Deja Foxx is a 21-year-old reproductive rights activist, influencer, and strategist from Tucson, Arizona. In high school, her interest in reproductive rights began as she became aware of her high school’s failure to educate its students properly on the importance of consent and birth control. She then took it upon herself to go to the school board and demand comprehensive sex education.
Foxx, like many other young adolescents, went to Planned Parenthood for birth control due to a lack of money and insurance. In 2017, Foxx’s life changed during a Mesa town hall debate when she stood up to anti-Planned Parenthood Republican Senator Jeff Flake and said, “I just want to state some facts.” According to a Tucson newsletter, she declared, “I’m a young woman, you’re a middle-aged man. I’m a person of color, and you’re white. I come from a background of poverty, and I didn’t always have parents to guide me through life. You come from privilege. So I’m wondering, as a Planned Parenthood patient and someone who relies on Title X, who you are clearly not, why is it your right to take away my right?”
This moment went viral, causing her to later become “the face of Planned Parenthood.” She went on to found the El Rio Community Health Center’s Reproductive Health Access Project during her senior year of high school, where she and other teenagers worked to ensure all young people in Tucson had access to reproductive health care. During the same year, she organized a walk-out and march as part of the March for Our Lives movement, along with arranging protests at child detention centers.
Subsequently, she received a full ride to Columbia, and is set to graduate in 2023. She has worked on Columbia’s Housing Equity Project, a student-run organization that aims to staff local homeless shelters, and also joined JUV Consulting, a marketing agency run by a GenZ team that engages young audiences. In addition, she founded her online organization, GenZ Girl Gang, which focuses on creating an inclusive community for women to support one another, bridging generational gaps, and learning from and teaching each other.
Some of GenZ Girl Gang’s seasonal campaigns include community events, mentorship opportunities, and informational digital content. A few of their current projects include College Access for All, Demand and Disrupt, which focuses on women in the workforce, and Pitch, Please!, which aims to empower people and build personal networks. The overall goal of her organization is to develop social media connections into a caring and supportive community online and offline. Foxx said to Rolling Stone, “I think about how we can translate this idea of solidarity, this idea that ‘when I do better, you do better,’ into a digital space, because more and more that’s where we’re spending our time.”
When she was fifteen, financial issues and a mother dealing with addiction led to Foxx becoming homeless and living at friends’ houses. She came to learn that there were many people like her, and as a result brought her fellow peers together to build a community of First Generation Low Income (FGLI) students at Columbia. She also worked as a coordinator for UpLift, another Columbia community surrounding student housing in which FGLI members support and help each other.
When arriving at her dorm at Columbia in 2019 as a sophomore, she received a message via Instagram inviting her to become part of Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign. Soon after, she moved to Baltimore and became the youngest staffer on Harris’s campaign at 19, as an influencer and surrogate strategist. As stated in Rolling Stone, Foxx had a unique position on Harris’s team: “I got to step in as the expert because there is no one getting a PhD in TikToks and influencer strategy,” she said. Through the power of social media Foxx was able to promote Harris and causes they were passionate about. Foxx is also seen speaking out at Capitol Hill, leading rallies, and announcing herself as the future president on social media.
Currently, Foxx has joined Ford Models as a digital creator and is building strategies for political action committees and nonprofit organizations, as well as continuing her education at Columbia virtually.
Today, her media presence continues to grow and gain support, as we see her embark on new projects. From homelessness in high school to becoming a young reproductive activist and influencer, Deja Foxx has a voice and passion that will continue to change lives.