The 2025 Beyond Borders Convening

On November 19- 20th, 2025, State Innovation Exchange (SiX) and Georgetown Law’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law hosted Beyond Borders 2025: How the U.S. can learn from global movements in Washington, D.C. The energizing convening brought together nearly 100 powerful, cross-sector leaders (state legislators, advocates, and international leaders) and explored what the U.S. could learn from global allies who have resisted authoritarianism and advanced human rights under pressure.

Jennifer Driver, Senior Director of Reproductive Rights at SiX opened the event with these powerful words about the purpose of Beyond Borders being rooted in “a simple but transformative belief: the U.S. has so much to learn from other parts of the world. We’re here because we refuse to accept the idea that our challenges are unique or unsolvable. Around the globe, people have confronted rising authoritarianism, expanded human rights under pressure, and advanced reproductive freedom despite enormous political headwinds. And they have done it with courage, creativity, and grounded in community.”

The convening sparked new ideas and partnerships that will strengthen our movements’ analysis, deepen their solidarity, and expand their collective power to build a world where democracy truly belongs to all of us.

To that end, we wanted to share several of the resources that were mentioned throughout the convening:

1. SiX’s RFLC Policy Agenda (Model legislation and resources to improve access to reproductive healthcare)

2. SiX’s RFLC Global Page (Series of SiX/O’Neill Institute global legal comparison reports summarizing global public health standards, international human rights norms, and legislative and jurisprudential trends around the world)

3. Global Legal Comparison Executive Summary (Summary of the above page)

4. Bridging the gap: How SiX supports U.S. state legislators in transforming research into policy (Contraception journal article)

5. SiX Toolkit: Resources for State Response to Federal Tax Bill (This resource is regularly updated, and created in partnership with the State Revenue Alliance)

6. SiX’s Affordability for All: An Agenda to Bring Down Costs for Working People outlines ten policy solutions across the areas of food, energy, healthcare, childcare, housing, and consumer pricing to bring down costs and tackle the corporate greed driving them up. Register for the December 8 webinar detailing the report here.

7. SiX’s LGBTQ+ Resource Bank Password Request Form (This is a cross-state centralized bank of questions for advocacy organizations & state lawmakers to ask on the legislative record, amendments to introduce, opposition research on copycat anti-LGBTQ+ extremist legislation, and messaging resources)

8. SiX’s State Power to Protect Immigrant Communities Toolkit (Model legislation and resources to improve access to protect immigrant communities)