Author: lavandoula

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interviews

Dr. Julianna Allen

Julianna Allen, she/her, www.embraceptwellness.com, @embracepelvicPT

Katie: Hi, welcome!

Julianna: Thank you so much.

Katie: Just to jump into it, could you tell me a little bit about you, who you are and your practice?

Julianna: Absolutely, so my name is Dr. Julianna Allen, I am a pelvic health physical therapist. I own Embrace Physical Therapy and Wellness, which is an inclusive pelvic health practice aimed at really people of all genders, and while I work a lot in the pregnancy and postpartum space, I also treat people through a vast variety of different pelvic health conditions. Including going through gender-affirming surgery, using dilators and binding safety. Of course, also all of the pelvic floor and physical things people go through – through and after gestation?

Katie: Awesome, and what are you queering right now?

Julianna: What am I queering… well, I try to queer a lot of things. I really am celebrating learning more and taking more courses in trans health specifically. Because, I really love helping people through that process and so, that would be kind of my biggest connection to queering things right now. 

Katie: That’s awesome, it’s so important. What inspired you to do the work that you do?

Julianna: I love this question, because I’m not a “traditional”… traditionally, maybe you go get a bachelors’ degree and you go straight to graduate school. I took some time off – I got my bachelors degree, and took some time off. Actually worked in mental health and in an eating disorder facility for a while.. Going back to when I was getting my bachelors degree, I took some, y’know, at that point they were called “women’s studies” classes, and I just was so overcome with the inequities in healthcare, and the inequity of everything around, especially at that point – people who were women. I thought, y’know what? I want to do something with my life that really helps with that and that the time I was exploring my queer identity. But at that point, I didn’t know what I was going to do – so fast forward, working in a facility for people with eating disorders and I really loved it when we did treatments that we were exposing people and their bodies to different sensations. I realized, I’ve always loved physical things. I’ve always loved looking at movement patterns and everything like that. So, I thought, I’ll go to physical therapy school. In order to go to physical therapy school, I worked in an office, a physical therapy office. I actually found out, unlike many people who go to PT school, I found out about pelvic health and I thought y’know what? That sounds really cool and interesting. I’ve always thought it’s fun to learn about and talk about intimacy and sex. So why not try that? I went to PT school and I was super, super lucky in that I got to work in pelvic health during my graduate degree – while I was getting my doctorate. It was mind blowing how many specific things birthing people’s bodies that go through that aren’t then addressed. That people just accept as parts of being a birthing person, being a mom, being a parent. Just astounding – all of the pain, pain with feeding, pain with intercourse afterward, and I just was.. My mind was blown, and I was like, it’s crazy cause it’s a whole different thing. We can actually help a lot of these things, cause there’s physical therapy FOR the pelvic floor, and for the hips and back. I was immediately struck by how cool it was to learn how to work with someone’s body like that. 

Katie: How would you describe your support philosophy or your philosophy toward pelvic health physical therapy?

Julianna: I love the idea of being a guide. There is so much unknown about the pelvis, about the pelvic floor, about how bodies change during gestation and what is necessary and what is common but not normal. So, I love guiding people through what.. How their body’s going to change, and what might be something that is expected (but maybe isn’t the most desirable thing) and then teaching them how we can actually both accept what has to change, but also really provide preparation and healing afterward. I would say, I’m a big fan of teaching and guiding because I teach a lot about the body and places that we just don’t know how our bladders function, how our abdominal wall is affected by gestation, how our pelvic floor is affected. And really, how we can prevent a lot of that and heal it afterward. I’m a big fan of guiding people through that experience. 

Katie: That’s such important knowledge, right? Those are all parts of our bodies that we don’t get a lot of information about at any point in our lives except for, perhaps if you find yourself seeking physical therapy around the experience of pregnancy. 

Julianna: I think it’s quite sad in some ways, because in some countries, like in France, every birthing person gets sent to pelvic floor physical therapy – no questions asked, right afterward. Actually, the United Kingdom has just adopted that and is putting that into practice as well. I think it’s fantastic that pelvic floor therapy is becoming more and more known here, but it’s really interesting that you say that around going to physical therapy, going around gestation… because there are so many times that I see people who are not just around that period, too, and I have so many people as questions about – “oh, isn’t that just for people who are going through pregnancy?” And really that’s not true. I see people for pelvic floor issues around lots of different things – just people who’ve never had children often have urinary urgency or have issues with overactive or tight muscles and it’s often something that’s worth thinking about even before pregnancy, but of course, also, during and after. I just love that you brought that up because everyone has a pelvic floor, and while not everybody needs therapy for their pelvic floor, it’s something to know that it’s always there. 

Katie: Yeah, absolutely, I think that’s such an important point. So often we think that this is just … if people think about it at all, it is just around these times of a very dramatic transition, but that’s just not true. 

Julianna: Absolutely, and I mean, y’know what? You always have your pelvic floor, and your pelvic floor is going through this dramatic transition and going through covid times and going through everything. Our bodies, y’know, a lot of people get stress in certain areas of their bodies with all of the stress of this situation, and the pelvic floor can show that as well. It’s worth knowing that it’s not just a forgotten part of your body, even if we don’t think about it every day. 

Katie: Absolutely, so I’ve asked you about your natal work, now I wanna know about your natal chart. What’s your sun, moon, rising?

Julianna: So, I am a libra, proud libra, love that balance or at least that I like to say that I like thinking about it, cause sometimes I feel like I’m not always the most calm, fair, balanced person. I love thinking, “Nope, I’m a libra, I’m gonna bring some of that in.” My moon is a Capricorn, and rising is Virgo. 

Katie: Awesome! And what’s your favorite thing about being a queer support person, or working with queer and trans folks?

Julianna: I love talking about, specifically, I love talking about how queer people interact with one another, even when I’m with, for instance, people who are not part of the queer community. One of the big things I address is intercourse and intimacy after a birth, postpartum, and that can be a really different experience for various – both biological and emotional things, reasons. One of the big things I say to people is “queer up your sex life” if they haven’t heard that before, because, a lot of people, for a lot of people not in the queer community, it’s all about PIV penetration, and that’s the pinnacle, and I really think that, in the queer community, we just have a head start on that. I love bringing my queer knowledge into –OK, well, maybe you’re not ready to have intercourse, even if you’ve hit your 6-week check up and everything’s ok. That doesn’t mean that you’re ready. That means that your body is healing, but you’re not ready, so I often am talking through intimacy in different ways to approach that. Very much come from a lot of research that I’ve read and courses I’ve taken but also just my experience in the queer community and knowing what we’re like. I just love supporting queer and trans families, because y’know, it’s such a special thing coming to creating a family when we’ve had the opportunity, in many cases, to create our own chosen families, but to also have the opportunity to bring a biological child into such a warm and wonderful community. It’s just so happy for me because I find that there’s so much support, often when I am not in the queer community, working with birth, it’s sometimes just the wife coming to me, just the birthing person coming to me, and I love how when I work in the queer community it’s like – OK, let’s talk about your pelvic floor, but with everybody else, and everyone else is gonna be involved in your rehab and that’s just so built in and I love that. 

Katie: I really love the idea that people are coming to see you and the advice that they’re getting is to queer up their sex lives, what a dream. 

Julianna: Yup. I would say I use those words a fair amount, sometimes I don’t depending on, y’know, you have to read the person you’re talking to. It’s just so true, there’s just a built in… y’know, the walls of building queer relationships and queer family are so different than the hetereonormative standards, so just brining a little bit of that in, that innovation and lack of expectation is such an important thing. 

Katie: And if you could improve one thing about the experience of pregnancy, birth, postpartum recovery for queer and trans families, what would it be?

Julianna: Is it a cheat to say, “See a pelvic therapist?”

Katie: No, it is not!

Julianna: I think it’s such an overlooked thing, and I think it’s hard because there aren’t that many of us but just having been in this profession, there are just exponentially more and more and people like me who are focusing on certain communities and who are able to provide you with care that’s going to really resonate with you. I think it’s so important. I like to say, and many people say, prevention – seeing someone during their gestation is really helpful, and that’s not to say that there’s anything wrong if you don’t, but I love the idea of preparing. The way I teach, say, learning how to open your pelvic floor muscles for birth is going to be different from someone else. I can actually feel, a pelvic therapist can feel those muscles opening and that’s such a magical thing about preparing yourself for birth. Of course, seeing a pelvic health therapist afterward can be really helpful in terms of getting your abdominals and your pelvic floor starting to work again. They’ve been so distended, which is a beautiful part of pregnancy, but they’ve been so distended, they may have been pushed wide open with delivery and having those muscles that are such a critical part of your core, getting them back online is really helpful, so I would say a) see a pelvic floor therapist, or b) give yourself the grace and time, but also the attention to your body, especially in those parts that were very drastically changed for a very short period of time. 

Katie: What piece of advice do you have for new or aspiring queer / trans pelvic health physical therapist, birth workers in general?

Julianna: Sighs. I mean, I think it’s so fantastic that you might be considering this field, I think it’s so needed and so rewarding. My advice is, push through your insecurities. Speaking from my own personal experience about coming into my own as a doctor of physical therapy but also how much do I promote or am out about my queerness in the space of pelvic health, because, y’know, who knows how people will take that? Just be brave, but let yourself be yourself in these situations because I think your clients will get so much more out of it and you will get so much more out of it if you’re able to take that step and be there to help families in the way that you individually can. 

Katie: That’s so important, those reminders I think are so helpful in these fields that so frequently are .. and fields where there’s so much emphasis on having your own practice and your own business and marketing yourselves in ways that are like, where you’re selling yourself to some abstract general pregnant person. That reminder about authenticity is always so necessary. Are there any projects that you have going on that you want help cross pollinating with other folks in birth world?

Julianna: So, I have my own practice, for sure, which I always love people to talk about, comment on, let me know what their thoughts are. But I’m also, I currently have a postpartum virtual education program that is specifically aimed at not just the queer community – it’s for anyone who wants it, but we did really spend a lot of time trying to make sure that it is appropriate for people, and the language is worded for people who are queer, trans, just anywhere along our rainbow because I think that’s so important. It’s not exactly an ongoing project, but I do love talking about how… another pelvic health physical therapist and I created this program that’s really aimed at how to both help your body directly after a labor and delivery in terms of taking your first poop and pee postpartum, I hope it’s OK to say that on here –

Katie: Oh, absolutely, yeah!

Julianna: y’know, how to support your core when you’re just rolling out of bed after say, having delivered by cesarean. All the way to reconnecting with your core and pelvic floor, to having intercourse postpartum, as well as how to stop leaking and how to improve your bowel function. I definitely would love to hear and see queer people in our community about that – we have a facebook group, for what that’s worth, called Healthy Pelvis Healthy Postpartum that we are always trying to get together community around. 

Katie: Awesome, and what’s something not natal related, pelvic related about you and your life that you wanna share?

Julianna: That’s a great question. Well, you and I talked about this a little earlier, but I’m actually in a queer feminist wrestling league so if anybody wants to look into that, it’s BLOWW (the Boston League of Wicked Wrestlers) and that’s not natal, but is very much in this community. Feel free to look us up, we’re on all the socials, we have our own website. Check us out, cause let me tell you – it’s really, really fun. 

Katie: That is… that’s such a vitally important fun fact, and like, wow. What a service to the community (laughs). 

Julianna: I just, y’know, if there’s one thing you take away from this, obviously everyone watching, I want you to learn about pelvic health and learn about all the thing that a pelvic health therapist can help you with, or you can become someone like me… but… if you take one thing away, look up the Boston League of Wicked Wrestlers. You won’t regret it. 

