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Rebels & Rights

The Dispatch

Dispatches from the movement. Stories, strategy, and the occasional screed.

9 dispatches & counting

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How to Talk to Someone Who Disagrees With You (Without Losing Your Mind)

You've got a family member who shares conspiracy theories. A coworker who dismisses climate change. Here's the playbook organizers actually use. Deep canvassing. That's what it's called when trained volunteers have long, personal, non-defensive conversations with voters who disagree with them on high-stakes political questions — immigration, trans rights, abortion. Research on the technique shows it works, in the sense that matters most: it changes minds durably, not just in the moment. The conditions that make deep canvassing work are almost the opposite of what most political debate looks like. What Doesn't Work Facts, deployed as weapons. Studies, cited as evidence of your superior reasoning. Memes. Emotional arguments calibrated to win rather than to connect. Waiting for the other person to stop talking so you can make your next point. None of these approaches change minds at scale. Most of them entrench the person you're talking to. This isn't a counsel to abandon your positions — it's an observation about the mechanics of persuasion. People don't update beliefs because they've been logically defeated. They update beliefs when they feel heard enough to become curious. What Deep Canvassers Do Instead They ask about personal experience first. Before the issue comes up at all, they find out about the other person — their life, their family, their own experience of whatever's at stake. They listen without correcting. They share something vulnerable about themselves. They invite rather than argue. David Broockman and Joshua Kalla, the researchers who studied deep canvassing most systematically, found that a ten-minute conversation with a stranger using these techniques reduced transphobia by a measurable, lasting amount. A political ad didn't do that. A debate moderator didn't do that. A ten-minute human conversation did. The Hard Part The technique requires that you actually be curious about the other person. Not performing curiosity. Actually wondering what their experience has been. That's the part that's hard to train and harder to sustain when you're angry — when the stakes feel too high and the other person feels like a threat rather than a potential ally. Organizers who do this work talk about the distinction between "getting" someone to change their mind versus "being with" them while they do it. The first treats the conversation as a contest. The second treats it as a collaboration. You're not always going to want to do that. Sometimes people say things that are so harmful that curiosity isn't the right tool. Protecting yourself and the people around you comes first. But when the relationship is worth preserving and the risk is manageable, the research is pretty clear: staying curious is the most effective political act available to most of us on most days. The Small Things Listen more than you talk. Ask about their experience, not their opinion. Share yours without demanding they share yours. Find the human thing underneath the political position — there's usually a fear, a loss, a need for dignity that the position is trying to address. Meet that, if you can. Wear the shirt. Start the conversation. The rest takes practice.

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Rebels & Rights 2 min read

The New Abortion Landscape: What Changed, What's Left to Fight

It's been over two years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Here's where the rights stand, state by state, and where the fight goes from here. The Dobbs decision didn't create a post-Roe America. It created dozens of them — one per state, with the legal landscape shifting continuously as courts, legislatures, and ballot initiatives fight over what access actually means on the ground. For anyone trying to understand the current moment, the complexity is the point. Confusion serves the people who want to restrict access. Clarity is political. The Map Right Now As of early 2026, thirteen states have near-total abortion bans in effect. Several more have bans at six weeks — effectively before most people know they're pregnant. A handful of states have constitutional protections for abortion access. The rest are somewhere in the middle, with gestational limits, procedure restrictions, and legal ambiguities that shift case by case. Travel for abortion care has become the norm for millions. The burden of that travel falls disproportionately on people who are already most vulnerable: those without paid leave, those without transportation, those without funds for hotels and childcare and the lost wages that a multi-day trip requires. Meanwhile, providers are leaving restricted states. Clinics are closing. The infrastructure of reproductive healthcare — built over decades — is eroding in real time. What's Actually Working Ballot initiatives. In state after state, when voters get to decide directly on abortion access rather than deferring to legislatures, they vote to protect it. Ohio, Michigan, Vermont, California, Montana — all passed constitutional protections in 2022 and 2023. Kentucky and Kansas rejected bans. The strategy of building state-level constitutional protections is the most durable path forward available right now. Abortion funds. Organizations that pay for travel, logistics, childcare, and the procedure itself have stepped up significantly since Dobbs. They're underfunded, overstretched, and essential. Medication abortion. Access to mifepristone and misoprostol by mail has opened a channel that state bans struggle to fully close. Legal fights over this access are ongoing — the outcome matters enormously. Where the Fight Goes The federal level remains contested. A national right to abortion access — through statute or constitutional amendment — remains a long-term organizing goal. In the meantime, the work is state-by-state, case-by-case, clinic-by-clinic, and person-by-person. At Rebels & Rights, a portion of every sale goes to reproductive rights organizations — abortion funds, legal advocacy groups, and direct-service providers. The fight is too distributed for any single approach. So our giving is too. The slogan on our shirts isn't a memento from a moment that's over. It's a live demand. The fight continues.

