The Fertility Justice and Family Building Convening
Thursday, July 31st, 8:30am-5:00pm - Friday, August 1st, 8:30am-5:00pm
The Gathering Spot, 384 Northyards Boulevard Northwest Atlanta, GA 30313
(Google Maps)
This powerful gathering is a space to center Black voices, share resources, and build collective strategies for equitable, accessible, and culturally rooted family-building care. From conversations on reproductive justice to tackling barriers in fertility care, we’re showing up for our communities because fertility justice is reproductive justice.
Read below to find out more about the sessions included in this event.
Sessions
The Legislative Advocacy & Bill Overview: Fertility Justice Now Campaign
The Gathering Spot, 384 Northyards Boulevard Northwest Atlanta, GA 30313
Join Jorie Dugan and Israel Cook of the Center for Reproductive Rights, Leah Jones of SisterSong and Agbo Ikor of SPARK Reproductive Justice NOW
This session during the Fertility Justice & Family Building Convening is a vital gathering centered on the urgent need for equitable access to fertility care as a fundamental component of reproductive healthcare. While fertility care is critical for individuals and families seeking to build their futures, deep disparities persist due to structural barriers such as lack of insurance coverage, limited culturally competent information, provider bias, stigma, and restrictive laws and policies. These inequities disproportionately impact Black, brown, Indigenous, immigrant, disabled, low-income, queer, and trans/gender-diverse communities. This session will spotlight the GA Fertility Justice NOW campaign, an advocacy initiative committed to dismantling these barriers in Georgia. Through legislative education and policy strategy discussions, attendees will engage in a powerful conversation at the intersection of reproductive justice, advocacy, and legislative action. Sponsors will have the unique opportunity to align with and support this timely, community-led effort to advance proactive, inclusive fertility care policies for all.
Queering Fertility
The Gathering Spot, 384 Northyards Boulevard Northwest Atlanta, GA 30313
This session during the Fertility Justice & Family Building Convening is an essential conversation dedicated to expanding how we talk about and provide fertility care. While services like IVF and fertility preservation are critical healthcare for many LGBTQ+ individuals seeking to build their families, mainstream conversations around infertility and fertility care have historically centered heterosexual, cisgender couples — neglecting the diverse experiences, needs, and challenges faced by queer communities. This session will invite participants to queer the fertility conversation, uplift the voices and lived experiences of LGBTQ+ individuals, and collectively imagine what inclusive, affirming, and accessible fertility care could and should look like. Sponsors will have the opportunity to support a bold, transformative dialogue at the intersection of reproductive justice and LGBTQ+ health equity.
The Global Mandate for Fertility Justice, Rights and Health Access
The Gathering Spot, 384 Northyards Boulevard Northwest Atlanta, GA 30313
Join Inas-Khalidah Mahdi of Nzingha Maternal Health Rights and Research, Rose Aka-James and Alexis Amankwanor Co-Founders of REPRA Health, Nia Mitchell - Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Dr. Lasha Clarke - Research Director at the Center for Maternal Health Equity at Morehouse School of Medicine
The Global Black (in)Fertility Agenda (GBIA) is a bold, transnational initiative committed to centering the reproductive health, rights, and experiences of Black people across the African diaspora. Launched in 2024 by SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective and key global partners, the GBIA works to confront the systemic inequities and cultural stigmas that have long shaped how Black communities experience, navigate, and access fertility care.
While infertility is a global public health issue affecting millions, Black communities have historically been excluded from research, policy solutions, and culturally informed care. GBIA intentionally addresses this gap by fostering cross-diasporan collaboration, knowledge exchange, and culturally grounded research aimed at dismantling barriers to family building for Black individuals and families worldwide.
Beyond the Womb: Infertility, Menopause, and the Full Arc of Reproductive Justice, Black Girl's Guide to Surviving Menopause
The Gathering Spot, 384 Northyards Boulevard Northwest Atlanta, GA 30313
Join Black Girl’s Guide to Surviving Menopause’s Omisade Burney-Scott and Courtney Reid-Eaton for this conversation - https://blackgirlsguidetosurvivingmenopause.com
This two-hour, in-person session, facilitated by The Black Girl’s Guide to Surviving Menopause, explores infertility and menopause as essential, yet often erased, parts of the reproductive justice continuum. Grounded in the lived experiences of Black women, genderqueer, and nonbinary people, this session invites participants to hold space for the throughline journey from menarche to menopause, exploring reproductive disruption and transformation: infertility, loss, menopause, and the grief that often goes unnamed.
Through story-sharing, historical framing, embodiment practices, and cultural reimagining, participants will examine how systemic inequity, gendered violence, and spiritual disconnection shape our reproductive stories. Together, we will reclaim these moments not as failures, but as powerful thresholds—rich with grief, wisdom, and becoming. Anchored in Black feminist theory, Healing Justice, and our Menopausal Multiverse framework, this offering from The Black Girl’s Guide to Surviving Menopause calls for a reproductive justice movement expansive enough to hold the full arc of our lives—not just what we birth, but also what we carry, release, and remember.