Eunice, a uterus-shaped puppet with Fallopian tubes for ears, surveyed the line as it stretched out from the Black Cat. With wide eyes rimmed by dramatically curled eyelashes, she appeared just as surprised as the organizers at the turnout.

Hundreds of people showed up to hear what was billed as “a frank and funny storytelling show about abortion.” It was the first major event for a newly organized group of D.C. activists, and they had sold out the storied venue.

Set against a backdrop of technicolor uteruses, nine women paced the stage under bright spotlights and spoke with a mixture of humor, anger, pride, joy, and indignation. And that was the point.

“The stigma of abortion is that it’s something that you don’t talk about, and that you spend time mourning and crying. That’s not the reality of it for everyone,” said Lucy Samuel, one of the D.C. organizers. “That’s certainly the reality for some people, and I personally wasn’t running through a field of flowers laughing after my abortion. But certainly others are like ‘I’ll pop into a clinic and get it done.’ For people to talk about it using comedy and creative outlets changes the conversation.”

Embracing the gamut of reasons for needing an abortion, and the experiences that go along with them, is one of the guiding principals of Lady Parts Justice, a New York-based nonprofit founded by Daily Show co-creator Lizz Winstead. “No one should be stigmatized because you needed to have an abortion,” Winstead says. “Any other way you need to talk about it is okay. Just know that’s not someone else’s experience.”

Through social media, videos, workshops, and events, Lady Parts Justice is unapologetic about abortion while drawing attention to the increasingly restrictive laws being enacted around the country (the name is an homage to the Michigan state legislator who was barred from the floor for saying vagina. She was told to use something more demure, like “lady parts.”)

With an emphasis on inclusivity, humor, and social media, LPJ departs from traditional organizing. Rather than formal chapters, there are loose groups of organizers around the country. And now D.C. has its own cabal.

Samuel went up to New York in May to tell her story on stage for the first time at Speakout Laughout, an abortion storytelling show organized by the comedian Sriya Sarkar. A group of her friends went up simply to be supportive; they came away from it energized to bring LPJ to the District. Within three months they would sell out the Black Cat. But their very first event was actually a watch party for the GOP debate.

“We’re already getting together and hanging out and talking about things,” says Hayley Moller. “Why not use that time and make it productive?”

When they walked in to the Adams Morgan bar Johnny Pistolas, though, they found that they had chosen the same venue as the D.C. Republican Party. “We had some great conversations,” says Moller. “It was hilarious.”

The group next set out to do something similar to Speakout Laughout. “It started out as, ‘let’s just copy Sriya’s show’ and it became this much bigger thing with much of D.C. stepping in to help,” says Moller.

Black Cat donated the venue—which the group worried would seem cavernous for the crowd they could muster—and local businesses offered up items for a raffle. After a whirlwind few weeks, Eunice was gazing at the gaggle of people waiting for the show to start.

When the mostly young crowd walked up to the venue’s second floor, they found a rare seated show and, even rarer: women of different ages and races and sexualities sharing the same stage to talk about abortion in their own individual ways. Some of them had recounted their stories in public many times over, others were speaking about it in public for the first time.

Samuel, a matchmaker by day, told hers for the second time, offering wry observations on the ultrasound (“That doesn’t look like a baby. That looks like a kitten, from a very far distance, on a misty day”) and attending a baby shower the next day.

Joyelle Nicole Johnson, a comedian and yoga teacher, added to the mix: “If you’re having sex on the floor of the handicap bathroom in an Amtrak train, maybe you aren’t ready to be a mom,” she said to much laughter, before acknowledging just how emotionally wrenching the experience was for her. She recalled telling the doctor: “I don’t want to do this. I have to do this. I’m not ready to be a parent.”

The D.C. group is still young, and they are figuring out exactly where they want to focus their efforts and how to harness their momentum. It is an outlier among other LPJ groups, though, which focus on getting the word out about changing local laws.

Winstead sees it as an opportunity to raise awareness about Congressional oversight of the District. “It’s not a mystery that it’s a bummer when Louie Gohmert gets to vote for laws in D.C. We need to be raising awareness constantly that a lot of what happens in D.C. is voted on by people who live in Texas and Arizona.”

And while access to abortion is more readily available in D.C. than some of those states—a new provider, Carafem, opened earlier this year with advertising that approaches the topic like any other medical issue—they are also deeply aware that it doesn’t mean that everyone has equal access. Carafem, after all, is located in Friendship Heights.

“I bristle when people say I live in a ‘safe state,’ ” says Wisntead. “You have to think about what does that mean, and the privilege of where clinics go and the kind of clinics that go in other spaces. I think its important to fight for other people to have access to services that maybe you don’t need anymore or can get elsewhere.”

To do that, she says, LPJ does a lot of listening to people who come from different spaces. “Reproductive health needs are different—for trans people, for cis women, for black woman—we all come from different spaces and have different needs.” LPJ’s goal is to get “cool people” in a room and share those experiences and ideas. Their motto: “Inclusive. Intersectional. Fun as fuck.”

If there is one way to bring people together, it is a dance party. For V to Shining V—a “national day to gather together and throw a party to celebrate women”—the D.C. chapter (for lack of a better word) is hosting a bash at Tropicalia. The thinking is “let’s have fun, and raise money for a good cause, and learn a thing or two about abortion access,” Moller says. Kiran Gandhi, the M.I.A. drummer who recently made headlines for running the London Marathon without a tampon, is set to DJ. They’ve already put in an order for shimmering, uterus-shaped flash tattoos.