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Rebels & Rights 2 min read

Sounds Gay, I'm In — The Story Behind the Slogan

Enthusiastic consent. Every time. This pride staple is for the joyfully queer, the loudly allied, and anyone who says yes first and asks questions later. "Sounds Gay, I'm In" started as five words written in marker on a piece of cardboard. A protest sign in the most direct tradition — handmade, portable, declarative. It showed up at three different marches in three different cities in 2025. Someone photographed it. The photos spread. That's how most of the best slogans work. They don't come from focus groups. They emerge from people who needed to say something and said it. The Politics of Joy There's a long tradition of treating joy as a political act in queer organizing. Not joy as escape from the struggle — joy as the struggle. The insistence that queer life is worth celebrating, protecting, and making visible isn't incidental to the movement. It's the core of it. "Sounds Gay, I'm In" works because it does two things at once. It claims queer identity with enthusiasm rather than apology. And it extends an invitation — to allies, to the curious, to anyone who wants to be on the right side of history even when they're still figuring out what that means. In 2025, with anti-LGBTQ+ legislation accelerating across state legislatures, and with trans kids in particular facing coordinated legal assault, that kind of emphatic, joyful allyship isn't soft. It's resistance. Who Made This The original image was drawn by an independent artist who has requested to remain anonymous. Their version — the hand-lettered, color-blocked design you see on this shirt — is the one that resonated. We license it directly from them, and they receive royalty on every unit sold. We're not in the business of extracting value from queer art. We're in the business of getting it on bodies and keeping money in artists' hands. Where the Cause Money Goes Ten percent of every sale goes to LGBTQ+ organizations doing legal work, mutual aid, and youth support. Right now that includes groups working directly on trans healthcare access, anti-discrimination legal defense, and emergency housing for LGBTQ+ youth who've been displaced from their families. We don't pick one organization and stick with it forever. We follow the need. As legislative attacks shift, the organizations doing the most critical work shift too. We stay responsive. Wear It Loud This design exists to be seen. Wear it in spaces where queer visibility is an act. Wear it in spaces where it prompts a conversation. Wear it on the way to the march, at the march, and at the diner after. Sounds Gay. You're in.

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Rebels & Rights 2 min read

What Is Intersectionality — And Why Does It Matter for Organizing?

