California Assemblymember, District 58

Special Message

Assemblymember Cristina Garcia represents California's 58th Assembly District, which includes the cities of Artesia, Bellflower, Bell Gardens, Cerritos, Commerce, Downey, Montebello, Pico Rivera and Norwalk. First as a dynamic community organizer and civic activist, and now as a new generation of leader in the California State Legislature, Cristina has often been referred to as a "Force of Nature.”

Assemblymember Garcia is on a mission to educate, empower and engage her constituents and her colleagues in the Legislature, particularly when it comes to her three legislative priorities: Women’s Issues, Ethics and Good Government, Socio-Economic & Environmental Justice

Co-Executive Director

Training

Jay’s commitment to racial justice and democracy at the grassroots level has led her to play leadership roles in building local and national organizing alliances for education justice, youth employment, affordable housing, and political independence. Jay Travis has worked to highlight the intersection between gentrification and education issues, and played a vital role in building community and labor alliances fighting to protect public education and against mass school closings impacting black and brown students at the local, state and national level. Jay was a trainer with the Midwest Academy for five years prior to becoming co-Director in 2019.

(D) - New York

Panelist

U.S. Congresswoman Grace Meng is serving her fifth term in the United States House of Representatives. Grace represents the Sixth Congressional District of New York.

Grace is the first and only Asian American Member of Congress from New York State and the first female Congressmember from Queens.

Grace has introduced several pieces of Menstrual Equity legislation into law. This includes the most recent one, Menstrual Equity for All Act of 2021.

In addition, Grace has fought to expand opportunities for communities of color, young people and women, and she secured resources to help local small-businesses.

Prior to serving in Congress, Grace was a member of the New York State Assembly. Before entering public service, she worked as a public-interest lawyer.

PERIOD. Youth Advisory Council

Panelist

Annabelle Jin is an 18-year-old menstrual activist from NJ, currently based in Philadelphia. As secretary of Period's Youth Advisory Council, founder of her local chapter of Period in 2018, and board member of Girls Helping Girls, Period, she is incredibly passionate about fighting for menstrual equity. She has spoken at events like the NJ National Period Day Rally 2019, her local Women for Change Rally in 2021, and NJ NOW's Virtual State Conference 2020. Her favorite part of the menstrual movement is all the ways in which it relates to health, from racial disparities in period health to lack of awareness of menstrual disorders.

MS candidate / Activist / WVE Fellow / CEO, Founder of spotLIGHT

Panelist

Umyeena Bashir is a Master's Student studying organic chemistry at the University of San Francisco under Dr. Nikolayevskiy. Over the past two years, she has been doing outreach and research to better understand those afflicted by period stigma and menstrual inequality. She is currently an Intimate Care Fellow for WVE and is doing workshops and toxic label research to bring light to the chemicals period manufacturers put in intimate care products, such as pads and tampons. She is also the CEO, Founder of the start-up spotLIGHT, a period tracking app and subscription service business working on developing a platform that caters to needs of all those that menstruate, no matter the gender.

instagram: @the.spotlight.app

National Network Manager, PERIOD.

Moderator

Zakiyyah Babatunde-Bey is the National Network Manager at PERIOD..Her passionate for social justice, equity and inclusion have led her to obtain a degree in Political Science and to incite change through her work with youth and non profits. She is dedicated to centering the voices, needs, and empowerment of those who go unheard.

Instagram: @period.networkmanager

Clinical Associate Professor, Pediatrics - Adolescent Medicine

Panelist

Sophia Yen, MD, MPH is the CEO and Co-Founder of Pandia Health, birth control delivery. She has a passion for making women’s lives easier, preventing unplanned pregnancies, and educating women about #PeriodsOptional.

With more than 20 years of experience in medicine, she is board-certified in Adolescent Medicine. She graduated with a B.S. from MIT, M.D. from UCSF Medical School, and M.P.H. from UC Berkeley in Maternal Child Health. She serves as a Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Adolescent Medicine at Stanford Medical School. She is a Reproductive Health Specialist and co-founded 3 non-profit organizations/projects in her endeavors to improve the lives of women: The Silver Ribbon Campaign to Trust Women, SheHeroes.org, the “full” campaign = fffl.co = Female Founded, Female Led, a B2C campaign to get consumers to choose Female Founded, and Female Led, all things being equal.

She co-founded Pandia Health because she believes no one should suffer from “pill anxiety” - the fear of running out of birth control and the stress of having to obtain birth control each month.

Mother of 2 future SheHeroes, wife to feminist husband.

Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok: @PandiaHealth

YouTube Channel: @PandiaHealth

Board of Directors, Youth Advisory Council, PERIOD.

Moderator

Activist, Youth Advisory Council, PERIOD.

Panelist

Hodan Barreh is a 19-year-old activist based in Austin, Texas. Due to her experiences within the menstration movement, she became more involved to ensure that is more inclusive and intersectional. Her overlapping identities of identifying as a Black, Somali, Muslim-American and overall as a woman has made her cautious of organizations not catering to her different identities of being Black or an immigrant. She is excited to continue this work in the future!

Director and Endo Advocate, Endo Black

Panelist

Lauren R. Kornegay, a Maryland native, established Endo Black, Inc. black-women-led organization advocating for African American women and women of color affected by endometriosis. She cultivated this organization to connect African American women and women of color affected by endometriosis. After being diagnosed with endometriosis in March of 2011, she learned that endometriosis wasn't just a disorder but a lifelong journey. Lauren is an author, public speaker, founder but, most importantly, an endo advocate.

Instagram @Endo_black

Facebook: The Endo Black

Twitter: @The_endoblack

LinkedIn: Endo Black Inc.

