’s lives" and inspired to make a difference.

This was an awesome experience giving me hope that we can stop the forces that are whittling our rights away.

To me, the March for Choice was empowering. Coming from conservative, Republican Texas, I was thrilled by the wide-spread support the March received in Washington D.C. The morning of the March, my group took the Metroliner in from suburban Maryland. The cars were so crowded with people going to the March that you could hardly squeeze inside one. Everybody had on a T-shirt with a slogan. My favorite was "Keep Your Rosaries Out of my Ovaries." Then on the Mall, to be a part of that teaming, moving, peaceful mass of humanity. So much love and so much anger.

My daughter and seven-month-old granddaughter marched with me. There were many family groups of four generations. Men marched, and a huge number of young women -- women born after Roe v. Wade was handed down. You hear a lot about how the younger generation takes freedom of choice for granted. I don't know if that's true, but I do know the 20 and 30 year-olds turned out in force for the March for Choice.

In the days following the March, a Washington-area friend and I continued to wear our March buttons. I was surprised by the number of people who approached us -- in the Safeway, the movie complex, even Neiman Marcus at Friendship Heights, and thanked us for marching. I said that Texans had sent hundreds of marchers to Washington. One man said, "But Texas is Bush country."
My hope is that next year, no state in America will be known as "Bush Country."

Today I marched with my friends, family, and over 1 million other people who have the same thing in common, we are tired this President's war on women. It was so refreshing to see the number of people who showed up to march. Men, women, and children from different political, social, ethnic, and economical backgrounds showed up to make an impact. The diversity of the crowd made an even larger statement, pro-choice is pro-life. Today we saw how much of an impact activism can have, but we need to take our activism one step further and vote in November.

I was proud to be a Texas man marching with hundreds of Texas women (whom I did not mess with)-and a million others-to fight for what we all believe in.

I was proud to be at the March making a mark in history. I hope Bush heard us loud and clear. I know he saw the pink power of Planned Parenthood.

It was a great honor to be marching with other women and men who share the same beliefs and courage to make their voices heard. Being from the state where everything is bigger, I know our voices were the loudest.

This was the most amazing experience. I marched for my mothers, I marched for my girlfriends and me, I marched for my son. We will continue to fight.

I have the privilege of working for an organization that employs people with like-minded political and social views. I am so grateful to feel supported in my beliefs on a daily basis. However, I have not felt quite as secure after I leave the office. I have witnessed years of constant attacks by anti- family planning and anti-choice Government representatives both locally and nationally, and the recent boycott and blackmail by certain construction contractors, and have first hand knowledge of the impact they have made on women’s lives. Even in a “liberal” city like Austin, I have felt my optimism for solidarity and positive change fade through the years as our state and country watch our rights being systematically chipped away by countless anti-choice, anti- family planning and in my opinion, anti-truth legislation. I half expected to be marching “for women’s lives” with just a couple thousand Planned Parenthood and NARAL representatives. Well, I have been pleasantly amazed!

This is how “The March for Women’s Lives” affected me:
Not only did I march with Planned Parenthood and NARAL, but with celebrities, government representatives, mothers, fathers, children, people of all races, religions, political affiliations, and sexual orientations, and even dogs! 1.15 million of these Americans believe in what you and I believe in! Walking around D.C. a couple days before the March, everywhere I looked I saw people wearing stickers, buttons and T-shirts reading “Stand Up for Choice” and “It’s You’re Choice, Not Theirs”. I saw all of this on the paths between the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Vietnam Memorial Wall. I can’t even express how moving that was. I witnessed the effects of many different groups and organizations working together to mobilize the American public to stand up for their values and especially stand up to our current administration. I have to say “Thank You” to 1.15 million people and many more who were not able to be counted. Thank you for standing up and renewing my faith that we can secure a future of knowledge, health, and choices. And as Senator Hillary Clinton exclaimed, “If all we do is march today, that will not change the direction this country is headed under this administration”.

I believe with all my heart in women.
I know in my soul:our strength, our courage.
The excruciating, impossible, inexplicable world in which we live
In which from birth we are put into our gender, our gender that is "unequal" to men.
The above statement ironic because it itself reflects what it is meant to express-
women being unequal to men coming from that place where man is the standard,
the universal, and woman the specific, the second entity judged against the first, asking to be treated as equal to the first. Rather than saying- you are not the standard against which we wish to be judged (if women acted like a lot of men do, committed that amount of violence, society would fall apart), we all simply exist in this world we miraculously haven't entirely destroyed.

At the march I thought/felt/understood/knew to be true, this:

1. That when I say I am pro-choice I don't merely mean- "this is something with which I agree".I literally mean- this is who I am.

2. That I am here for all women, for all humanity, fighting for our survival, for rights so essential and inherent to being a person that it is ridiculous that our world is in this place. That I am here for my family- past, present, and future, for my friends, for every woman who has been affected by "the issue of reproductive rights"- and by that, inherently, I mean every woman.

3. That there are many, many more of us than there are of them. and we are incredibly powerful. We have strength and courage and bravery beyond measure, beyond our own imagination. (the fact that we survive, when the vast majority of us have been or will be physically or sexually assaulted in our lifetimes, and continue to prosper and love and fight, my God, the fact that we are breathing at all, is testament to that. And they (the opposition) know it. and it terrifies them. We terrify them. why else would you terrorize and feel such hatred toward another human being, toward an entire group of human beings? there would be no need. there is no desperation, no motivation, to control what you do not fear)

4. That of all the tactics of oppression, one we perhaps recognize the least because it is so intangible and so thoroughly ingrained in every aspect and at every level of our society, is actually/therefore one of the strongest, the most critical, one of the lynchpins without which the patriarchy would fall. It is everything that is done to our minds and our souls. we don't see it, have never known what it is to live without it, there is no contrast or context. Combined with the extreme violence we experience and the state of fear we live in, we are convinced we are exactly the opposite of what we truly are, we are divided, we are silenced.

5. That since we are the majority- the big secret that scares the opposition to death, the truth they want desperately to make us unable to see or act upon- if every single one of us who is able to vote voted that would be it. Game over. End of discussion. We win.

I am still processing this experience.This March will stay in my memory as
one of those days when I am clear and absolutely present in the making of
history. I marched with my loving wife and a group of Latina
Lesbians(wow)that was powerful. I marched with Planned Parenthood, with the
Texas delegation, with the youth, with the Women of Color delegation.. I
was marching and moving from one group to the other because in all of the
delegations there was a huge part of who I am.. I am so proud of being part of this and being part of Planned Parenthood during this particular historical times. For me this March was about reproductive rights, women's rights and the rights of all of us: young women, women of color, queer women, transgender women and all the forgotten people; who's this administration is invisibilizing with their oppressive
and abusive politics. It was about women and also about all of the "others".
As a transgender I was supporting the women; as a person who has a vagina
and who's vagina has been use as a place for oppression and abuse I marched
as a masculine woman...I marched as a whole human being..and I will keep on
marching.

I am so thankful for this experience. Being at this march was:
knowing that we are changing the world. knowing that our work is having a huge impact in peoples life's and in the shaping of our social realities,
knowing that we, Planned Parenthood, are powerful and we will not be stopped!

I came back revitalized, empowered and knowing that I am not alone and that
we are the not so silent majority!...so Bush get out of the way!