Claudia Pérez (she/hers) is the Director of Public Affairs at Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, where she leads political advocacy and organizing efforts across Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming. Claudia’s career has centered on community organizing focused on expanding access to stigmatized forms of health care, including mental health services and sexual and reproductive health care. She holds a B.A. in Communication Studies from Colorado State University. Her background spans community organizing, public health, immigrant rights, program management, and childcare. Claudia lives in North-West Aurora with her husband and enjoys listening to podcasts, crafting, and hosting game nights.
Let’s dive into her story:
Tell us about the work you do and why it matters.
I’m the Director of Public Affairs at Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, covering Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming. I oversee our organizing and advocacy efforts, both in the c3 and c4 capacity, working with a team of organizers and managers who are boots on the ground, building people power in their communities. And our work is on demystifying civic engagement processes, primarily to protect and expand reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy across the region. Over the past couple years, I’m sure we’ve all seen the onslaught of attacks against reproductive health care, abortion, gender affirming care, trans rights and overall bodily autonomy, and so making sure that we are protecting our most basic freedoms of deciding what happens to our bodies and safeguarding that private decision between an individual and their health care provider make is how we are able to maintain freedoms in any other space. Because if you don’t have the freedom to decide what happens to your body, then you don’t have a lot of freedoms at all.
What’s a win that lives with you?
Project 2025 has a lot of horrible and devious plans, and one of those plans is to chip away at accessibility for reproductive health care. When HR1 was introduced, it included a provision that defunded Planned Parenthood health centers from the federal Medicaid program. And the impact was instantaneous – health centers and healthcare providers working at Planned Parenthood across the nation started calling patients who had Medicaid and canceling their appointments that same day. This included all types of care: sexual checkups, annual wellness exams, breast cancer screening, cervical cancer screenings, STI treatments, and more. Our teams in New Mexico & Colorado jumped straight into action and became two of the first three states in the country to restore state Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood. In Colorado, we recruited 150 volunteers to the state capitol, who stood outside committee halls, talked to legislators, wrote letters, made phone calls, and sent emails. It was one of the largest mobilization efforts to date. Colorado was the first state in the entire country to restore funding using legislative action. This win lives with me because in the midst of a state budget crisis in Colorado, the state legislature voted to restore critical funding to keep Planned Parenthood doors open. With so much on the line, my team and I accomplished a lot, doing so quickly amid a very chaotic time for patients and providers.
How does your re:power training show up in your work today?
One key takeaway from my WoC leadership training is that being constantly tired and depleted is not how you will show up as your best self. The importance of grounding yourself, being tender, taking off the armor and crying, letting other people hold you, and finding soft spaces to fall into; those resilience skills are what I take with me every single day.
This line of work requires a lot of heart and hustle. How do you find joy and recharge?
I am pretty disciplined about getting myself out and into a community space, going to a local social hour, a pop-up, a small-business grand opening, or a fundraiser. I love bringing a friend and telling others to join, which has brought me a lot of joy. I have also found a lot of rest and pleasure in building a sacred place for myself in my home, where I enjoy the company of my plants and scour Facebook Marketplace for cool finds.