Katie: Top tips. Top tips: look up the Boston League of Wicked Wrestlers, see a pelvic floor PT, queer up your sex life. 

Julianna: If I could tell you one thing about your pelvic floor, relax your pelvic floor.. and go see the Boston League of Wicked Wrestlers. Very related. 

Katie: It seems like that would help you relax your pelvic floor. 

Julianna: Yeah. Definitely. Definitely. It’s very relaxing (shakes head)

Katie: And finally, where can people find you on the internet?

Julianna: So you can find me, my website is www.embraceptwellness.com, y’know, if you search my name Julianna Allen, you’ll probably get there. My Instagram is @embracepelvicPT, and then I have a Facebook page and everything. So feel free to check me out there. I always love questions, I try to answer them on lives and with posts because I want to know what your questions are about the pelvic floor, about how your body changes and y’know, honestly about your hips and everything else that works really hard to support you during gestation.

Katie: Awesome, thank you so much, this was such a blast!

Julianna: Thank you for inviting me, I am so excited that something like this exists and I really hope that everyone watching in terms of their own career choices, that you do join us in queer birth work, because it’s such a wonderful and rewarding place to be.

Categories
interviews

Moss Froom

Moss Froom. They/them. @mossthedoula, www.mossthedoula.com, All Genders Birth Class, Trans Birth Worker Meet Up, Red Emma’s Cooperative Book Store

Katie: Alright hi!

Moss: Hi! 

Katie: It’s so good to see you, so good to have you with us, and to just dive into it – could you just start telling us a little bit about who you are and your work?

Moss: Yeah, absolutely! I’m Moss, I use they and them pronouns. I am a queer/trans centered, full-spectrum doula. So I work with folks at all points on their family building and reproductive journeys. I mainly focus on, or just by virtue of who’s coming to me now, I’m mostly working through folks through their gestations and labors and births. And through their fertility processes. I’m also trained as an abortion doula. I have worked with families in the postpartum period, and I’m here for all the things, basically. Oh, also! I’m a childbirth educator – of course. I offer a class called All Genders Birth Class that walks you through kind of the big pieces that you need to know (or that you might want to know) as you are looking forward to a birth experience. Including what to expect from labor and birth, what are some common comfort measures and coping techniques. I also like to walk folks through the common interventions that they might face in a hospital setting. 

Katie: Yay, all the things! 

Moss: Yeah! 

Kaite: What are you queering right now?

Moss: I guess the thing that’s on my mind the most because I just taught my birth worker workshops that I do to try to get other birth workers up to speed on gender-affirming practice. I’ve been thinking a lot about queering language around birth and around care in general. I think it’s interesting because most of what I’m saying when I’m talking to people about queering language for birth, or about neutralizing language for birth is that it’s mostly all about just asking people what words they use to talk about themselves. It’s like, actually, not necessarily exclusive to queerness or transness. Really, this is helpful for everybody. Ultimately that person-centered approach to language ends up working better for everybody involved, cause everybody gets to feel affirmed in whatever their life experiences. Their experiences with their body, and their experience with growing a baby inside of them. I guess language is my answer. 

Katie: So important. It feels like both so basic and also can’t really be overstated – how important it is to use the words that people use. 

Moss: Yeah – I think it’s a cultural thing, or in terms of specific birth culture or birthwork culture. We get used to using certain words to describing certain things. Even just speech patterns and stuff. Just because of the way you’re taught, and training, and the way other birth workers are taught. We’re all just getting into the habit of using certain words or doing things in certain ways. They’re not necessarily person-centered or client-centered, but it is really easy to fall into the pattern of doing them. 

Katie: Yeah. As you said, they’re habits of speech. 

Moss: I feel like that says a lot about how….. There’s so much “mommy talk” in birth world, obviously, but especially with birth workers and clinicians just calling people “mom” and “mommy” all the time, instead of calling them their name. It’s like – I don’t know that any.. Probably not most… Most people probably don’t love that, even if they do identify as moms – I think most people probably don’t love other fellow adults calling them mom all the time. It is a pattern thing that you just sort of pick up when you’re in the normative, regular birth world. So it just gets reiterated over and over again with new workers. That’s one of those places where it’s like – no one really wants this to be happening. Let’s just stop doing it! It’s not necessary. (laughs) But it’s easy to fall into, I get it. 

Katie: What inspired you to do the work you do, what got you into birth work?

Moss: I was totally called into this work by my community. Initially, I got inspired to learn about birth and birth work on my own when I was… I got a women’s studies degree in college in Florida. This was before most things were rebranded as “women and gender studies” this was just a “women’s studies degree” (laughs). I learned a lot about birth when I was studying that stuff, I learned about the existence of doulas. I never was exposed to anything about birth growing up. It wasn’t until academic studies that I even learned that doulas existed. I originally was just immediately drawn to the world of it and drawn to birth and drawn to doula work because I’ve always been a person that’s really plugged into the very animal pieces of being a human being. There’s not many places in society where you get to really experience that, and birth is just one of those places where we’re all able to get deep into our animal selves. I was really drawn to it for that reason. I’ve always been a person who, for better or worse, grew up focused on supporting other people (as a person), so the idea of doulas just immediately called to me. It wasn’t until later in my life when the people around me (my close friends) started getting pregnant and are trans and I was just really called into becoming a doula when I was seeing how little resources were available to my friends who needed them. In particular, the first birth that I attended was that of one of my best friends and I was so excited when they told me that they were pregnant. I was like, “I’m gonna get in there and find you all the resources that are for you!” and I was just really coming up short, and there was not a lot out there that I could find for them that was affirming, or just even really spoke to their experience. For them, basically, I was like, alright, I’m gonna become a doula and I’m gonna be your doula. I’m gonna just start making resources and start adapting resources so you can get the information that you need without being totally thrown into a dysphoric experience or just not being able to take in the information because it’s so obnoxiously gendered. I was really called to become a doula by my friends, and now, that’s kind of my favorite thing about it. Just getting to work with people, and getting to just be with my sweet fellow queer and trans folks as we make our way through birth journeys. 

Katie: Absolutely, so it sounds like you’ve been in support roles in many parts of your life – both before, now, always… How do you talk to people about your support philosophy? 

Moss: My support philosophy… I feel like so much of it is just really, taking the time to get to know people, so you can fully understand what people need in terms of support on a deeper level. There’s so much that you can offer off the bat like, “I know how to do this thing, and I know how to do hip squeezes, and I know how to suggest labor positions” and stuff like that, but if you don’t really understand somebody and where they’re coming from… it’s so much harder to support them in the right way, basically. One of my main focuses in working with folks, in terms of any service on people’s reproductive path, a lot of it is taking a lot of time to just talk and just hang out and get to know each other. Having that background of experience with somebody can first of all, make them so much more comfortable with having you around when they’re in these deeply vulnerable moments. Also can just make it so much easier to figure out.. Anticipate needs, anticipate how someone might need you to plug in at any given moment. 

Katie: Absolutely, that relationship work is so fundamental. Any body in the room can do — most bodies in a room can do a hip squeeze. Not any random person who happens to show up in your birth space can hold the knowledge of a relationship that you’ve been building together and the parts of you that may or may not actually show up in labor, or may show up in unexpected ways. So important. 

Moss: I think so much of feeling supported in a birth space, or in any sort of vulnerable space, is the sensation of feeling seen is so much of what feels supportive. The better you know someone, the better you can be fully present to see them for who they are and have them understand that you see them for who they are. 

Katie: So, I’ve asked you a little bit about your natal work and now I wanna know about your natal chart. What’s your sun, moon, rising. 

Moss: I’m a Leo sun, and a Leo rising and I’m a Gemini moon. 

Katie: Wowowow. Bringing the Fi-yerrr!

Moss: For sure. Which – it was confusing growing up as a not very confident child cause all the horoscopes are like, “YOU are so confident! And you know what you’re doing!” I was like, “I don’t know.” but I feel like in my adult life I’ve figured out my Leo-ness, I’ve figured out what it means. 


Katie: It’s a thing to grow into. 

Moss: Exactly, I had a whole journey about it (laughs). 

Katie: What’s your favorite thing about bring a queer support person or working with queer and trans famlies? 

Moss: I think my favorite pieces is the “getting to know people” piece. It’s so joyful for me to get to meet a family, and really getting to know them, and seeing their family grow. Or support them through whatever intense emotional pieces are their puzzle and really get to maintain that relationship over time and see their babies grow up or see them have whatever journey their families go on. It’s super rewarding. I think it’s an experience of community-building. It’s like getting to know people, and also getting to connect people to each other, wether that’s clients here in Baltimore that I get to be like, “Ooh, here are these other queer families that have just recently gone through this thing that you’re going through.” I love getting to connect people to each other. And stay connected to people. 

Katie: [cat obscures Katie] I love that community-building pieces, that’s such an important resource that you offer the folks that you’re supporting.

Moss: Yeah! And it’s been fascinating in the virtual world, because it’s simultaneously super isolating for people but also the way that we can have community has really expanded throughout space so much. I have been running this “Trans and Gestating” support group on Zoom and so, I’ve gotten to connect with and meet all of these trans folks who are building their families all over the place, beyond the United States. Even folks in Canada and Australia, so far… Really seeing them build relationships with each other has been so cool, so I think that is some weird silver lining about living in quarantine world right now. [cat still obscuring Katie] I’m loving this guest appearance. 

Katie: Truffle is now also conducting this interview. Truffle would like to know, if you could improve one thing (or one of the things on what I’m sure is a very long list of things) about the experience of conception, pregnancy, birth, postpartum for queer and trans families, what would it be?

Moss: I think it’s just access to quality care, for me. It’s so hard to find medical providers who are, for one thing, queer and trans-affirming, but another thing – not super bogged down into the implicit bias and racism. It’s so hard to build our provider recommendation lists because providers are so few and far between who are trans-aware, even. Let alone trans-affirming. So many of us are trying to chip away at that problem by training people, and by building relationships with providers, but it’s very slow and hard work. That would be the piece that I would hope will change over time and more quickly than it’s currently changing. I guess that’s the thing. 

Katie: Totally. And what’s a piece of advice you have for new or aspiring queer and trans birth workers? 

Moss: I think that, honestly, based on my own personal experience – working with your friends and sort of being called into the work by the people who are in your community and around you is the best way to get started, in my experience. I trained as a doula many years before I actually started practicing, so I have that experience of like, “OK I did my training! Who wants me to be their doula? I don’t really know why you want me to be your doula, but I’m here… to try..” and so, I had that and I didn’t end up working with any clients out of that feeling of, y’know, not being plugged into any kind of community or birth scene, not feeling totally prepared to start, but trying to start. I think a lot of people have that sensation when they’re getting going. The difference between that experience that I had, and the experience of like, “OK, my good friend needs somebody and I wanna rise to the occasion and be kind of that person” is huge. I know that’s a very lucky, special position to be in, to be like, “Oh, I magically have a great friend who wanted me to be their doula.” I think it really speaks to, more than anything else, being plugged into the queer and trans community around you. Just making sure that the people.. that you’re building community intergenerationally, making sure that people know that you are there for them when they need somebody. I guess that’s a convoluted piece of advice, but I think building community is the tl;dr on that. 

Katie: That’s so important, so often we talk about building community within “birth world” but being fully in all of the communities that you’re in, is I think, so essential and yeah – making sure that the people who might need you know you are there is really important and I think often gets overlooked, especially in cis-het birth world. 