You've probably heard the word. But the concept is more powerful — and more practical — than the discourse makes it sound. Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term "intersectionality" in 1989 in a law review article about a discrimination case involving Black women at General Motors. The women sued on the grounds of both race and sex discrimination. The court dismissed their case — partly because the company employed Black people (in factory positions) and employed women (in secretarial roles). The discrimination the plaintiffs experienced, the court reasoned, didn't fit neatly into either category. Crenshaw's insight was precise: the discrimination these women faced wasn't just racism plus sexism. It was something that emerged from the intersection of their identities — something neither legal framework, alone, could capture. The word she gave us was a tool for seeing what the existing system couldn't. Why It Matters Now Thirty-five years later, intersectionality is simultaneously everywhere and nowhere. It's in corporate diversity trainings. It's in academic curricula. It's also routinely invoked without the precision Crenshaw intended — used as a synonym for "complicated" or "involving multiple identities," rather than as the specific analytical lens it is. In organizing spaces, this muddiness costs us. When we say "reproductive rights are a feminist issue," we're being accurate — but incomplete. Reproductive access in the United States is radically stratified by race, class, geography, immigration status, and disability. A white woman in a blue city and a Black woman in a rural red state face the same abortion ban on paper. In practice, they face entirely different obstacles. Intersectionality isn't an add-on to movement work. It's not "and also remember marginalized people." It's an epistemological tool: a way of asking whose experience is centered when we define a problem, and whose is rendered invisible. The Practical Work In concrete terms, intersectional organizing asks: Who's in the room when decisions get made? Whose needs are treated as complications versus baseline requirements? Which communities are expected to wait for the "main" issue to get resolved first? Organizations that have taken this seriously tend to share certain practices: leadership structures that center those most affected, not most available; issue framing that names compound harms rather than isolating them; coalitions built on shared analysis rather than shared optics. The Combahee River Collective — a Black feminist organization active in Boston in the late 1970s — articulated what would become the foundation of intersectional politics before Crenshaw named it. Their 1977 statement remains one of the clearest articulations of why you can't separate political struggles: "We believe that the most profound and potentially most radical politics come directly out of our own identity." Wearing the Politics At Rebels & Rights, we design toward this. Our products don't reduce political identity to a single cause — they're made for people who know that the fight for reproductive rights and the fight for LGBTQ+ safety and the fight for immigrant dignity aren't separate. They're the same fight, wearing different faces. The royalties from every sale go back to artists who've lived this analysis. The cause contributions go to organizations doing the unglamorous work of making intersectional politics practical — legal defense, mutual aid, organizing infrastructure. None of this is theoretical. It's just what it looks like when the framework actually works.

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Two women in conversation — productive dialogue
The Dispatch 3 min read

How to Talk to Someone Who Disagrees With You (Without Losing Your Mind)

The research on what actually changes minds — and what makes things worse. A guide for anyone who has ever left a dinner table in despair. The Bad News First Most of the things people instinctively do when trying to change someone's mind don't work. Statistics make people defensive. Fact-checking in the moment tends to produce the "backfire effect" — where people double down on wrong beliefs when corrected. Anger, however justified, shuts down the part of the brain responsible for updating beliefs. Long lectures produce resentment, not conversion. If you've been in a political conversation that felt like talking to a wall, this is probably why. What Actually Works: The Research The good news is that political persuasion researchers have spent decades studying what actually changes minds, and they have some concrete answers. Deep canvassing. This technique, developed by the Los Angeles LGBT Center and now used widely in progressive organizing, involves having extended (10–20 minute), non-confrontational conversations that focus on personal narratives rather than arguments. Studies have found it produces durable attitude change — the effects persist months later. The key elements: genuine curiosity about the other person's experience, sharing your own personal story, and not trying to "win." Motivational interviewing. Originally developed in addiction counseling, MI is built on the insight that people resist being told what to do but are often open to exploring their own ambivalence. Rather than making the case for change, you ask questions that help the other person articulate their own reasons for it. It requires genuine listening and suppressing the urge to argue. Finding shared values before disagreeing on specifics. Most political conflicts are actually conflicts about how to achieve shared values, not the values themselves. Most conservatives and most liberals want families to be safe, children to be healthy, and economies to be functional. They disagree intensely about how to achieve those things. Starting from shared values before moving to disagreements changes the entire tone of the conversation. Practical Tactics Ask more than you tell. "What made you feel that way?" gets further than "that's wrong because..." Acknowledge what's true in what they're saying. Most political positions contain at least a kernel of legitimate concern. Finding and acknowledging it — genuinely, not condescendingly — disarms defensiveness. Share your personal story. Abstract arguments bounce off people. Personal stories that explain why you care about something reach them differently. "I care about this because my mother couldn't afford healthcare" lands differently than a PowerPoint about the uninsured. Don't try to win the conversation. If you go in trying to defeat someone, they'll sense it and shut down. Go in trying to understand them — genuinely. You might not change their mind. You might change your own. Both are valuable. Know when to disengage. Not every conversation is worth having. Someone who is arguing in bad faith, who gets off on provoking you, or who is using hateful rhetoric is not a persuasion project — they're a boundary question. It's okay to say "I don't think this conversation is going anywhere useful" and leave the table. The Longer Game Individual conversations rarely produce dramatic change. What they do is move people slightly — and over time, in combination with other inputs, slightly becomes significantly. The research on how people change their minds politically is humbling: it rarely happens in a single confrontation. It happens gradually, when someone accumulates enough experiences, conversations, and information to make a shift feel safe. Your job, in any given conversation, isn't to get someone all the way from A to Z. It's to move them a half step, and maybe plant a question that they keep thinking about after you're gone. That's slow work. It requires patience and humility. And it's probably the most important organizing skill you can develop.

