Opportunities to speak with U.S. Senators and Representatives are open to everyone. Legislators maintain local offices along with their DC offices so you don’t have to travel to D.C. to hold a meeting. Many Members are now offering virtual meetings as well.

Your party affiliation does not have to match with the Member that you speak with. For example, if you are a Democrat, but have a Republican representative, that person still represents you and is expected to listen to your concerns. You may be scheduled a meeting with a staffer and not with the Member or Representative.

To make the most of your time with legislative staffers, do your homework on the legislator and gather your materials. Spend a little time investigating the Member with whom you are meeting. Look into their voting record.

You can learn about individual legislators’ voting records by going here and clicking on your state.

Most Representatives and Senators will not be fully informed on the conflict of women’s rights and trans rights activists so you will want to prepare some information for your legislator. This can be emailed to them ahead of time along with printing a ‘one pager’ of information that you would like them to read over while you are talking. You can also print statistics and studies that align with your meeting points. Do your research and make sure that your information is trustworthy. You don’t want to share information from unreliable sources that will cause the legislator to lose faith in the rest of your information.

Finally, make yourself familiar with your material. You are likely to get 20 minutes or less with the legislator or his or her staffers, so keep it brief but know your main points.

After the meeting, it’s a great idea to follow up with a thank you letter or email. You can use this time to also send them any further information. If they had specific questions during your meeting, send them links to information that will answer those questions