Moss: It’s a super different set of challenges. And a different approach (laughs). 

Katie: And are there any projects that you’re working on that you want help cross-pollinating with others in the community?

Moss: One thing that I’m really excited about is this trans birth worker hangout that we’ve done two months in a row so far, and we’re about to do our third one. This doesn’t take much work, because it’s really just like – we set up a call and whoever wants to hangout who is trans and a birth worker comes and hangs out. I just want folks to know that that is in existence and available, so. I should get an easier link to sign up, so I’ll work on that, but maybe we can post the link to it. 

Katie: We will post the link to that. 

Moss: Hell yeah. 

Katie: Ab. so. lute. ly. 5/5 stars, would recommend, can confirm. It’s fucking great. 

Moss: It’s so nice to get to talk to other trans birth workers.. There’s so many not trans birth workers out there! It’s wild to actually get to be in a virtual room just full of only trans birth workers. Other than that, I guess I’m always open to collaborating with other queer and trans birth workers on… I mean, the childbirth class that I’m running now, I love doing it and I would love to be referred to if folks are looking for a trans-centered childbirth ed course, but I’m also so here for collaboration – to create resources with other birth workers, so. If anyone out there is trying to work on creating resources, whether that’s videos or PDFs or any kind of helpful resource, I am so here to collaborate on stuff like that. 

Katie: Amazing, make all the resources. 

Moss: Yeah, we just have a lot of gaps to fill. And I wanna work together to do that. 

Katie: For. Sure! Yes. And what’s something not-natal/reproductive-related about you and your life that you wanna share?

Moss: Well, I guess this is a good way to talk about my other work, which is I’m a worker-owner with Red Emma’s. We’re a cooperative bookstore and vegan restaurant and we’re trying to figure out what all of that means in Covid world, cause we’re owned by the workers, we’re not gonna make ourselves work super close to the public when we have our own families and selves and everything else to consider. We’re not currently open for people to come inside, but we are selling books online, which is one of the things that I love to do the most, is do the book-selling work. RedEmmas.org is our website, and you can buy lots of books, related to birth work there, because I’m one of the book sellers, so I’m always trying to make sure that we have the good things available. For instance, we just got in ten copies of “Why did no one tell me this? (the doula’s honest guide to birth and labor for expectant parents)” or some sort of subtitle like that. 

Katie: This one. It’s this one!! [Katie holds up “Why Did No One Tell Me This? The doula’s honest guide for expectant parents”] (laughs)

Moss: (laughs) I love… cooperative work is some of the — what I’ve been dedicated my life to, in my adult life, that I feel is the most vital thing that I could be doing besides supporting people in their reproductive journeys. So, yeah, I love my cooperative and I love Baltimore. One of the things that is so special about Red Emma’s is that we’re able to be building space and building free education and building community … It’s harder in covid world, but before we couldn’t let people inside, so much of it was about building space to be accessible by our community and for organizing, for just friendship and radical joy and whatnot. Being able to do that work with a coop of other weirdos, we’re just such a group of… a rag tag group of weirdos. We’re at least 50% trans, and we’re just all over the place, and I love them. (laughs) That’s the thing. Red Emma’s. 

Katie: There’s just so much beautiful joy to be found, even in just watching you describe the experience of that community. 

Moss: Awwe, yeah. 

Katie: So, finally, where can people find you on the Internet?

Moss: Yeah! I have a website, at www.mossthedoula.com. I’m also on Instagram @mossthedoula. I am on Facebook, but I would say that’s like, I’m trying to be engaged on Facebook but I’m maybe not as engaged as I am on Instagram, but… I think you can also find me there, Facebook.com/MossTheDoula. I’m all over those places, but yeah my website has all the info about all of the services that I offer and all of the trainings I have coming up, and classes. Feel free to also DM me or email me, I’m moss.froom@gmail.com. Please, anyone, email me for pretty much any reason. 

Katie: (Laughs) Alright, everybody email Moss. 

Moss: If you feel like it (laughs)

Katie: Alright, thank you so much, it was such a joy getting to hear from you. 

Moss: Thank you. I so appreciate that y’all are doing this. It was great to talk to you, also!

Categories
interviews

Chaney Williams

Chaney Williams. She/They. @TheIntersectionalDoula & their website. Help Chaney pay for midwifery school!

Emma: Well, welcome. I’m excited to spend some time this afternoon with you and to hear more about your practice, and your studies and what you’re working on. So let’s start there – tell us about you, and your practice and what you offer to the world?

Chaney: My name is Chaney Williams, my pronouns are she/they. I kind of go into this on Instagram a lot, but I really feel like birth work is a calling for me. I think it’s an interesting word, cause my granny’s a nun, so she’s always talked about her calling from God and stuff like that. I’m not a religious person at all, I’m more spiritual, but I really do feel like birth work, specifically midwifery, is something I was called to do. I believe in a lot of ancestral stuff, ancestral healing, and I feel like this was just a part of what I’m here for, if that makes sense. So, I did a doula training with DTI in 2018 and it was a person of color, queer doula training, which was cool. It was for birth and postpartum. In that spring of 2018, I did a full-spectrum doula training with Louiville Doula Project, which is a full-spectrum doula collective which I’ve been really heavily involved with since then and they do sliding scale postpartum, birth, abortion and miscarriage support – which I think is a really important thing. Oh, and I’m in midwifery school, which is a big one! I’m like, what else should I say (laughs). So, I started midwifery school in the fall, I started in August and I’m at Birthwise. I’m really excited to be there, cause I actually found them, when I did my doula training with DTI, and I started looking, cause I knew midwifery was a thing I wanted to do eventually. It was just – they were just a school that really stood out to me because it really aligned with my values, if that makes sense. 

Emma: Yeah, that definitely does make sense. I love all these little upcroppings of queer birth workers, rooted in the full-spectrum collectives that are dotted around the world. 

Chaney: I do too, it makes me so happy!

Emma: It’s awesome, I’m so glad you’re in midwifery school! It sounds like many folks who start attending births, and attending doula trainings and stuff, as a stepping stone to this eventual goal. So it sounds like you’re in the middle of that, which is amazing. I’m curious, what are you queering right now? 

Chaney: Can you go more into that… Haha, I know how I would take that, but, yeah..

Emma: Yeah, people can interpret it differently! Anything – is there anything that you are making queer, or with your impact, with your perspective on it.. 

Chaney: One thing that’s been really important to me is, so, I’m also polyamorous – I’m ethically non-monogamous, and intersecting that along with birth work is really important in the queer community. That’s something I’ve been really diving into, and with school.. I don’t think there’s a lot of providers right now who give care from that kind of lens. All those intersections, if that makes sense. One big thing I’m working on, I did a mini research project in school about it is BDSM in pregnancy. Because I think that’s a thing that’s not really talked about, do you know what I mean?

Emma: I do know what you mean, haha.

Chaney: Yeah, it’s just not! I’m really glad I have really great faculty and was able to find really good resources from people online of things that I thought just need to be more widely known. You know what I mean? Because, it’s just not talked about, it’s seen as “taboo.”

Emma: Absolutely. Or it is talked about, but it is just talked about in the kink community and not at all in the pregnancy community. 

Chaney: There’s not an intersection and there should be. 

Emma: Absolutely. 

Chaney: There’s just so many things that I feel like pregnant people and providers need to know. 

Emma: Yes!

Chaney: Information and resource wise, and not feeling embarrassed or like they’re gonna be judged for bringing that up. 

Emma: A hundred percent, yeah! I love that, I agree with you, I don’t think that there’s a ton of providers that would self-identify as non-monogamous, or as kinky, or whatever, but we’re in the pipeline (laughs). Like, these people are in school right now (laughs) they are gonna be your providers in like, a year or three. So glad you’re a part of that, that’s amazing. I feel so happy to see birth workers online creating these dialogues about all the things, and I’m like – oh I’ve mentioned this to like, my clients that I know are queer and kinky and poly, and that’s it… (laughs)

Chaney: I think a thing I struggled with for a while is thinking that people would see me as “unprofessional” for talking about that kind of stuff. But my big thing is if it impacts people’s care, I think it’s something that should be talked about from a very… there’s a way to be appropriate and about it. I’m not gonna be like, “This is my experience!” but providing that information I think is really important. And bringing up that conversation. 

Emma: Yeah, and when it’s your calling, I’m not saying don’t be professional – but it’s so much more than just professional, too. So, that’s amazing. Thank you for sharing that. So I think that totally hit, yeah, that is what you’re queering right now. I’m down (laughs).

Chaney: Yeah, that’s what I’m queering right now. I’m really diving into research around that. Connecting with people who also have interests in making it more widely available for people to find out that kind of research. 

Emma: Amazing, anyone who’s into that- come find Chaney, that’s amazing. So, originally, I know that you said that this is a calling for you, but how did that come about? Did you just have dreams about birth? What originally inspired this?

Chaney: From a young age, I’ve always been really interested in birth. My mom, I grew up hearing a lot about our birth stories. My older sister, she was born at 26 weeks in like 1984 and she was really, really premature. So I always grew up knowing her birth story and my mom’s experience with it. I think that started cause they also really documented our births, really well and told us about it. My mom still has the nature sound tape she listened to while laboring with me and it’s on my altar. 

Emma: That’s the sweetest thing!

Chaney: She found it a couple years ago, I was like, “Oh, what is this?” and she was just like “Oh! That’s what I listened to while laboring with you” and I was like, “You still have it?!” That’s so incredible!

Emma: Yeah, do you even have a cassette player, like, can we listen..

Chaney: We have a cassette, like a CD/cassette player. 

Emma: Amazing. Don’t ever get rid of it!


Chaney: Yeah, I’m never gonna get rid of it! And she also had this book from when she was pregnant with my sister, it was in 1983 and it’s all about labor and pregnancy. The pictures are just so cool and I was really into it when I was like 3-5. I would show people who were visiting our house like, “Have you seen this?? Did you know this was a thing?” That kind of view about it – it was just so magical and mesmerizing to me if that makes sense. So I think it started from there, and then it just built upon that. 

Emma: So cool, I love that. The kid who brings the science textbooks to preschool. 

Chaney: Yeah!! The pictures are just really, they’re just amazing – really unedited, they’re very clear, they’re just all the different things you just wanna know but you wouldn’t see in a book nowadays. Because.. probably now, but not the late 90s, early 2000s.

Emma: Yeah, you have to go a certain length back in childbirth education to find better content. I know you’ve touched on this in all your answers, but do you have a particular philosophy that you bring when you’re doing birth work or postpartum care?

Chaney: So, I guess my big philosophy is coming from my care in a not judgmental place, totally unbiased, trauma-informed. It’s really important to me to think about people’s experiences and the experiences I know and I don’t know of. And bringing all those intersections together to be the best provider I can be for them. A big thing that I’ve been working with – it goes back to me being more open about being poly or stuff like that – is one of my mentors, and my therapist also said this, it’s something I’ve brought up with her… There are the right birth workers for everyone, and just because I’m not the right birth worker for someone doesn’t mean there’s not someone else who they are. It’s not a thing where… I was in a place where I didn’t want to be as open about some things, cause I didn’t want to be ostracised. But it’s really important to live my life in an authentic way, because if I don’t do that, it makes me really anxious. It’s important for people to know that people are human, and we’re all human beings, and we all have different experiences. Bringing that to the table and using that when I’m giving care to someone, and being like – I don’t know all of their experiences. There could be things here that I don’t know about, or different sections of their identity that could affect that care, remembering those things. Keeping it in my brain. Cause that’s how I would want to be treated. 

