Compass superhero seeks to bring reproductive rights to Richmond citizens

Nick Bonadies Spectrum Editor

This past Tuesday and Thursday, passersby in the Compass have borne witness to a dashing, mysterious figure in a red cape and eyemask, wielding a giant wooden gold-painted uterus.

Mystifying onlookers with a majestic dance and reverberant strains of Bonnie Tyler’s “I Need a Hero,” the masked stranger – who identifies himself as “Super Uterus” – then proceeds to engage bystanders in conversation.

“I tell them I’m a super hero – but I also want them to be a super hero,” Uterus, who requested that his supersecret identity not appear in print, said.

“Super Uterus emerged from the tepid waters of Belle Isle in the dead of night,” Uterus said of himself in the third person. “His parents were swamp people.”

“He looked around and saw the reality of Richmond’s poverty,” he said. “And he thought to himself: ‘How can I help these people in need – the most marginalized of the marginalized?’”

The rest, as they say, is history. Super Uterus now directs his Compass fans to the nearby fundraising sale for the Richmond Reproductive Freedom Project, offering screenprinted patches, bags, T-shirts and other articles.

For a $1 donation, he will pose for a photo.

“Super Uterus is our team mascot,” said Safiya Bridgewater, a student in VCU’s nonprofit management postbaccalaureate graduate program, and one of nine members that make up their sub-group in the Richmond Reproductive Freedom Project fundraising effort.

The sub-group, named “Team GSEX” after the VCU department of gender, sexuality and women’s studies, is one of 30 “teams” raising money for the Project, which “(engages) in grassroots advocacy for the full spectrum of reproductive rights.”

“What our team is doing is fundraising,” Bridgewater said. “But it’s also a good way of doing outreach at the same time. More people know about Richmond Reproductive Freedom

Project because (Super Uterus) is out there talking to everyone about it.”

Team GSEX, as of press time, has raised a little more than $2,100 of their $3,000 fundraising goal. The greater Richmond Reproductive Freedom Project’s goal is $25,000, of which it has raised almost $20,000.

“I foresee that we’re totally going to exceed that goal,” Bridgewater said.

Team GSEX member Brianna Gribben, senior sculpture major with a minor in gender, sexuality and women’s studies, said the team’s efforts have been met with a mostly positive response.

“A lot of people are like, ‘Why do you have a giant uterus?’” she said. “We’ve had some curious people, definitely, but nothing negative. ... Some people have said, ‘Well, I’m opposed to that,’ but ... we explain that we’re not really out in the Compass to debate; we’re there to fundraise.”

“We’re not about ethics, religion or politics or anything like that – that’s not the conversation we want to have while we’re in the act of fundraising,” Uterus said. “What we want is action. What we want is people getting involved, people helping out other people.”

Super Uterus’ next appearance is scheduled for this Tuesday, April 3, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. He also plans to attend Team GSEX’s “Dance for Reproductive Rights” at Babe’s of Carytown this Thursday, April 5 at 10 p.m., and “Real Talk,” a poetry reading and open-mic night at The Camel from 5 to 8 p.m. on April 12. Bridgewater stressed that all types of performance are welcome, and need not utilize reproductive rights as subject matter: “It can be about, like, pickles,” she said.

As for Super Uterus himself, the future after the fundraiser is unclear. He hopes to win the Richmond Reproductive Freedom Project’s “team spirit” award, he says, and after that, possibly, to “fly away to Brazil.” CT

For more information on the Richmond Reproductive Freedom Project, visit their website at http://rrfp.net/. Team GSEX’s team page at http://bowlathon.nnaf.org/ contains information on donations or getting involved.