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What’s in a Name? For Abortion Providers, Quite a Bit.
Why you can trust usJul 29, 2024 
Photo by The Gender Spectrum Collection
Even before abortion became illegal in 14 states, some reproductive health care clinics were rebranding to better reflect the broad spectrum of gender-inclusive care they provide.
Not long after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Hanz Dismer, who identifies as nonbinary, discovered they were pregnant. Dismer, who currently works as director of psychosocial services at Hope Clinic, an independent abortion clinic in southern Illinois, knows the ins and outs of reproductive health. Yet they still felt unprepared.
Within a month, Dismer’s body began changing in painful and traumatic ways. Their chest grew larger, triggering gender dysphoria, and their preexisting health conditions quickly threatened both their health and the health of the pregnancy. “It was miserable,” they told WeTestify, an abortion storytelling organization. “After a month of contemplation, I knew I needed an abortion.”
It isn’t uncommon for nonbinary people to seek abortion care: A 2023 analysis by the Guttmacher Institute found that as many as one in six abortion patients do not identify as heterosexual women. But too often, the language used by abortion clinics, abortion funds, and abortion advocacy organizations don’t reflect that reality.
“We’ve been the sole statewide abortion fund for 32 years, and we’ve prided ourselves on supporting folks from all backgrounds,” Sam Woodring, communications manager for the Abortion Fund of Ohio, said in an email. The fund, which used to be known as Women Have Options, intentionally changed its name in 2022 to be more inclusive of abortion seekers who don’t identify as cisgender women.
“When we use gendered language, the implicit message is that folks not included are unworthy of that care [and] support,” Woodring says. “To need support getting an abortion, and the only option available to you is also deeply gender-exclusive can be yet another barrier to accessing the care they [trans and nonbinary folks] want, need, and deserve.”
Moving Beyond the Battle of the Sexes
When freestanding abortion clinics and abortion funds emerged in the 1970s, many deliberately branded as being women’s-health focused. This was the age of second wave feminism, when activists tried to assert and establish women’s rights at every level of government. In 1970, Title X provided federal grants for contraception; Roe v. Wade established the constitutional right to an abortion in 1973. At the time, these were considered to be “women’s health” services.
But 50 years later, our understanding of gender has moved beyond the binary of “man” and “woman”—and it’s well past time for abortion care organizations and clinics to reflect that.
The Abortion Fund of Ohio is one of many organizations and funds that have rebranded in an effort to become more gender inclusive. Previously known as the Gateway Women’s Access Fund, the Missouri Abortion Fund rebranded in 2020, well before Roe was overturned with the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The Abortion Liberation Fund of Pennsylvania changed its name from the Women’s Medical Fund in 2021. Hope Clinic, the independent abortion clinic where Dismer works, was known as Hope Clinic for Women until early 2023.
Unfortunately, this tidal wave of change has been criticized for “erasing women.” Apparently, changing our language about abortion to be more inclusive and ensure access for everyone who wants, needs, and has an abortion is unfair and discriminatory to those who have fought “this long and this hard only to be told we [can’t] call ourselves women anymore.”
Rebranding an organization to be gender inclusive and using language like “pregnant people” does not mean that someone who identifies as a woman can no longer call themself a woman. Woodring of the Abortion Fund of Ohio sums it up well: “Making the switch to gender-inclusive language hurts no one, because, as we like to remind folks, women are people too.”
Rebranding to Reality
Trans and nonbinary people have always existed, and while the women’s liberation movement of the 1970s may not have had the language or understanding to contextualize abortion rights within a gender-inclusive framework, we do now. Refusing to do so, continuing to say “women’s reproductive rights,” and specifically spelling out in the name of a clinic or fund that it serves “women” are all ways that deny the very existence of trans, nonbinary, and gender-expansive people.
And, since research now shows that one in six people who have an abortion don’t identify as a heterosexual woman, it’s harmful to continue to insist that abortion or reproductive health care is a “women’s issue.”
Some clinics, like Boulder Valley Health Center (BVHC), have been providing gender-affirming care and other health care services to people of all genders for years. BVHC, previously known as Boulder Valley Women’s Health, dropped “women” from its name in 2023, the 50th anniversary of the Colorado-based clinic. The clinic’s choice reflected the expansive care it had long been providing.
“We’ve always actually served anyone,” director of development Jennifer Johnson told the Colorado Sun. “It doesn’t matter what people’s gender identity is; we’re here to serve the whole community … we really wanted to make sure that everyone in the community knows they’re welcome here for their health care, however they identify.”
For other clinics, pivoting to gender-inclusive language reflects the stark reality that it’s illegal for some of them to provide abortion care at all.
Once Roe was overturned, abortion became illegal in the state of Alabama. Robin Marty, executive director of WAWC Healthcare (formerly West Alabama Women’s Center) in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, knew she needed to keep the clinic open to provide other types of reproductive and sexual health care.
WAWC shut down for more than a week in the wake of the Dobbs decision. When it reopened on July 7, 2022, the clinic had revised its entire model. “We were then officially a nonprofit, sliding-scale health care center,” Marty says. “We built our new services around all of that, and that included HIV testing and treatment and prevention, as well as doing gender-affirming health care.”
In 2024, West Alabama Women’s Center became WAWC. The clinic waited to change its name because it was uncertain if it would be able to remain open at all. It took nearly two years for “us to feel that we were actually going to be able to stay open permanently,” Marty explained. “Before that, it didn’t make any sense to try to put into place an entire branding change if we thought we were only going to be operating for another month or two.”
Now, more than two years after Dobbs eradicated the constitutional right to an abortion, WAWC is still open and serving patients. WAWC doesn’t provide abortion care, but, true to its new gender-inclusive name, it does perform a wide range of reproductive and sexual health care options.
“We provide gender-affirming care across the state,” Marty said. “It’s not just those [in Tuscaloosa] who are coming to the clinic. We’ve been able to do a telemed program … We’re actually able to provide medication to people regardless of where they are in the state.”
It’s unclear whether WAWC will ever be able to provide abortion care again, but if it does, its gender-inclusive name will signal its willingness to accept abortion patients of all genders. Even if abortion remains illegal in Alabama, WAWC’s rebrand, as other clinic and fund rebrands, hold an important lesson for clinics and funds nationwide: Changing a name to be gender-inclusive isn’t a rhetorical exercise.
Being gender-inclusive is about reflecting the many genders a clinic already serves. It’s about welcoming patients of all genders, no matter how they identify. It’s about signaling to the broader culture, to the entire country, that access to safe abortion care is for everyone.
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Lauren Rankin
is a writer, speaker, and communications consultant with more than a decade of experience working in reproductive rights and health. She is the author of Bodies on the Line: At the Front Lines of the Fight to Protect Abortion in America, and her writing has been featured in The Washington Post, The Cut, Fast Company, Mother Jones, Teen Vogue, Refinery29, NBC News, and many other outlets. She consults as a communications strategist with Apiary for Practical Support, A is For, and Affirmative Care Solutions. She spent six years as an abortion clinic escort in northern New Jersey and previously served on the board of the New Jersey Abortion Access Fund. She received a Master of Arts in women’s and gender studies from Rutgers University and a Bachelor of Arts in theatre and communications from Northwestern University. She lives in Longmont, Colorado, with her husband and dog, Winnie.
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