Emma: Totally, beautifully put. So, we know about your natal work and we wanna know your natal chart. So tell us your sun/moon and rising!

Chaney: I really like astrology, and tarot and stuff like that, so excited to talk about this. So my sun is Cancer, my rising is Leo and my moon is in Libra. 

Emma: Fun! I like a Libra moon, I’m a Libra. 

Chaney: You are? Cool. Is it your sun or..

Emma: It’s my sun, yeah, but my sister and my dad are both Cancers, so I’m into a Cancer..

Chaney: Love that, love that. I feel like whenever I tell people I’m a Cancer, they’re like, “That makes sense with the line of work that you’re in.”

Emma: Definitely, do you wanna expound on that a little bit. I really love hearing birth workers theorize about their star charts and their callings…

Chaney: Cancers, especially suns are known as being nurturers. I’ve always been like that since I was a kid. I’ve always loved babies and if we have a family Christmas party, I was the one that was like 6 years old, holding a baby, or playing with the littler kids and reading to them or stuff like that. A lot of my work I’ve done during college and after – I did work at a Montessori school, at a forest school. I just love working with kids. That’s one of my favorite things. I think that comes in a lot with my nurturing side, if that makes sense. With the Leo rising, I dunno (laughs) that one, I feel like there’s a part of me that’s very much an introvert, but when I’m around people and meeting them for the first time, I’ll turn my personality on. That’s what I call it. I’ll bring my personality out more in a way that I wouldn’t be…. I just do. This is what I need to do right now, and that makes sense. I’m very sassy, which, that’s just a thing. 

Emma: I love it. I can tell, I love a little sassy Leo. Thanks for going there with me. So what is one of your favorite things about doing birth work with queer families or being a queer poly kinky birth worker?

Chaney: I guess my favorite thing is, so much is changing about care in a way that makes me really hopeful and happy. I didn’t go into this, but when I first heard about doula work, I was 14. I read a zine that I just happened to order and it was supposed to be there, I was supposed to order it. It was 2006 or 2005 and they were certifying with DONA in like Portland Oregon or something like that. This seems like something I want to do, and I just felt really called to it, but I never heard about abortion doulas or any other kind of fertility doulas or anything like that. I feel like the birth world is making so many strides and I’m really excited about that. It’s becoming more not a more safer, comfortable place, I feel like, but it’s becoming more inclusive, and that’s so important to me. Because everyone deserves care in a way that is comprehensive and evidence-based and a space that’s not where they feel like they’re judged. I’m most excited about all the changes that have happened in the birth world since I first found out about it. 

Emma: Yeah, that’s amazing. Even just thinking about that, 2006 or 7 to now. Just the last 13, 14, 15 years. So much. 

Chaney: When I think about the first things that I read, compared to the things that are available now, it’s just incredible. Everything was very “mom centric,” which is not for everyone, and not everyone who gives birth identifies as a mom. That was something that really, I struggled with for a while. There’s books I haven’t finished because of that perspective. And now there’s actually really great resources I can recommend to people that are not just from one point of view. I love that, that makes me so excited. 

Emma: Yeah, and I think that you point to a really important thing for other folks who wanna do birth work. It is, for queer people, especially for trans and gender non conforming and non binary people.. Fuck reading most midwifery textbooks, truly. It’s rough.

Chaney: That’s the thing I love about the school I’m at right now, and why I chose them. They are really doing the work, I feel like, that needs to be done for midwifery to be at the place it should be, and they want it to be. It’s really important to them. Even in our classes, we use inclusive language. We did a history of midwifery thing, but usually history of midwifery would be about history starting in the 1800s, cause that’s when home birth started.

Emma: Yeah, or like the 1960s.

Chaney: The 1960s! But it had all different backgrounds, different cultures and time periods. One of the big things was: home birth and midwifery has been here since the beginning of time. And that’s so important! There’s not one person who “made home birth popular.”

Emma: Absolutely, and on that note, if there’s something that you could improve about the experience for queer and trans families, LGBTQ+ folks who are concieving, birthing.. What would that be? What do you wanna improve?

Chaney: I feel like I have a lot of answers for this, so I feel like I’m just gonna go with one perspective. It’s a really big question. Having more access to the providers and care they deserve. I even know, my own experience and I’m not trying to conceive right now or anything like that, not pregnant, but going to the doctor can be scary because you don’t know… I also live in a fat body, and that’s a whole other layer of it. I want people to have the access and care they need and want and desire, because so much … a good example is, people, if they don’t feel comfortable just getting a checkup, so many things can happen between that time before it’s an urgent thing. I want people to feel welcome and like they’re getting the care they deserve and need. 

Emma: Of course, let’s start there. 

Chaney: Let’s just start with the basics, just having (sigh) not providers that are just accepting, because I think that’s just a skin, like a little layer of it. People who actually understand and care and get things. There needs to be more trainings, and stuff like that. Everywhere. Everyone needs to have that kind of training when they go to school, so they can understand more.

Emma: Definitely, and especially for folks who don’t specifically seek out programs that are already doing that. For everyone else that’s just in any program. 

Chaney: Yeah! Yeah. They should just.. Worldwide, that should be the baseline, and it’s not. And that makes me sad. 

Emma: I hear that. Well, things that can make us happy are new and aspiring queer and trans birth workers cause there’s a bunch of em. 

Chaney: I know, makes me so excited!

Emma: So what advice do you have for folks who wanna do what you do?

Chaney: I guess figuring out why they’re in it. Why they want to do this kind of work. What their philosophy or perspective is. And finding people who you can connect with, whether it be on instagram, social media or in person. Who have similar values to you, philosophies, I guess you could say. It can be really isolating. If you just live somewhere where there’s not a lot of people who have this point of view as you do, when it comes to birth work. Because when I first started getting into it, it was a lot of, I keep on using this word, but “mom centric” stuff, and very… I didn’t feel like I fit in there, but I found people in my own community and online who get my point of view. I think it’s really important having that kind of support. And finding an organization or school that mimics your values that you feel comfortable with. 

Emma: Excellent, well, I know you have a lot going on right now with midwifery school, but are there any projects you’re working on that you want to cross pollinate in the community of queer birth workers? Or do you need support for anything you’re working on? 

Chaney: I’m really, I really wanted to make a support group for poly or kinky families and stuff like that. That’s something I’ve been thinking about for like….. It’s been gestating for a couple years. There aren’t a lot of resources for that, I guess you’d say. And that’s something that’s really important to me. That’s just something I’m brainstorming, gesting right now and trying to figure it out. I think it’s something that’s needed. 

Emma: It’s absolutely needed, I love that. And I love the idea, again, we said earlier.. There’s discussions about pregnancy in the kink world in that context and then we have everything else. We need like, kinky pregnant people just going to the grocery store, having playdates with their kiddos (laughs), navigating lactation. 

Chaney: That should be the norm! That’s what’s going on, but people don’t have that perspective, I think. They think it’s for, like, 50 shades of grey. Which. (Laughs). 

Emma: Unfortunately, that exists. Well, I love that you’re doing that, and hopefully other folks can help you bring that into existence. I will definitely keep that in mind for my clients.


Chaney: Thank you!

Emma: Well, what’s something about you that you want to share that’s not pregnancy/midwifery related? What’s something extra about your life that you want to share with us?

Chaney: I kind of got into this, but I really love witchy tarot stuff. Tarot’s my thing. That’s one of my favorite things. Creating little rituals where I can set intentions for myself and another thing, I guess, that not a lot of people know, that I have an MFA in creative writing. 

Emma: Okay, cool! (laughs)

Chaney: I went to school and got my BFA in creative writing poetry, so I do a lot of… I’ve done more publishing my personal essays because that’s something that’s interesting to me. Yeah, that’s just something I do. It’s kind of a way to process things. Most of writing is a way to process stuff that’s gone on in my life.

Emma: Absolutely, well, if you write a poetry book about being a kinky, poly midwife, I’m definitely gonna read it! 

Chaney: I want to write a memoir eventually. That’s been my goal since I was like, 15. 

Emma: I can see the experiences amassing as time goes on, amazing. Well, where can folks find you and support you and follow you online?

Chaney: Okay! So, I’m mostly on Instagram, I do not have a Facebook page. That’s just something I’ve never done. That’s just not my thing. I’m on Instagram as The Intersectional Doula. That’s where you can find my stuff, I also have a website and it’s linked on to my Instagram. That’s where all my stuff is!

Emma: Beautiful, we’ll make sure people can find you! Thank you so much for chatting with us!

Chaney: Thank you for giving your time and space in this interview, I enjoyed it! 

Categories
interviews

Alyssa Teixeira

Alyssa Texeira. she/her. @AlyssaTex and www.alyssateixeira.com

Emma: Alright! Well thank you so much for joining me today, I am excited to hear more about your practice and so why don’t we start there. Tell me about you and the work that you’re already doing, and, yeah, projects you’ve got going on.


Alyssa: So, like I kind of mentioned earlier, I started off doing sex education work, and I still do sex education work but it’s always been a passion and a dream of mine to kind of work in birth spaces. The weird thing about my life is I end up watching a documentary and it changes the course of my life, and I remember watching the documentary about birth monopolies and I was really taken aback by the fact that in our society today, there’s so much that falls through the cracks. So many people who fall through the cracks of birth work and there’s no need for that if we can support our own communities. The center of what I do is supporting my community. I love the community that I was raised in, it taught me everything that I know, and I just feel like it’s really important to give back to it. I think that something that I live by is: sexuality is everywhere. It’s in everything we do. No matter what you can think about, at the end of the day, it kind of ties back to sexuality somehow. Which is kind of a weird philosophy, which most people don’t necessarily identify with – like, what? I don’t understand. But sex and sexuality… sex isn’t just like, ‘doin’ the dirty’ y’know – it’s in lots of part of our lives. I think specifically, with my doula practice, as a queer person, I know people who had these really awful birth experiences. Something I always want to do is take the ‘othering’ effect out of healthcare and health education for queer people. Those are the two things that are my biggest goals for my doula practice – just center it around a community of folks who were able to share information, and then also take the othering factor out of care for queer people. We’re just like everyone else – we don’t need you to make it seem like, “ok, there’s this healthcare and then there’s your healthcare. There’s this birth experience, and then there’s your birth experience.” It’s kind of a long rambling rant, but those are two things that are important to me in my practice. 

Emma: That’s awesome, yeah, thanks for sharing that. I love hearing about being really rooted in a local community and at the same time reaching a larger audience online. I’ll ask you where people can find you later on. So on that note – uhh, what are you queering right now?

Alyssa: What am I queering right now? Well, let’s see… what am I not queering right now… I feel like every day of my life I’m just a big ole queer. One thing I’ve been really trying to do in my local community around some advocacy for healthcare in the queer community is trying to make a standardization across our local community clinics. Basically, when you have a chart, you typically have someone’s dead name, and their incorrect pronouns, right? Something I’ve been trying to work on with our county resources is creating some sort of system in our current systems where we can have on someone’s chart their correct name and their correct pronouns. Which is something that I feel very passionate about – making sure, at the basic level of care that you give someone is calling them by their right name and their right pronouns. In so many medical spaces, it’s traumatizing. It’s traumatizing to be in a medical space and just constantly have people get it wrong, y’know? At the end of the day, I think that no one should have to deal with that and no one should have to be their own advocate for that. That should be some behind the scenes stuff that someone else is doing or figuring out. You shouldn’t have to know about all the crazy BS that has taken to get there, but yeah. I’m currently trying to queer my community health clinics, is what I’m doing. 

