By Jos Truitt • @jostruitt • 10 years ago

Happy Birthday Sesali!

Sesali BowenToday is Sesali’s birthday!

Sesali and I first met early on in our national organizing days, and you don’t even know how excited I was when she rocked our contributor contest in 2012. In addition to her role as a Contributor at Feministing, Sesali is a National Campus Organizer at Planned Parenthood – she was on the ground in Albuquerque to help defeat their 20 week abortion ban this November.

Sesali’s always bringing the brilliance and visionary, original thinking to our blog. I love talking about social justice issues through a pop culture lens, and so does Sesali: she’s used Scandal to talk about trafficking tropes and respectability politics, called out American Horror Story: Coven‘s approach to race, and got deep about Beyonce’s Haunted video. She also wrote about ratchet culture and Miley Cyrus when the pop star first began twerking all over the interwebs, a post that blew up and gave us invaluable context after Miley and Robin Thicke’s VMA performance clusterfuck. Just yesterday she pointed out how early policing of Black girls’ hair starts and introduced us to trap feminism.

Some fun facts about Sesali: she was named after her uncle, driving is her favorite pasttime, and she has dreams of one day settling down with Frank Ocean (if you’re reading this Sesali says #heyboo).

Join me and the Feministing crew in wishing Sesali a very happy birthday!

Boston, MA

Jos Truitt is Executive Director of Development at Feministing. She joined the team in July 2009, became an Editor in August 2011, and Executive Director in September 2013. She writes about a range of topics including transgender issues, abortion access, and media representation. Jos first got involved with organizing when she led a walk out against the Iraq war at her high school, the Boston Arts Academy. She was introduced to the reproductive justice movement while at Hampshire College, where she organized the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program’s annual reproductive justice conference. She has worked on the National Abortion Federation’s hotline, was a Field Organizer at Choice USA, and has volunteered as a Pro-Choice Clinic Escort. Jos has written for publications including The Guardian, Bilerico, RH Reality Check, Metro Weekly, and the Columbia Journalism Review. She has spoken and trained at numerous national conferences and college campuses about trans issues, reproductive justice, blogging, feminism, and grassroots organizing. Jos completed her MFA in Printmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute in Spring 2013. In her "spare time" she likes to bake and work on projects about mermaids.

Jos Truitt is an Executive Director of Feministing in charge of Development.

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