By Addie Tsai
Between the leaked Roe v. Wade draft opinion, horrific attacks on trans kids from the state’s legislature, and the tragic school shooting in Uvalde, Texans have experienced immeasurable trauma these past few months. The Houston-based, women-led organization I’ll Have What She’s Having (IHWSH)—composed of women chefs, hospitality professionals, entrepreneurs, physicians, scientists, artists, and other professionals united in social activism—is turning pain into action.
On Sunday, June 5, I’ll Have What She’s Having will host its first annual Rock & Roll Picnic to raise money for the organization’s sub-project, The 1973 Project, which specifically fundraises for legal abortion funds in Texas. The picnic, hosted at Houston’s The Continental Club, will feature cuisine by rockstar chefs Evelyn Garcia (Kin), Anita Jaisinghani (Pondicheri), Sasha Grumman (The Fierce Chef), Monica Cobb (Monica’s Restaurant), Chris Roy (Winnie’s), Julia Doran (Tiny Champions), and Alyssa Dole (LuLoo’s); and live music by Nobody’s Daughter, Katie Rushing, Dusty Santamaria, Sheverb and Calliope Musicals, and DJ Gracie Chavez.
I sat down with Lori Choi, one of the founding members of I’ll Have What She’s Having, to speak about the importance and inspiration behind both IHWSH as well as their upcoming event.
Choi has always had strong ties to the restaurant industry—her first job out of college was waiting tables and managing restaurants, and eventually, she also married a chef. In 2017, she decided to combine her connection to that industry and her connection to medicine (Choi is a surgeon) by creating IHWSH.
Photo by Emily Jaschke.
“The idea was to do some pop-ups to draw some attention to the female talent in the city and to provide a network for women in the industry because it’s a male-dominated industry. [The medical] industry is as well. It occurred to me that women in the industry could benefit from mentorship and networking. Secondarily, it occurred to us that we might want to raise money as we’re doing these events. When I queried the women involved, they were all quite adamant that they wanted to raise money for Planned Parenthood, as many of them had been patients of Planned Parenthood at one point in their lives and felt strongly about making a stand,” explains Choi. “At the time, in 2017, there wasn’t a lot of fundraising around this. It’s quite conservative here and just to mention women’s health outside of the pink ribbons of breast cancer was a bit unusual. We wanted to push the conversation around that. We also knew that the vast majority of America is in favor of safe and legal abortion. These women were willing to put a face and name to that. I’ve never been able to get over how much I’m impressed by that courage, and that admiration just continues to grow.”
Since 2017, as an entirely volunteer-run organization, IHWSH has hosted dozens of pop-ups and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for women’s and mental health. Members have donated to organizations such as Planned Parenthood, Legacy Community Health, and The Rose, which provides breast care to people regardless of their ability to pay. At some point, however, members of the organization realized that their focus could become even more specific.
“One of our founding members, Karen Man, who is formerly a professional baker and restaurant owner, mentioned, ‘How is it that we as volunteers are advocating for health if we, ourselves, are not healthy?’” says Choi. “So we’ve also continued to spend more and more time trying to make sure that the people that we represent, the restaurant industry, should be given first dibs on everything that we’re trying to raise awareness about. We’ve maintained a small fund that enables restaurant workers to get preventative medical care at Legacy Community Health. We’re expanding that to make sure we’re also paying for contraception. The exam also covers routine blood work, routine vaccinations, and screening for sexually transmitted diseases. We also have an ongoing relationship with The Rose, where we fund screening mammograms and a new partnership with Ethos Wellness, to provide one-on-one mental healthcare for people in the restaurant industry free of charge. This last partnership is something I’m quite proud of because May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and mental illness is on the rise due to the pandemic and stress, so this program is designed to get a person to care very quickly since there are a lot of barriers to receiving mental healthcare—a lot of people on waiting lists, or on hold trying to figure out where to go. We’re also expanding to telehealth, so we’ll enable more people around the state, if not the country, to take advantage of this program.”