Emma: That’s awesome. Queering institutional paperwork is necessary work, but obviously not everyone wants to do that. So that’s amazing – thank you. I hope that it can work out – let us know. If you figure out how to make that happen, and that’s just some kind of system we can put in place in all of the other counties…

Alyssa: Yeah! I’m working on trying to figure out a way to standardize it. Mainly, I have this issue where I constantly — it’s not an issue, it’s just me as a person — where I just knock on people’s doors and show up to people’s offices and cold call them all the time and they’re like, “Who are you?” and I’m like, I need to find a way to make sure I can standardize it so it’s not just a back door that I was able to get through, y’know?

Emma: Sure, yeah. But that’s… any way to get in. That’s really awesome. So I know we talked a little about this earlier, but what originally inspired you to do the work that you do today?

Alyssa: Like I mentioned before, documentaries have been a very persistent thing in my life. I watch a documentary, I get really upset, and I’m like, how can I change this? Birth work specifically – what called me to get involved is I’ve always been interested in care work. I think femme people are kind of always, even if they don’t want to be, called to do a lot of care work. Unfortunately, a lot of times, for free or low cost – right? Something that I was really really passionate about was providing care work in the realm of a reproductive sphere. That is something I was really passionate about, and something I felt was lacking in a lot of reproductive health outcomes. Whether that’s birth – whether thats abortion, whether that’s miscarriage. Whether that’s taking a pregnancy test, right? Something that was really a call to action for me was when I learned about the crazy disparity of maternal mortality rate in this country. Realizing that there’s no need for that, kind of was like, I have to be a part of the solution somehow. Combining my desire to be there and support people through whatever reproductive decision and also wanting to be a solution to the problem of maternal mortality rates kind of called me together, I think. It’s a combination of my own wanting to hold people’s hands and my own desire to be involved in some sort of activism. Something that is cool, but also sometimes a little disappointing, about working in reproductive health spaces is that – at the end of the day, it’s all kind of tied to activism. People with uteruses have for the longest time, been under the control of whoever wants to decide how your reproductive system is used. That is something that calls me to do the work. 

Emma: That’s awesome. And I know you touched on this a little earlier, thinking about the sex in everything – but what’s your support philosophy, that aside. Worldview, philosophy that’s included… y’know, what kind of lens do you bring to that support work?

Alyssa: The first and foremost philosophy I have for support work is that support work should be given to anyone and everyone who asks for it or needs it. If I’m not particularly the doula for you, or there’s someone who can advocate for you better, I will definitely help you figure that out. At the end of the day, I don’t ever want to turn someone away because they can’t pay for it or because they are in a situation where maybe their family doesn’t support their decisions. Whatever it might be. I think care work is a human right. Having someone to advocate for you and having someone to hold space for you is a human right, I feel like. Even though, it’s not really … people will argue with that, but I think it is. Having someone to just hold your hand through things is just something that humans need. So that’s at the base of everything, I’m like – no matter who you are, no matter what you do, no matter how things turn out for this pregnancy or for whatever reproductive decision you’re making – I wanna support you. I wanna be here for you. The other lens of that is, like I mentioned, the whole politicising of reproductive justice. What’s really important to me is bringing back the autonomy of a person in my practice. Making sure that I have the tools to support someone through understanding our own autonomy. Like I said, we live in a world where there’s a lot of situations where femmes or people with uteruses don’t have autonomy over their bodies or over their decisions in life. That’s the second tenant of my sort of practice philosophy – I really want to be able to give people the tools they need to …  I don’t like the word empower, because I feel like “empower” kind of implies that I’m giving you the power, when you already have the power. This is a whole ‘nother rant, but something that’s damaging and I don’t really like, is when specifically white women tend to try to say “I’m going to empower you” or “We’re going to empower you to do this this or that” to People of Color. Whatever it might be – I think what’s important is that you have a set of tools, let’s share a set of tools, and then let’s figure out how we can make the best outcome. I think, sharing knowledge is the other part there. I don’t ever feel like, we should protect a secret of like, “Oh, well this provider, y’know, said this this or this…” I just feel like sharing knowledge is really, really important. I think if we did more of that, you know what I mean, then some of the problems we have in the reproductive health sphere wouldn’t be so bad. There’s a lot of gatekeeping. I feel like this is a little rambly. (laughs)

Emma: Great! You covered so many good things! I think it’s great to have the breakdown “empowerment” conversation – what does it mean? What does it mean when you’re doing it for someone? And that gatekeeping of information – it’s so interesting to toe that line when chatting with clients about, “Oh, well do you know that hospital you’re choosing has xyz statistics of this.” or “I’ve seen that provider xyz.” It can be hard to share that stuff, but it is also life saving. And trauma preventing, and all that. So it’s just so important to bring those things up in these worlds. 

Alyssa: Especially when it’s like, the “mystery” around birth has forever been — ever since it got really medicalized, back in the 1900s, there’s this idea that birth is a secret and what happens in birth, no one really knows. You see this picture of it on TV where a woman is screaming, and she gets into the labor room and the baby pops out, right? I’ve met so many people who come to birth or come to their experiences like, “I’m just scared. I don’t know what happens. I don’t know what the process is.” Demystifying that is really important to just let people be able to support themselves best by having that information. 

Emma: Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing that. Well, we’ve heard a little bit about your natal work and your sex education work, I’m curious about your natal chart. So tell me your sun/moon and rising?

Alyssa: OK. So. If I tell everyone my sun, you guys have to promise not to think I’m the worst person ever. Because I am a Gemini. 

Emma: That’s alright- I’m a Gemini rising! It’s fine. 

Alyssa: You’re a Gemini rising? Okay.. Well, I am a Gemini. And everyone hates us. But I promise I’m not the worst. I am a Gemini sun, but my moon is Pisces, so I’m very emotional. I feel my feels. And my ascendent is a Capricorn, which I don’t really identify with particularly. That’s the one part of… My chart, every time I look at it, I’m like, “Yes. That’s it. That’s me.” But my ascendent? I just don’t relate with Capricorn vibes at all. 

Emma: Give it some time, we’ve had some lovely Capricorns, actually, that we’ve chatted with. Maybe you’ll get it through the queer realm.

Alyssa: I’ll be able to figure out the Capricorn vibe a little better. 

Emma: Note on Geminis though, I had a client once who was a Gemini, and was also a twin. And her baby was a Gemini also, due around that time. It was a single baby, but when the baby was born, her placenta had – it was two lobed, she had this beautiful, like the letter B or a heart, very much two placentas. She was like, “It’s my Gemini placenta.” and I was like, “You’re blowing my miiiiind.”

Alyssa: (laughs) The power of the Gemini, man. 

Emma: On all levels that day, for sure. 

Alyssa: I have a theory… people seem to think that Geminis are two faced, My theory is Geminis aren’t two-faced. Geminis are socially and emotionally intelligent, so they can adapt to different social situations. So that’s when people think, “Oh you’re one person with this person and you’re another person with this person.” No Karen, I’m just socially, emotionally, adept, alright??

Emma: I get it! You gotta read your audience, I gotta say.. Perfect. I love that. Thanks so much for going there with me. What is your favorite thing about being a queer support person and/or working with LGBTQ++ families? 

Alyssa: Maybe it’s because I am queer, and I just have this bias… Queer people.. They genuinely, just 100% full humans. They just embody what being a human is like, cause there’s so many varied…  people say, “the LGBTQ rainbow,” but I get why we call it a rainbow! When you look at the queer community, there are just so many beautiful colors. I think my favorite part about working with LGBTQ folks or queer communities is .. at the end of the day, while we all have wildly different stories and wildly different experiences, and we come from different places, there’s always… every time I have a conversation with a queer person, there’s always that one thing that we can connect on. Whether it’s that we talk about astrology, or we talk about Queer Eye, whatever it might be, there’s one thing that I can always find with people in my queer community to talk about. There’s a safety being in these communities, knowing we’ve all faced something. Trying to support other people through a collective trauma that queer people have experienced, there’s a bonding part there. I also really love working with queer youth, cause they’re so smart. They know so much more than I did when I was their age. They come up with all these new words and they’re always innovating things. I’m just like, “Y’all are cool. Y’all are really awesome.” I love working with queer youth, specifically. 

Emma: I love it. Thank you so much. Speaking of queer youth, maybe we can go there, I’m curious: If you could improve one thing about the conception, pregnancy, birthing, and postpartum process for queer and trans people, including maybe teens, what would it be? 

Alyssa: OK, one of my pet projects, like I said, is to one day live in a world where no one gets dead named on their chart. It’s something that’s pretty simple, I think. I think we can solve that issue. My pet project, my pet peeve in the world is like, I think we can live in a world where that doesn’t have to happen. We need to try. Something that’s really important to be is normalizing the process of getting pregnant. The different processes of getting pregnant. Often, people think there’s one way to create a family. I think it’s really important for us to change our mindset about how families are created and to normalize that maybe I adopt a child, maybe I do in vitro fertilization. Whatever it is, to normalize that and make it more accessible so that people know what their options are. Support those different outcomes and options. Something that’s important to me is giving .. part of education for young people, talking about how hormones, how top surgery, bottom surgery, whatever kind of medical transition you might be going through might affect your fertility in the future. Something that I’ve been trying to navigate while also towing the line is: when you’re a young person, you’re probably not thinking about if you want to get pregnant 20 years down the line. Unfortunately, for young trans people, it’s kind of something that you gotta keep in mind when you’re doing transition, right? First off, I think there should be sex education and health education that’s incluisve of trans young people, to begin with. In those rare educations that do exist, I think what’s really important is to talk about the different options that people might have growing up to create families. Tying that back in to being able to create a more open conversation about how families are made and created. 

Emma: Similar to what you were saying before about birth, like, you don’t SEE it happening. People aren’t involved – it’s not a community event. With these conception stories, they very much ARE for queer and trans people, involving many friend families and different care prodivers, and approval with therapists, and a whole community of people involved. There’s still that air of mystery about it, so, yeah.

Alyssa: I think that’s a super important thing to note on. The idea of making, creating communities again. I think, especially in these corona times, the emphasis on individuality in America has always been super up there. We could learn a lot from cultures and communities that really focus on supporting their communities. I think it would help a lot of the things happening in the world (laughs). 

Emma: I like your to do list, we’ll get on that this week. Get over our individualism. Love it. Well, for new or aspiring queer and trans sex educators, medical systems coordinators, birth doulas, do you have any advice? 

Alyssa: Well, as a newer doula, I would say, something I’ve always tried my best to do is not be afraid of “doing the wrong thing.” Because you’re going to do the wrong thing. So just knowing, it’s OK to mess up because that’s how we learn. It’s OK to take things slow. It’s OK to figure it out on your own time. The great thing about birth work and work around how our bodies work and how we operate in the world is that no one owns that information. No one is the one authority who can tell you, “This is how you do this.” or “This is how you do that.” Just trusting your intuition as a person in the world, knowing, “what’s right for me, what’s right for my clients, what’s right for my community?” How can we all be more comfortable with that. I think, my ultimate lesson takeaway would be to trust your own intuition because intuition is powerful. We often get these messages like, “Ah don’t listen to this voice in your head.” NO! Listen to the voice in your head. 

