Following the reversal of Roe v. Wade, Kate Liu and several members of Plano East’s feminist club decided that a school club wasn’t enough — they wanted to help facilitate actual change.
“We got to thinking about the limitations that we were dealing with in the clubs that our schools try and do,” Liu says. “Advocacy projects are very limited because you have to go through the school district, so we decided to start our own organization.”
Liu thought up issues facing women in our area and got to work establishing a nonprofit she called L.A.W., or Lifting All Women. The group started with collecting menstrual products to provide free of charge in Plano ISD bathrooms. Then, the girls started meeting to discuss what else they could do.
Women work on cards. Photography Lauren Allen.
“There’s a lot of abortion medication that’s being debated in the Senate and Congress,” Liu says. “So [we] sent our emails at the local, state and national level to talk about the issue.”
As L.A.W. grew to students around the district, the nonprofit expanded to start hosting seminars, called Lift Speeches, where women from various industries could come speak to female students about struggles facing women in their industries and how to get into male-dominated fields.
“For anyone who wants to speak at a Lift Speech, we have an application on our website,” Liu says. “[We are] open to any person who wants to share their experience about being a female-presenting individual in their respective field or even as a student, to present on a topic they’re really passionate about.”
Women meeting. Photography Lauren Allen.