Recently, however, IHWSH has focused its language and services on reproductive health and reproductive justice, especially after the passing of SB 8, known as the Texas Heartbeat Bill, which bans abortion after the detection of a heartbeat (normally after about six weeks of pregnancy). “We’ve hosted events steered around celebrating that, in this country, all people with uteruses can choose the if, the when, and the how of parenthood. After SB 8 passed, we needed to change our language to ensure that people understood we were talking about abortion,” says Choi. Last summer, IHWSH hosted Abortion Support Happy Hours, a series of happy hours where the organization raised money for different abortion funds and abortion champions. Around this time, the organization also started a social media campaign in conjunction with the 1973 Project by collaborating with photographer Emily Jaschke. IHWSH asked people to post photographs of themselves with an anti-SB 8/pro-abortion slogan. “The restaurant industry uses blue masking tape and sharpies ubiquitously to label their bar ingredients, pantry items, and refrigerated items, etc., so it’s a commonly used label. We wanted people to expose their skin and the vulnerability of our human bodies in the face of laws like this. That campaign asked people to donate a dollar and 97 cents, or 19 dollars and 73 cents, or more to the 1973 Project fund, which was shared among six abortion funds to help Texas abortion access. We wanted to make sure people all over the state could receive abortion access. That has continued through to our upcoming event, the Rock & Roll Picnic,” says Choi. She also explains, from a physician’s point of view, how crucial reproductive and abortion support is: “SB 8 makes it illegal for a person to get an abortion after six weeks, which is ridiculous, given that most people wouldn’t realize they missed their period until five or six weeks in. As most of the people in our industry are uninsured, a lot of them won’t access the physician to perform the testing to even receive the diagnosis in time. Plus, if Roe v. Wade is in any way changed, Texas has a trigger law, which will make abortion illegal completely. We anticipate that this will become a problem in as many as 24 states across the country. So we will work nationally to try to raise funds and awareness until SB 8 is overturned. It could be years. Our partners at Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast and other abortion providers believe that’s the case. We have to be practical and try to get people with uteruses the care they need regardless of state atmosphere,” explains Choi.
Photo by Emily Jaschke.
Choi and I spoke the day after the shooting in Uvalde, Texas, which gave a different gravity to what is at stake in Texas, and how the current political climate impacts so many of us in similar ways. “I’m realizing, in the aftermath of Uvalde, that it’s the same cast of characters in control who are passing laws which impact all communities—people with uteruses, transgender children, traditionally marginalized communities when it comes to the voting booth, and now, [all] children [and] anyone who isn’t pro-gun,” she says. “It’s only in us recognizing how much we have in common that we’ll be able to change the state legislature, the state governors, to make the policies of the state represent the will of the people. It’s in recognizing how it feels when we are not seen. As a woman, for example, to have a government tell me that I, a master surgeon, who makes life-saving decisions for people multiple times a day, am not able to make decisions about my own body. [That] is deeply offensive to me. Because of that, I can have empathy for people who are not being allowed to parent their child in a way that child identifies as their path. I can empathize with moms about the extreme terror of not being able to feel their child is safe in a public school. It is this empathy that we seek for all of us—and to be allies for each other. It is this connection we’re hoping will bring people out to the event on June 5, to support the 50 percent and more of people in this state who are being told that they can’t control their own bodies. If I’m not free and you’re not free, then no one is free.”
Choi reminds me that Texas has the most uninsured people in the country. This is “by choice,” as Texas has refused federal dollars for Medicaid expansion on numerous occasions. Texas also has one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the country, and Black mothers are dying at four times the rate of white mothers. Until recently, Texas provided abstinence-only sexual education programs in schools, while Texas had the fifth-highest teen pregnancy rate and the highest repeat teen pregnancy rate of any state in the country. “[From] every perspective, we can see the state government has failed families,” says Choi. “It is my hope that we are going to have a great coalition effort to change the government in the state by November due to these recent tragedies. I hope that the work IHWSH can at least help impact abortion and reproductive justice support in the state of Texas.”
Tickets to the Rock & Roll Picnic can be purchased here. All proceeds benefit the 1973 Project, the I’ll Have What She’s Having fund supporting Texas abortion access.