Emma: That’s awesome, thanks for that. I’d love to know something not necessarily sex or reproduction-related about you that you want to share. 

Alyssa: Let’s see. You probably can deduct this from my spazzy personality.. Up until very recently, like my entire life, I’ve done musical theatre. I loved doing musical theatre, I definitely will still continue to do musical theatre til I’m old. I wanna be that crotchety old woman who’s like in your community theatre, you know what I mean?

Emma: (laughs) I do know what you mean.

Alyssa: That’s like, my goal. But yeah, I did musical theatre my whole life and I’m very passionate about singin’ songs and dancin’ dances. I actually originally went to college to do musical theater and was like, I’m gonna be on broadway and all that jazz. Then life took a very different turn, and I was like, “Okay! We’re gonna do this instead.” Ope – skirt! The great thing about theatre is that you don’t have to be on broadway to do it. You can literally just be in your neighborhood Nativity scene, y’know?

Emma: Absolutely. I’m totally a theatre kid. I never took it past high school, but very much have a lot of very close, very favorite, queer friends from musical theatre summer camp. So shout out. (laughs)

Alyssa: That’s my favorite thing about looking back at my high school theatre department – we were all so queer. We were all so gay. You know what I mean, we just didn’t all know it at the time. 

Emma: Yeah, you knew it. Amazing. Well, awesome. Thanks so much for sharing all about you and your practice. If folks wanna follow you or learn more about you and your sex ed offerings and your doula offerings, where can they find you on the Internet? 

Alyssa: Yeah! So my Instagram is kind of where I post daily stuff, and updates about what I’m doing. That is @AlyssaTex and I also have my fancy website that I’m really proud that I made, cause I’m really bad with technology. www.alyssateixeira.com – my last name is kind of complicated Teixeira, it’s Portuguese. I’m sure you can just pop it into Google.

Emma: We’ll make sure people have a real link, too! Awesome, thank you so much Alyssa.

Alyssa: Yeah! Thank you!

Categories
interviews

Amber Matteson

Amber Matteson. She/her. Intimate Connections Doula Services.

Katie: Alright, well thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me. Let’s just start by telling us a little bit about yourself, about your practice. Where are you, what do you do?

Amber: So, I completed my birth doula training just over two years ago. I did it with DONA, but I did not certify with them. So, right after my training I jumped in and started working with Birthing Gently Maternal Health Program, which is at MGH and Brigham. They’re a volunteer doula service that pretty much offers service for anyone asking for it that otherwise probably wouldn’t have access. Usually they’re linked up by their OB or through Brigham & Women’s childbirth education classes that they offer. That’s kind of how I got my first few births under my belt, which was really cool. It was a really incredible experience to get to serve people from marginalized communities and get to serve people who otherwise, I didn’t even realize needed a doula. I worked with a 16 year old client who didn’t have any support or any family and I was the only one there. It was an incredible experience, obviously, and I think that just drew me more into the work than I already was. I realized how much I really needed to do this. And then, about a year ago, I launched my own website and did my own thing, which was scary and I did it. My website is still not done, but it’s a work in progress. So I am now working on starting consulting for other birth workers who are just looking to be more inclusive, whether or not that’s through their marketing, their branding, or they just want help being more inclusive with the language terms on their website, or if they’re looking specifically to start marketing to the LGBTQ community – if they want help with it.

Katie: Awesome, and where in the world geographically are you, where do you serve? 

Amber: I am just south of Boston, so I serve pretty much the entire Boston area anywhere. I also frequent Women and Infants in Rhode Island cause it’s only like 45 minutes from me, so. But now I can’t go there, cause of covid…

Katie: Yeah!

Amber: Can’t cross state lines right now.. But normally, I would go there. 

Katie: What are you queering right now?

Amber: Oh god, I– everything??? Technically?? I’m feel like my existence is a bunch of queer. In all seriousness, to call out all of my labels – I am queer, I identify as fat, I identify as femme, I am polyamorous, I am kinky. Pretty much everything about me is pretty queer (laughs). It’s pretty different and so, I bring queer in my every day life. In terms of my birth work, the process is ever-evolving of queering my business. I think it’s so important to both market yourself to families who just want to be inclusive and want to work with somebody who is queer or to queer families, cause I want queer families to feel safe while they’re giving birth or in the birth process in any kind of way and to feel safe with me. 

Katie: Absolutely. And what inspired you to do the work that you do? What initially got you into birth work?

Amber: Man… so, the story goes: that I was a doula at nine years old. 

Katie: YESS.

Amber: I attended my brother’s birth, when he was born. Him and I have a nine year age gap and we’re the closest of close. But I attended my mom’s birth and it was beautiful, wonderful, and the nurses that day were just like – is she gonna be a nurse when she grows up, because has she ever done this before? I had my mom walking the halls and she had preeclampsia so she was pretty much bed bound when she was in active labor because she was so swollen and she had blew up like a balloon. I freaking love birth work and that’s kind of where it started, was when I was nine. I went to school and thought I wanted to be a teacher, and in my undergrad had finished school and then kind of floated around in the job world and my friend out of nowhere was like, “Oh yeah, I think I’m gonna become a doula!” and my friend started talking to me about it I was like, “This is really cool..” not four months later I was doing a training and starting my own business, cause I was like, “Oh, that makes a lot of sense. That’s probably where I should go and that’s how I ended up here.”

Katie: Incredible, incredible. I want more baby queer doula children running around. 

Amber: Right? 

Katie: Wowowow, the dream. I am changing everything that I could ever envision if I were to ever give birth, wow- amazing. 

Amber: Right? Just wanna give birth to so many little queerlings. Little queer doulas everywhere. 

Katie: Little queerlings around – ohhh!!

Amber: Yeah, so I was a nine year old little munchkin running around the hospital helping people. 

Katie: So good. And how would you describe your support philosophy? 

Amber: I think the baseline that all births, bodies and choices around birth are completely valid. That’s kind of the baseline – no matter how somebody chooses to identify, or identifies and chooses to give birth is completely valid and I’m there to support their choices. But… I use trauma-informed care in my support, my work is Health at Every Size centered. I’ve done a ton of work around HAES and kind of intuitive eating and those things and that’s so important to my work. As a queer fat femme, I want other fat femmes to feel good giving birth in their bodies and know that their bodies are not bad cause they’re big. So, that’s really important to me and obviously — not obvious, but I feel like it should be — that all of my care is evidence-based. It’s kind of cheesy but this is how I named my business, my business name is Intimate Connections Doula Services and I think that the connection between a doula and a birthing person is just so incredible and so so important and it’s important that we build off of those connections too. That’s kind of where I ended up naming my business, was around my own philosophy of that care and that level of connection that you have to have with the person that you’re working with. 

Katie: Absolutely. And, so… I asked you about your natal work, and so I also need to know about your natal chart. What’s your sun/moon/rising?

Amber: So, my sun is in Capricorn. My moon is Saggitarious and my rising is Scorpio. 

Katie: I’m also a Capricorn sun, so – always excited to find another one. 

Amber: More Capricorns. I’m an almost New Year’s Eve baby, December 30th. I’ve been told that my business self is the Capricorn cause I’m very type-a when I’m at work but everything else in my life is not so type-a. Like, my Sagittarius is all my feelings. My Scorpio is my mama bear side, cause I’m a fierce protector of my family. It’s funny, my friends all call me the mama bear and they’re not wrong. They’re really not. So that’s a little bit about me (laughs). They’re all very accurate, they all fit me very well. 

Katie: I also feel like so much of birth work sits in that intersection of like “spreadsheets and feelings.”

Amber: Spreadsheets and feelings. Like, how many feelings can I have about my spreadsheets?

Katie: Limit does not exist. 

Amber: Does not exist (laughs)

Katie: What would you say your favorite thing is about being a queer support person or working with LGBTQ+ families?

Amber: My heart. That’s my favorite thing. 

Katie: The feelings! Moreso than the spreadsheets..

Amber: Feelings is the big things. Working with queer famlies in particular just warms my heart to have my community feel supported and if someone’s coming to me and is birthing with me, as in: One, it’s such an honor to be there for those moments. And it creates this beautiful community. The more that we grow within our own queer community, it’s even more beautiful and if we’re having this tiny queerling baby: hey, welcome! Welcome to this big beautiful community that we created for you. I think that that’s.. The queer community for me is family. I don’t have kind of blood family, I guess. I have a lot of baggage with family, and that is my family. So for me, queer communtiy for me is that. It’s family. Watching your family literally grow is incredible. 

Katie: I’m just so into the idea of these little queerlings being born into this queer family and surround… ugh. Yes. 

Amber: Surrounded by good queer energy. It doesn’t get better!!

Katie: Doesn’t get better. And if you could improve one thing about the experience of pregnancy and birth for queer and trans families, what would it be? 

Amber: I want to make it all better… but if it was one thing it would be for providers that they’re working for that are not educated or not trained that at the very least to treat the family with respect. I think it’s faded away in OB care and hospital care that there’s a person in front of you. Like, it’s not just a person in a room taking up a bed. It’s this person and this family and these people and they deserve to be respected and they deserve your respect at baseline. Even if you’re not trained, even if you’re not educated. You don’t understand, and if you don’t understand someone’s identity, at least respect. At least show up to have the conversation and be willing to be educated. Because, I think that would make a huge difference. That alone, just showing up to say “OK, I’ll listen” is enormous. I think that would make a huge shift and change within OB care. 

Katie: Yeah, for sure. There’s so much about the process of obstetric care that is so objectifying. 

Amber: Yeah! Absolutely. And I just feel like there’s so much that I would change but I feel like that one thing. If we could get every single provider who comes in contact with this family to just respect them. That would be enough – for a little while. 

Katie: Wouldn’t get you everything, but if you had to start. 

Amber: Right. If you had to start somewhere, with one thing, that’s what it would be. 

Katie: And what’s a piece of advice that you have for new or aspiring queer and trans birth workers?

Amber: One, trust yourself. Trust yourself getting into this work is important and good, and if you want to do this you should. Even if it feels like no one out in the universe is listening and you have like three followers on instagram – keep going. Keep going, cause you will find your community and you will find your birth partners. It doesn’t matter where you are. There’s gonna be another queer. There is, I promise you. Just keep looking, and I think that would be the thing. From trusting yourself to get into this work, and then find your community. And find your people. This work is super hard and can be really draining. It’s important to have people you can lean on who can really understand it. Unless you’re part of birth work, I don’t think you can fully “get it”… It’s funny, cause I have a friend of many, many years who is also a doula and sometimes we’ll just text each other randomly, out of the blue – we’re not friends that talk to very often. But like, we’ll text each other randomly, out of the blue to be like “I NEED to tell you about this THING. This birthy thing that no one else is gonna get cause it’s a random birthy thing.” So I think it’s just so important to have those connections with people that are gonna understand you, and are gonna understand the viewpoint that you’re coming at it from, too. 

Katie: There’s the friends you can text weird stuff to, and then there’s the friends you can text weird placenta stuff to. And those are somehow, different…

Amber: Those are somehow, selectively different. Like, you can tell me all about your beautiful birth experience, but who can you send a picture of the placenta to?

Katie: That’s the crew you need. 

Amber: Right! Thats… that’s the crew you need. I have to say sorry, my cat is screaming in the background. I think he saw a bird? I don’t know. I have four of them. 

Katie: What are their names?