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People joining hands in solidarity
The Dispatch 3 min read

10 Organizations Worth Supporting Right Now

Where to put your money and time if you want it to actually do something. A practical guide from people who have done the research. We give ten percent of every Rebels & Rights order to organizations doing the hard work. Here are the ones we're watching, funding, and recommending — and why. Reproductive Rights National Network of Abortion Funds NNAF doesn't do policy or advocacy — it gives money to people who need abortions and can't afford them or can't travel to get them. Since Dobbs, the need has increased dramatically while state-level restrictions have made access harder. Practical, direct, immediate impact. This is where donation dollars go furthest. Center for Reproductive Rights The legal organization doing the hardest courtroom work to defend and expand reproductive rights at the federal and state level. The lawyers who argue these cases and the researchers who build the evidentiary record. Not glamorous work; essential work. Voting Rights & Democracy Fair Fight Action Founded by Stacey Abrams after the 2018 Georgia governor's race, Fair Fight works on voter registration, voter protection, and voting rights litigation. Their work in Georgia — which flipped two Senate seats and the 2020 presidential election — is the case study for what sustained investment in voter registration and protection actually produces. ACLU Voting Rights Project The ACLU litigates voting rights cases in every state where voting access is being restricted. If you want to support legal defense of the right to vote, this is one of the most efficient places to put money — their lawyers are winning cases. Trans Rights & LGBTQ+ Justice Transgender Law Center The largest national trans-led legal organization in the U.S. Does impact litigation, policy advocacy, and direct legal services for trans people facing discrimination. The legal landscape for trans people has gotten dramatically more hostile; TLC is one of the primary organizations fighting back in courts and legislatures. The Trevor Project Crisis intervention and suicide prevention for LGBTQ+ young people. In a moment when anti-trans legislation and social hostility are driving mental health crises in queer youth, Trevor's crisis line and text line are literally saving lives. One of the clearest cases in the nonprofit sector for direct, measurable impact. Climate & Environmental Justice Environmental and Climate Justice program (NAACP) The NAACP's environmental justice work focuses on the communities most impacted by pollution and climate change — predominantly Black communities near industrial facilities, in flood zones, and in heat islands. Connects civil rights infrastructure to environmental justice organizing. Earthjustice The legal arm of the environmental movement. They litigate on behalf of communities facing pollution and corporate environmental destruction — for free. Their tagline is "Because the Earth needs a good lawyer," and honestly, it's accurate. Their wins in federal courts have prevented enormous amounts of environmental harm. Immigration Justice RAICES The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services provides free and low-cost immigration legal services in Texas — which, given current federal enforcement priorities, puts them at the center of the crisis. They also do policy advocacy and family reunification work. A direct-service organization doing urgent work. Mental Health & Community Care NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) America's largest grassroots mental health organization, with affiliates in every state. Peer-to-peer support groups, family education programs, and advocacy for mental health policy and funding. In a moment of widespread mental health crisis, NAMI's community infrastructure is some of the most important work happening in this space. How to Give Effectively A few principles worth considering: Recurring donations beat one-time giving. Organizations can plan around recurring revenue. Even $10/month is more valuable than a $200 one-time gift because it's predictable. Unrestricted donations are the most useful. When you give to a specific campaign or program, you're constraining how the organization can use the money. Unrestricted general operating support lets them put money where it's needed most. Volunteer time compounds donation impact. If you have skills — legal, medical, technological, organizational — most of these organizations can use them. Skilled volunteers do things money can't buy. Local organizations are often under-resourced. The national orgs get most of the donations. Your local abortion fund, your county's legal aid organization, your city's mutual aid network — they're often doing as much work with far less money. Don't underestimate local giving.