Tik Tok: @endo_black_inc

Physician / Reproductive Health Advocate, The Black ObGyn Project

Panelist

Dr. Rachel Bervell is a physician, creator, mentor, advocate, dreamer, and doer. She is focused on serving those who are most vulnerable and tackling disparities in medicine. During and since graduating from Harvard, Georgetown, and the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine, she has remained passionate about community engagement and population health. She is dedicated to equitable ObGyn care, reproductive health, and wellness for all communities, and brings those interests together on Instagram at The Black ObGyn Project. When she’s not keeping herself occupied doing the needed work, she is tending to her plants, mothering her bunny rabbits, being a foodie, and enjoying traveling with her loved ones.

Instagram: @theblackobgynproject

Board of Directors, Youth Advisory Council, PERIOD.

Moderator

Jasmine sits on the Board of Directors and Youth Advisory Council for PERIOD. She currently works as a Peer Education Specialist for Fact Forward, a South Carolina-based adolescent health nonprofit where she oversees youth sexual and reproductive health education programming.

PhD Student, Writer/Editor of PERIOD’s The Rag Blog

Panelist

Bri Reddick is a writer and PhD student who centers menstruation both in her writing and her studies. She is the current editor of the Rag where she publishes pieces from young activists engaged in the menstrual movement.

Check out PERIOD.’s The Rag Blog

A rights activist, model, filmmaker and writer

Panelist

RainDove is a person who identifies simply as "I". They are the recipient of the 2021 Alan Turing Award for the work in rights activism. From cleaning up wildfires in Australia to negotiating conflict resolution for LGBTQ individuals in nations where their identities are illegal. Rain was also the first ever genderless model in the world to be signed to mens and womens agencies. They have been featured in Vogue, Elle, Buzzfeed, Grazia, NYT and more.

QTPOC and LGBTQIA+ Advocate

Panelist

Mari Wrobi is a QTPOC and LGBTQIA+ advocate born and raised in Sacramento, California. They currently work full-time at the first and only shelter for LGBTQ+ youth experiencing homelessness in Sacramento; are an intersex rights advocate and educator with interACT: Advocates for Intersex Youth; and are an artist, photographer, and graphic designer who focuses on creating art that is 100% queer.

IG/TikTok: @genderfenderbender

Activist and Law Student

Moderator

Ally is a current law student and Chair of PERIOD.'s Youth Advisory Council. She is passionate about increasing health outcomes for gender and sexual minorities. She has published a paper on the intersections of menstrual equity in the United States. Much of her work focuses on advocating for queer menstruators and de-gendering the menstrual movement.

Founder and Executive Director

Panelist

For the last two years, Lena has been working with her team to fight for menstrual equity in black communities across the Southeast United States. She is a 2021 Victoria Secret “Pink with Purpose Project” winner, student activist, and Women 2 Women insta-grant recipient. Her end goal is to ensure that every young black menstruator can focus on leaving their mark on the world, instead of worrying about a stain on their jeans.

Instagram: @blackperiodtproject

Program Director

Panelist

Jennifer Gaines is Program Director at Alliance for Period Supplies where she helps to support a network of non-profit organizations working to end period poverty in the United States. Jennifer has a demonstrated commitment to serving diverse communities and has worked extensively over the last ten year providing sexual and reproductive health education to youth and adults in underserved communities.

She is a graduate of Southern Connecticut State University with a B.S. Degree in Public Health & Health Promotion, a proud wife and mother of two.

Instagram: @periodsupplies

Founder of Global Girls Initiative

Panelist

Aanya is a high school student and youth advocate who is passionate about enabling a change. During the pandemic she started Global Girls Initiative mission to provide free feminine hygiene products and eduction to students and youth in underserved communities of Tampa Bay. This past year they donated over 50,000 menstrual hygiene products to all the Title I middle and high schools to help more students be successful. Currently they are working to provide feminine hygiene dispensers into the Title I schools to end period poverty.

Instagram: @global.gi

Activist, PERIOD. Youth Advisory Council

Moderator

Shruti Gautam is an 18-year-old undergraduate student at Harvard College, originally from Columbia, MO. Since her freshman year of high school, she has worked on issues surrounding menstrual inequity, from installing period product dispensers and advocating for allocating part of her school district's budget to the product initiative to helping to introduce legislation to her state congress. Shruti continuously looks at the intersection between menstrual equity, politics, culture, and power structures when considering period poverty and menstrual justice.

Co-founder Menstrual Health Hub / Global Menstrual Health Leader

Panelist / Presenter

Having dedicated the last 10 years to establishing and professionalize the menstrual health field through helping establish 28 May, Menstrual Hygiene Day (MH Day) with WASH United and then launching the Menstrual Health Hub, Danielle works across both the public and private sector to drive better education, communication and innovation to meet women and girls* needs. She's currently looking for strategic partners who would like to level up their commitments to gender equality and are open to investing into menstrual health both as a market opportunity, but also as a critical lever and essential entry point to empowering women and meaningfully improving female health across the lifecycle.

Instagram:

@MenstrualHealthHub

@Madami_co

PERIOD. Chapter Communications Coordinator

Moderator

Miniya is a Reed College Senior majoring in Political Science with a concentration in Economics. She is originally from Birmingham, AL but has lived all over the U.S. She loves being a part of the crucial movement to end menstrual poverty. “The taboo surrounding menstruation prevents conversations around making menstrual products accessible from happening, and this causes a great deal of inconvenience and turmoil for everyone. With my work I hope to gradually erode the scarcity and contributes to a world in which access to period products is abundant!”