Amber: So, we have Finn who is the oldest, who usually just goes by Mr. Man, because he is Sir Proper Paws of the house. He is also the oldest, the grumpiest and the most arthritic. (laughs) We have Griffin who’s next in line, who is just a fat orange couch potato. He is 25 pounds of fluff. Then we have Gizmo, who is my middle rescue, and he … we rescued him from the MSPCA and he loves to be outside on a leash, but he doesn’t like to go outside alone. And then we have our baby, who is three, and that is Mr. Noodle, who is .. his real name is Oscar, but we call him Mr. Noodle, because he walks around like a noodle. We think he had some sort of brain injury as a kitten, and he has a lazy eye and he is a little wonky. He gets the zoomies a lot. He is the sweetest thing. I think he’s about somewhere… So those are my four! 

Katie: Love it. So good. Are there other not-birth related things about you or your life that you want to share?

Amber: Sure, well, my first fun fact is always that I have four cats and that my house is a zoo. My partner and I each had two when we moved in together and that’s how we ended up with all four, cause of course no one was leaving our nest. 

Katie: Absolutely not, no.

Amber: But… other good fun facts about me. I love to dance. Pre-covid, you could find me pretty much every single Tuesday at Bella Luna – they used to have a two-step and line dancing night there in JP and that was my favorite thing on the planet. It was just like a whole bunch of queers dancing and it was beautiful. I’ve professionally danced pretty much all of my life up until recently, and now I’m just like… I should do this for fun! I think dance is like a huge thing. I am recently engaged.

Katie: Oooh! Congratulations! 

Amber: Thank you. Very excited! We were going to get married, but then covid happened, and so we might have a backyard wedding someday. (laughs)

Katie: Queering the backyard wedding, another thing to add to your list. 

Amber: Queering the backyard wedding. And turning it into a covid-safe celebration (laughs). I guess!

Katie: And finally, where can people find you in internet land?

Amber: Yeah! I am on Facebook, Instagram or my own website and you can find me under Intimate Connections Doula Services on all of those! 

Katie: Awesome. Thank you so much – it was so lovely chatting with you.

Amber: Thank you so much! 

Categories
interviews

Lucia the Doula (& Future Midwife!)

Lucia the Doula. they/she, @LuciaTheDoula, Not All Pregnant People Are Women.

Katie: Alright, well thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me. Just to dive right in, can you tell us a little bit about you and your practice?

Lucia: Yeah, my name is Lucia. My pronouns right now, I just use my name, Lucia and Lucia’s. I am currently in nurse midwifery school but I come to the work through the lens of a doula. So, I’ve been a full-spectrum doula for three years this month, actually. Full-spectrum: I support people through abortion, loss, pregnancy and postpartum. I did a lot of work, mostly in New York and the New York-metro area. Supporting people in their homes, inside the medicalized industrial complex and birthing centers, in Planned Parenthoods, all over the place. I center, in my life, and in my practice, queer people, queer liberation, Black queer folks. I think that we are not an extracurricular, that inclusivity should just be the baseline, that it’s not hard to figure out pronouns. That it’s not weird to be like, “Ugh, I forget, I should just say ‘pregnant people’” – it’s just like no, just say it. So we can just all come to the table and we can all be included and all have resources. And I hope to imbue my future midwifery practices with that as well. My dream is to live in a town where everyone’s like, all the queers go to her. So everyone just comes to my big gay birthing center, and I give help to everyone who has internal genetalia, and that’s my dream. 

Katie: I want your big gay birthing center! 

Lucia: Just flags everywhere. All the flags. Every one of the flags, just waving in the wind (laughs).

Katie: So beautiful. And that might be the answer to this question but maybe you have another answer to: What are you queering right now?

Lucia: Right now, in this moment, it feels like I’m queering a very straight educational experience. I am blowing people’s minds with inclusive language – people are like, “whatttt?? Not everyone’s a woman that gives birth?” It’s not something people can wrap their heads around. So right now, it feels like I’m back to step one of basic queering language in and around reproductive health. I don’t think the major women’s health nurse practitioner should exist. I think it should be called something else, but that’s not my major so that’s someone else’s battle. Especially in nursing and just talking about… there’s a lot of things that we learn that are like, “Oh, well, in men it’s thi number, and in women it’s this number.” and I’m always like, “Srrrrkk. Hi, hello. What does that mean? Are we talking about testosterone or are we talking about body fat percentage to muscle….?” Cause we just can’t say that anymore. We gotta dig deeper, we can’t just be lazy and we have to be expansive. So right now, I feel like I’m queering my school. In the south. 

Katie: Necessary! And really hard work. Your line of “we are not extracurriculars” feels so central and is both about the structure of a curriculum and also the way knowledge is passed down in ways that are both perpetuating these power systems and are just not fully accurate. 

Lucia: Also that! It’s just not correct. I can call five people as, y’know, “people in a study that we could do.” I have examples – it’s not that hard. Y’know? It’s a lot easier than some folks think it is to just be kind and inclusive and expansive than what you were taught. Just this idea that what you learned 20 years ago might have evolved to present day really blows peoples’ minds as well. 

Katie: Yeah. And what inspired you to get into this work?

Lucia: Well birth, I moved to Brooklyn – well, to New York, with a musical theatre degree, with a BFA. So I was doing the grind, I was doing shows all over New York, I moved to Paris and all over the country. So my day job was babysitting, and I started really enjoying doing infants and newborns. I had a part-time job as a babysitter for a 1.5 year old, but his mom was about to have a baby, so she was like, “I just need an extra set of hands in this transition.” We basically had a month, the three of us together – I guess the four of us, cause the little babe was inside. Just getting to know the house, getting to know the flow of things. Then she went to her scheduled cesarean, three days later she came home, I was there, her husband like dropped the bag at the doors and was like, “Alright babe, I’m going back to work” left, and she just sort of just held herself and wobbled back to her bedroom with this baby and just sat there and stared at the wall. Her 2 year old was like, “Mommy, mommy, up up, can you pick me up?” I was like 24 or something, and was just like, “Something’s afoot. Something’s off. Why is she so sad?” We’re told that you have a baby and everything’s great and it’s not that hard and you just breastfeed and chestfeed and it’s easy! And everything happens! I just got a very real look into how unhealthy the lack of support around reproductive health is. That was the first nudge and then I met a doula and the chips sort of stumbled from there. I started to get into the work more full-time and it has taken over my life. 

Katie: What brought you to this shift from doula work to midwifery?

Lucia: I enjoy the time and the emotional connection of doula work. I think.. we’ll get into this later, but I’m a Pisces sun, so it’s very, y’know feelings. Walking into a room and being like, “Oh god, what happened?” before anyone even says anything. That serves me well in the doula space, but I wanted more of a hands-on interaction and also approach to truly having an impact on people’s healthcare. As a doula, there’s only so much I can do, so much I can control, so much I can shield people from – say, the hospital system, if that’s where they choose to give birth. Or if that’s where they choose to miscarry, or to abort. There’s only so much I could do as a doula. So much, legally, I was allowed to do. It just feels like I’ll have more of a positive impact on people’s full health. Not just talking about people getting pregnant and giving birth, but the full health of the whole family – well, not the whole family, some of the people in the family. But really being more of a holistic provider and having that power in the room to change birthing outcomes and health outcomes. 

Katie: Absolutely, and I think that answers a lot of the next question, but just to give you a chance to say it specifically – how do you describe your support philosophy? Your approach to the work that you’re doing in all of these roles?

Lucia: I think, in general, my support philosophy is that if you have to interact with the medical system in any way, you need a doula in the room. I don’t care if that’s for you to have your blood drawn or you’re just going for your routine checkup or if you just need to go get antibiotics for strep throat. You need someone in the room whose job it is to look after your emotional health and to check in with you and to just take a second – and the doula can be like Are you ok? Did you understand everything that was just said?” Because providers are given ten minutes, and that’s because of insurance companies, whoever they work for, blah di blah. My support philosophy is deep, emotionally connected support. Support in many ways – support in whatever people want for their bodies and what they want for their lives. Non-judgmental support is something that is a foundation of doula work or what I think all doula work should be, is some of the stuff that I’m gonna be bringing into my practice. If you choose to do this with your birth – that’s your choice, that has nothing to do with me, I will keep you safe and make sure you know all of the options around that choice and then I’m gonna honor you as you make that choice for your body and your family. I think that’s what comes to mind is deep support, I’m seeing this image of just roots growing. Just bring in the plants! 

Katie: We’re all about bringing the plants!

Lucia: Exactly, it’s just like deep roots that wrap around each other in some ways and just branch off from each other in other ways that like, I know and even just as a doula, I’m a part of many peoples’ lives for like the rest of their life. And then as a midwife, I hope to be the same way, just have some more branches and roots interacting. And feeding off of each other, taking care of each other. 

Katie: Some of those things where, there is the sense that even if …. I think we think of relationships in terms of how long they are, and we put the value of relationships in like, “Oh, you’ve been in a relationship with this person for so many years, and therefore it is a good strong relationship” But I know I’ve had experiences with doula clients for example where like, I support them through a pregnancy, a birth, y’know, maybe a few months postpartum. Maybe we don’t really stay in relationship and yet there is this sense of – I know I carry pieces of that relationship with me. I trust that they do, too – sometimes we run into each other at the farmers market like way down the line and it’s like, “Oh my gosh, hiiii.” There’s a sense, the depth of relationship is so meaningful and I think particularly in some of these heightened moments of a pregnancy or some of these big transitional times, those relationships can grow really deep really quickly. 

Lucia: I still have people that like, I spent 5 minutes inside of an exam room at Planned Parenthood, that I’m like, I don’t want to be creepy, but I’d really love to have their number just to check in on them! Just like, are you okay?

Katie: I think particularly in abortion work that deep immediate relationship building is really such a superpower. I think about in social work school, they gave us all these lectures about “how to build rapport with people” and “how to introduce yourself” and operationalized this way of being. And I’m like, “Oh… I’ve done shifts in abortion clinics…. We don’t need this.”

Lucia: Totally. Especially now, in the time of Covid, how, after meeting someone for a minute, I am like – holding their face, holding their hand, wiping away tears, and then they just get in an uber and I never see them again. But I do that like, ten times in a day. It’s just… that, for me, as a Pisces, that’s really where I thrived. Yeah, I haven’t thought of that in a while, cause they kicked doulas out of the clinics in New York because of Covid. Like, hard, fast, deep connections and support. Truly being like, “Hey, I’ve got your back. If you want me to stop the procedure.” Just really being empowered and “allowed” to just be support. No other tasks. Just make sure they’re okay. Make sure they get home okay. Just so quick, and so tender, necessary. 

Katie: So you previewed it for us a little bit.. I’ve asked you about your natal work, and now I want to know about more of your natal chart? So you’re a Pisces sun, what’s your moon and your rising?

Lucia: So I have a Leo moon, which is like my biggest shame and my rising is Taurus. So, just like, at home – feeling my feelings, but then every now and then I need to be the center of attention and go out, but then I need to come home…. (laughs)

Katie: Go out, do the thing, but like make sure there’s a bubble bath after. 

Lucia: Yeah. Absolutely!! Or like, making food before I go out – that was definitely my vibe back when going out was a thing. 

Katie: And what’s your favorite thing about being a queer person and becoming a queer provider or about working with queer and trans families? 