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Crowd of protesters with signs at a rally
The Dispatch 3 min read

Why Graphic Tees Are a Form of Political Speech

The long, strange history of clothing as protest — from the suffragettes to today. The Body as Billboard Before there was Instagram, before there was cable news, before there was the printing press, humans used their bodies and their clothing to communicate. Tribal markings, mourning dress, religious habit, military uniform — clothing has always been a language. The question isn't whether your clothing communicates. It's what it says, and to whom, and why. Political clothing in the modern sense — clothing designed to make a specific, legible statement about power and justice — has a history at least as old as the organized labor movement. Union members wore pins and ribbons. Abolitionists wore anti-slavery medallions. The tradition of using what you wear as a form of speech is older than most of the rights we're currently fighting to protect. The Suffragettes and the Politics of White One of the most sophisticated uses of clothing as political speech in American history was the suffragette movement's adoption of the color white. White dresses weren't an accident or a fashion choice — they were a deliberate visual strategy. The suffragettes were attacking a specific charge: that women who wanted the vote were unfeminine, radical, dangerous. White dresses communicated femininity, respectability, purity — all the things that the anti-suffrage movement said suffragettes weren't. It was rhetorical judo, using the visual language of conventional femininity to undermine the argument that women who wanted rights were somehow monstrous. When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and dozens of other Democratic congresswomen wore white to Trump's 2019 State of the Union address, they were invoking that exact tradition, deliberately and effectively. The New York Times ran a full piece explaining the symbolism. That's what good visual communication does: it makes people ask questions. Protest T-Shirts: A Short History The graphic t-shirt as political medium emerged in the 1960s and hasn't stopped evolving since. Early political tees were often homemade — iron-on letters, screen printing in someone's garage. The technology limited the sophistication of the message but not its effectiveness. Some political t-shirts have become iconic cultural artifacts. The "I Am a Man" shirts worn by sanitation workers during the 1968 Memphis strike were simple and devastating — a direct rebuttal to the dehumanizing conditions they were protesting. The "This Is What a Feminist Looks Like" shirt, popularized in the early 2000s, did exactly what good protest fashion does: challenged an assumption by making the challenger visible. The "I Can't Breathe" shirts worn after Eric Garner's death in 2014 spread from protest marches to NBA arenas to high school gymnasiums within weeks. When LeBron James wore one during warmups, it was the front page of every newspaper in the country. That's the reach that protest fashion has now — not despite its simplicity, but because of it. What Makes a Good Political Shirt Not all political clothing is equally effective. The best activist apparel does a few things: It starts a conversation. The goal isn't to preach to people who already agree — it's to make people who don't agree yet ask a question. "What does that mean?" "Why does that matter?" That's the entry point. It's specific enough to mean something but broad enough to be personal. "Women's Rights Are Human Rights" works because it's specific about what's at stake but legible to a huge range of people. Overly insider language plays well at the march but confuses everyone else. It belongs to the person wearing it. The most effective political fashion connects to genuine belief. Wearing a shirt about a cause you don't actually care about reads as hollow. Wearing one about something that genuinely matters to you — that anger or commitment shows, somehow, even through fabric. It looks good. This isn't trivial. Good design signals that the movement takes itself seriously. It commands a second look. It makes people think the cause might be worth taking seriously too. The Limits, Too Wearing the shirt is not the same as doing the work. Fashion activism can become a substitute for organizing rather than a complement to it — a way to feel like you're doing something without actually doing anything. The shirt matters when it starts conversations that turn into donations, phone calls, volunteer hours, and votes. When it's part of a broader practice of engagement, it does real work. When it's the only thing, it's cosplay. We started Rebels & Rights because we believe in both: the political power of making your values visible, and the necessity of backing up what you wear with what you do. The shirt matters. So does everything else.

