Gloria Steinem Instagram – I am proudly from East Toledo, Ohio. Though I didn’t know it until long after her death, my paternal grandmother Pauline Perlmutter Steinem was a suffragist who addressed Congress as part of the campaign for the right to vote. She started the first vocational school in Toledo and was the first woman elected to the city’s school board, which she achieved through women’s organizing efforts. While there is much about the state’s harmful restrictions on bodily autonomy that saddens me, I was happy to see that Ohioans have continued using the power of organizing and voting to demand reproductive freedom. Voters overwhelmingly rejected issue 1. This victory paves way for an even greater one on November 7, when the citizens of Ohio can vote YES to enshrine reproductive access into their state constitution. Democracy exists when all people have the fundamental right to make decisions about our own bodies and lives. To Ohioans, thank you for showing up to ensure Americans live with self-determination and freedom!