Yahoo Lifestyle These breast cancer survivors are taking back October. Here’s how.
In September 2020, Queens native Trish Michelle and a friend were discussing their experiences with breast cancer on Instagram Live when the topic turned to the dreaded arrival of October. Michelle, who was diagnosed with breast cancer at 37, shook her head in disappointment at the thought of the month that typically becomes flooded with pink products that to her felt more like superficial breast cancer awareness campaigns and marketing ploys than advocacy for the cancer community.
“We all need to close ranks, and we need to reclaim October,” Michelle said.
The next month, she would join with others affected by breast cancer to launch Reclaim October, a movement aimed at redefining breast cancer advocacy.
Every October in the United States, pink ribbons, accessories, appliances and clothes crop up in stores - attempts by companies to show they support the fight against breast cancer or campaigns to educate people on the importance of getting mammograms. But since pink ribbons became part of the breast cancer awareness movement in the 1990s and the flood of pink products multiplied, breast cancer awareness has taken a shape that provokes mixed feelings among those with the disease.
Increasingly groups are calling out “pinkwashing” and moving away from traditional campaigns, which often platform products instead of people and center idealized narratives. Reclaim October seeks to educate the public about what it’s like to live with breast cancer, directly fund cancer research, and empower those living with and in remission from the disease.
Since Michelle founded the movement, it has gained thousands of followers across the country and, according to Michelle, donated nearly $200,000 to research and patient support.
“Simply raising awareness is not enough,” said Kate Burns, a leader in the movement and a Stage 3 triple-positive breast cancer survivor. “Everyone knows breast cancer exists in 2024. We’re past the awareness stage. We’re in the action stage.”
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Pinkwashing pushback
Breast cancer is the second-most commonly diagnosed cancer among women in the United States, after skin cancer, according to the Mayo Clinic. After lung cancer, breast cancer causes the most cancer deaths among women in the country.
Breast Cancer Action, an education and activist organization, coined the term pinkwashing in 2002 to call out companies that claim to support breast cancer awareness but continue to produce products that contain chemicals linked to the disease. Reclaim October has broadened this definition to also call out campaigns that promote pink products without making tangible contributions to the cancer community.
“It’s a bunch of mustached toilers in a boardroom plotting and planning on how they’re going to capitalize over our pain,” said Michelle, who also serves as a leader of the Breasties, a nonprofit that supports people impacted by breast and gynecological cancers through advocacy and peer connections. “That’s what pinkwashing feels like to us.”
While many companies and breast cancer campaigns do wind up donating money to boost scientific research, some products appear to capitalize on consumer desires to support the cause but don’t promise any financial support to eradicate the disease.
“I searched ‘breast cancer’ on Amazon the other day,” said Anj Oto, an active participant in Reclaim October. “Don’t do it. It’s just going to make you upset.” Oto explained that most of the pink products she saw donated no proceeds to breast cancer.
Reclaim October seeks to not only call out pinkwashing, but also direct funds where they are actually needed in the cancer community. This year, the movement partnered with the Breasties to raise $15,000 for Stage 4 - also known as metastatic - breast cancer research.
The money is going toward a study led by Steffi Oesterreich at the Magee-Womens Research Institute & Foundation. Oesterreich’s research explores how some breast cancer cells mutate and become resistant to hormone therapies.
In 2022, the Breasties donated $50,000 to the study. Oesterreich said these funds directly supported the creation of tumor cell models and the acquisition of cancerous tissue from breast cancer patients - both of which are vital to her experiments.
“Although we still say, ‘Once it’s Stage 4, it’s incurable,’ this is for the first time in our lifetime that we might have some treatments which actually eradicate metastatic cancer cells,” Oesterreich said. “We will hear a lot more about this over the next few years, which is super, super exciting.”
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‘Community over capitalism’
In addition to funding research, Reclaim October seeks to fill another gap in breast cancer awareness campaigns. Its Instagram profile reads: “community over capitalism”
The organizers devote four weeks in October to four themes: community, mind, body and advocacy. Each week, team captains create social media content to spark discussions about difficult topics and host virtual and in-person events.
“One of the things that we pride ourselves on at Reclaim October is it’s your story and you can tell it,” Burns said. “If you haven’t had a good experience and you’re feeling really crappy … that is your story to share and you share it because that’s reality.”
Vanessa Gonzalez is a member of “Team Community” and shared their story on Instagram as a nonbinary person diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer. They explained that community is important for those living with the disease, especially for nonbinary people who are often underrepresented in conversations about breast cancer. Gonzalez urged people to share their post to show other nonbinary people of color living with and in remission from the disease that they are not alone.
“I want to cultivate a community that I couldn’t find when I was first diagnosed in 2021,” Gonzalez said in their post.
Last year, Oto was part of “Team Body” and posted an Instagram reel about an unexpected side effect of her cancer treatment: painful sex. Oto was diagnosed with Stage 1 breast cancer at 33 as a newlywed, and her treatment induced medical menopause.
“I went out on a limb. I posted a video talking about my sex life, which I would never imagine doing on social media,” Oto said. Many viewers commented that they were experiencing similar problems as a result of treatment.
Oto explained that the positive responses to her video are what solidified her participation in Reclaim October. “If I feel less alone, then I can help others feel less alone,” she said.
Michelle emphasized that the initiative’s honest storytelling encourages more people to share their experiences. She said that these stories challenge the idea that life returns back to “normal” once treatment is over. Some survivors develop chronic conditions, and many worry about their cancer returning.
To bring people together in real time, Reclaim October hosts events via Instagram Live, including guided meditations and discussions with a therapist and nutritionist.
Since its inception during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, the movement has been able to build more in-person events, such as ice cream socials, drag brunches and picnics.
Burns said many people in the breast cancer community often feel like a burden around friends and family, but the feeling goes away when they’re with people who understand what it’s like to live with the disease.
“When we meet in person, we’re a whole person with all the different things. It’s not just this one-dimension cancer patient,” Burns said.
Burns grew close to Michelle Gower, who was diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer, through the online Reclaim October community during the pandemic. After a virtual friendship of nearly two years, the two met in California on their shared birthday.
“As soon as I saw her, I started crying,” Burns said. That same day, they got tattoos together to honor their first meetup.
Reclaim October extends its work beyond the month to celebrate the Day of the Dead, a Mexican holiday in November that celebrates the lives of those who have died. Reclaim October uses the holiday to honor people like Gower, who died from breast cancer earlier this year. Through Instagram Stories, the organizers encourage members to email in names of late loved ones so they can honor them in a video shared on Instagram Live.
“Something that is so crucial and needed in our community,” Oto said, “is being able to provide people with a space where they can … be honest and vulnerable with their feelings and also band together to show people what cancer really looks and feels like.”
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