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Black Lives Matter protest march, London 2020
The Dispatch 4 min read

How to Prepare for Your First Protest: A Complete Guide

Everything you need to know before you show up — from what to wear to what to do if things go sideways. First: You Belong There If you've never been to a protest and you're nervous about going, that's normal. The most common thing people say after their first march is some version of: "I wish I'd done this sooner." Protests are, mostly, just large groups of people walking and chanting together. They feel less intimidating in person than they look on the news, in part because the news tends to focus on conflict over the overwhelming majority of marches that are peaceful, boring, and meaningful. You don't need to be an expert activist. You don't need to have the most radical politics in the room. You just need to show up. Do Your Research Before you go, know the basics: Who's organizing it? Is this a march organized by a major coalition (Planned Parenthood, the NAACP, Indivisible), a local grassroots group, or something more informal? This affects logistics, likely crowd size, and political context. What's the route? Organizers usually publish a route or at least a start and end point. Know where you're going and how long it's expected to take. What are the goals? What is this march asking for? What change is it demanding? You don't have to agree with every position of every organizer, but you should understand what you're participating in. What are the local laws? In most U.S. cities, peaceful marching on sidewalks or in permitted street closures is fully legal. Some cities require permits; most permitted marches have them. Unpermitted marches carry more risk. Know what you're walking into. What to Wear and Bring Wear layers. Weather changes. So does how you feel after four hours of walking. Comfortable shoes. This is the single most important clothing choice. Protests often involve more standing and walking than you expect. Blisters are the enemy of solidarity. Goggles or glasses if you have them, in case of crowd control spray. Not required, but useful. Cash, not just a card. If you need to pay for water or food or transit, cash works when card readers don't. Your ID — though you may not need it, it's wise to have it. A fully charged phone and a portable battery if you have one. Write down (on paper, in pen, on your arm) the phone number of a lawyer or legal observer hotline for your city. In the event your phone is taken or dead, you'll need a number you can call from someone else's phone. Water and a snack. March organizers don't usually have food. Take care of your body. Your R&R shirt, obviously. If You're Going With People Establish a meeting point before you start marching — somewhere specific, not "near the fountain." Decide how you'll communicate if you get separated. Make sure everyone knows the phone number of the legal observer line. If someone in your group is a minor, or has a medical condition that could be affected by heat, crowding, or exertion, have a plan for that. Know Your Rights In the United States, you have the right to protest in public spaces. Police cannot arrest you simply for being present at a protest. You cannot be arrested for refusing to give your name in most states (though in some states, if you're detained, you are required to identify yourself — know your state's rules). If you're arrested or detained: Stay calm. Compliance with arrest is not admission of guilt. Say clearly: "I am invoking my right to remain silent" and "I want a lawyer." Do not answer questions until you have spoken with a lawyer. You can be held for up to 48 hours without being charged in most jurisdictions. The ACLU has know-your-rights resources specific to your state at aclu.org. What to Do If Things Get Tense The vast majority of protests are peaceful. But if the situation escalates: Don't escalate. If someone is trying to provoke conflict, don't engage. Walk away. Move to the edges. If a crowd gets compressed or panics, the middle is the most dangerous place. Move toward the sides and exits. Stay with someone. Don't get separated from your group in a chaotic situation. Know where the exits are. Before the march starts, orient yourself: where are the cross streets, the subway entrances, the open spaces? After the March Protests feel good. Then you go home and the world is still the same and you feel let down. That's normal. Single events rarely change things directly — they're part of a longer arc. What matters is what you do next. Connect with the organizations that organized the march. Sign up for their list. Come to their next event. Bring a friend who didn't come this time. Make a recurring donation if you can afford it. Call your representatives. Vote. The march is the beginning, not the finish line.

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