Lucia: I love being in a room with people, and supporting people where we can both relax. We can just be like, no one’s gonna say anything shady. No one’s gonna trip up. No one’s gonna be muscling their way through being inclusive or being expansive. It’s also, as someone who wants to have children eventually, it’s also like seeing the potential of what community and what having a family can look like. It’s also (and I hate this word) but I do love the resilience of people choosing and fighting for the life that sometimes, people as a child, never dream they could have. I love being able to support that and especially as a doula going to hospitals, being like, “I’m stopping everyone before they come in the door. We are going through pronouns. We are going through expansive language.” I enjoy being the padding around queer families and I am honored to do that. I really look forward to providing care that is welcoming for everyone and at a place where they can just come sit in the waiting room and look up and see pictures of pregnant people that look like them or look like their partner, or look like their sibling. That really excites me, to sort of build the community gathering place for folks who are like us. 

Katie: Ughh, the big gay birth center slash community gathering space!!!

Lucia: (laughs) This keeps getting bigger… Soon there’s gonna be some kind of like, sport gym, maybe some..

Katie: Like a good dance hall slash food bank probably (laughs)

Lucia: Yes, and!!

Katie: All of it. All of it. And if you could improve something about the experience of pregnancy and birth for queer and trans familiies what would it be? Or I guess another way of asking this question is, what is something that’s different in the future for queer and trans folks around pregnancy and birth? Aside from the big gay birth center / community event space / whatever / soccer field. 

Lucia: Yes, someone else will have to take care of the sports – that’s not my industry. What’s gonna be different in the future for queer folks and trans folks is… that care will not be so difficult to get. Good healthcare that isn’t “tolerant” but is deeply invested in who we are. Not in spite of, but celebrating IN. That the textbooks, the resources, the websites aren’t all like, “Momma, women” and like, “yoni” – we can all come to the table, we can all have this bounty and we can all be supported. I mean, that’s the future. It’s like, I want to get tattooed on my forehead, “Not all pregnant people are women” and just hopefully, slowly spread this gay agenda everywhere. I just hope that has more ease for people. Especially with some of the laws that have been passed – we can be refused care, just because of who we are now. In the future, that doesn’t exist. That wouldn’t even be a thought that people have. 

Katie: And what’s a piece of advice that you have for new and aspiring queer and trans birth workers?

Lucia: I would say, to protect the most tender parts of yourself. Not syphon them off, don’t put them behind like a metal door, but maybe… someone told me this at the Decolonizing Birth Conference last year: Put a screen over your heart, so that it can filter the good stuff and then everything else that you don’t need doesn’t come in. Because you’re going to bump into people who think that being inclusive is erasing their womanhood, or erasing this stronghold of “birth is for women and that’s it and that’s all.. This is our ONE thing that we have, please don’t’ take it away from me.” You’re gonna run into that. You’re gonna run into that, and there are gonna be incredible providers that you thought were really cool and then they’ll like, hit you with some sort of really homophobic transphobic jargon and it’ll hit you like a ton of bricks. But I’m hoping if you have this little screen around your tender parts that it won’t devastate you as much. Also, if you want to go into the educational industrialized complex, not everyone is a QTBIPOC person. Barely anyone is. So it’s tough to go to class and to not have your experience reflected back to you, especially because, as queer people, we create our environment so meticulously and with such care and with such intention that to then have to go to a school, like, I went to school when I was 30, so I had spent all these years creating my queer little bubble in Brooklyn and then I went to the South and I went to higher education. So just knowing that your experience won’t be reflected back to you, but you matter, you are valid, and once you get those really expensive pieces of paper that says you can do the thing that you want to do, you can then get back to what we do best, which is creating family and community where we are and finding each other and deeply supporting each other. And then, once you do graduate, that you have to do that for younger people. You have to look back and put your hand out and bring people with you.

Katie: So beautiful! The idea of one of the things that queer folks do best and all the time and have really honed it as a survival strategy is to so meticulously and intentionally create space and community. I just really resonate with the heartbreak of going into systems that don’t give a shit. 

Lucia: Yeah, like all we do is talk about our feelings at bars and then you have to go to this school and no one cares what you’re feeling! It’s hard! (laughs)

Katie: Yeah! And that there are people who have their hands out, waiting to help pull folks along and I think that that’s such a beautiful … what a beautiful gift that queer community has to offer – those holdfasts in the swirl of institutional bullshit. I could listen to you talk about all of your reproductive work all day forever, but what’s something not natal about you and your life that you want to share?

Lucia: This question is hard. There are two things that stand out, I’m gonna embarrass myself. I really love K-pop. Because of the way that gender is verrrry ..non-existent in this weird way. And I also really love graveyards. Greenwood cemetery up in Brooklyn: would highly recommend 10/10. We’ve got some cool decatur cemeteries down here, so I like to spend my time around dead folks.. listening to K-pop. 

Katie: As a fellow cemetery-wanderer, I really support that so hard! And, finally, if people aren’t gonna wander around cemeteries with you, where can they find you on the internet?

Lucia: The Instagram! I am LuciaTheDoula on Instagram. Usually calling out TERFS and SWERFS, y’know, really all about bumping up Black queer folks and yeah, just the usual shenanegans on there. You can connect with me via that, and we can sort of bump over to email or text or something like that. I provide sliding-scale services for queer and Black folks and right now, as a student, I’m really just happy to support people in any way that I can. So, if money’s an issue, shoot me a message. 


Katie: Amazing. Thank you so much, it was such a gift getting to talk with you!

Lucia: Thank you – this is such a lovely way to spend a weekday rather than on a Zoom class about something random (laughs). 

Categories
interviews

Jenna “JB” Brown

Jenna “JB” Brown, they/he, @loveoverfearwellness, Love Over Fear Wellness & The Queer & Pregnant Journal, Queer Conception Stories

Katie: Hi there! 

JB: Hey! 

Katie: So let’s just get started with you telling us a little bit about who you are and about your practice and the work that you do.

JB: Sure! I want to acknowledge that I am sitting next to a thunderstorm, so there may be background noise. My names Jenna, I use they or he pronouns and I’m a white transmasculine non-binary full-spectrum doula and educator. Typically I describe myself and my work a lot more in depth and that gives me access to other spaces, but I know we’re here just to kind of do a little overview and hello, so: A little bit about my practice is that while I do full-spectrum work meaning I support people preconception all the way through pregnancy outcomes of various kinds into postpartum. I’m also passionate about giving that model of care to all kinds of life transitions, transformations and the education work that I do spans from education that I do with my clients around the kinds of systems and experience that they’re navigating, as well as education and consulting that I do with other birth professionals, family professionals, professionals at large in all kinds of different fields around trans inclusion. I run a mentorship program, too! And do some content creation, so y’know, a little bit of everything (laughs).

Katie: Truly a birthworker of many hats. What are you queering right now?

JB: Oof. What am I not queering? Before we started recording, we were just touching on some lighter conversions about being in community with people and sharing space and what to do when conflict comes up. I think queering conflict resolution sounds really important to me right now. As we’re recording this, we’re in September of 2020 in the middle of the global pandemic and social movement and that as birth workers, as reproductive workers, I feel it’s our responsibility to be in the middle of all that. It’s part of the work, it’s central to our work, it’s the foundation of our work. Reproductive justice being intertwined through all of that. For me, queering that kind of conflict resolution of these uncomfortable, difficult conversations that constantly come up in the work that I do, looks like being nonbinary about how we see everything. There’s not a right and a wrong way now. I don’t know – I’m queering everything, but that’s what I feel most excited to be queering right now. 

Katie: Yas. Oh, I loooove that. Love that lens. And so necessary – such a place where so often we get stuck in conflict for so many people.. Sends people into binary thinking and to be queering conflict resolution or conflict transformation in that way is so regenerative. What inspired you to do the work that you do?

JB: I feel like for so many folks who end up doing birthwork or reproductive work – not to be binary about it – but there’s like these camps of either you’ve gestated a pregnancy to term and that’s what kind of drew you in to this work or you haven’t and then it feels like a bigger “why” or “how” to answer when people ask. I think in parts, I was inspired to do this work because of my own experiences both as someone who has accessed abortion as a trans person and experiences as a trans person navigating day to day life in addition to care systems. And in part, by my community. Especially as I got older and I was already in spaces where I was serving as an educator, having discussions with people about their holistic wellness. As I got a little bit older in those roles, more of the folks that I was in community with were having children and kind of hearing about their experiences especially but not only the experiences of folks in shared queer community … just being really distraught! For them, and alongside them. Knowing that it didn’t have to be that way, and wanting to do whatever I could to make a difference. Oh hi kitty! (Black cat walks in front of Katie’s screen)

Katie: Yeah. Truffle’s here. This is Truffle. She’s gonna just show off a little bit. 

JB: I feel a little bit like I was called into it by others and part of that overused idea that we want to “be the change that we want to see in the world.” Some layer of truth to that. 

Katie: Absolutely (cat). There’s that nugget of resonance in the overused or in the sort of thing that has become more cliche. How do you describe your support philosophy?

JB: Person-centered. That’s what I always say. I feel like, increasingly over the last year especially that’s become more and more of a buzz term, which makes me very frustrated. I think it’s right up there along with “trauma-informed” and “trans inclusive” in terms of buzz words. I don’t expect anyone to show up in a particular way, regardless of the type of experience they’re moving through. Or what their identities look like from the outside, what their support system looks like from the outside. I don’t expect them to think or feel anything in particular as a fixed set of needs until they’ve had the space to explore what those needs are and communicate them with me. So that’s what person-centered means to me. 

Katie: So I’ve asked you a little bit about your natal work, but I also now need to ask you about your natal chart. What’s your sun, moon and rising? 

JB: I’m a Leo sun, Aquarius moon, Virgo rising. Enneagram type 8.

Katie: Oh! Oh!!! Okay, okay. 

JB: ENFJ…….

Katie: Just throwin’ em all in!! (laughs)

JB: (laughs), just so you get a sense of who I am.

Katie: Did you say Leo sun?

JB: (thunder)

Katie: Wow. I love throwing in the… you start asking about the enneagram now.

JB: I just always ask my clients like, how do you understand yourself? I don’t care what framework they use, if they want to tell me their Harry Potter house, that’s fine too. They can use any system for self-awareness. But I’m like, “How do you make sense of who you are? Is it astrology? Is it Meyers-Briggs?”

Katie: Fair enough, yeah! (laughs) And what’s your favorite thing about being a queer and nonbinary support person or about supporting queer and trans families? 

JB: I think that… and this is a generalization, but there are some generalizations I feel perfectly fine with making… But like, the amount of intention that goes into family building. Obviously, there are some queer families and queer couples who have the genetic material that’s in their family or within their couple to conceive. And there are also many that don’t. There are often additional steps, additional choices to be made along the way and I just don’t find that that level of intention is a given for many people who are family-building. I appreciate that working and centering my work around trans and queer experience means that that’s generally who I get to work with! When I do work with folks who are not LGBTQ themselves, that’s really what I’m looking for – right? In terms of being a birth worker and doing this kind of deep relational work with people, there’s a lot of conversation in communities that do this work around burnout. I’ve found that the hardest thing, the thing that contributes most to my burnout is working with folks who are going through the motions and not really willing to even give themselves space to identify what their preferences or their needs are. I don’t find that to be the norm in working with LGBTQ families. I find that the norm IS there is a lot of intention already. So let’s tap into that and keep peeling the layers back. 

Katie: Absolutely, and I know that – I’m sure there’s a long list of answers to this question but if you could improve one thing about the experience of pregnancy and birth for LGBTQ+ folks and families, what would it be or where would you start?

JB: So, I think you already acknowledged that there are so many ways to answer this question. And it’s so tempting to say things like, “I want it to be more equitable in terms of access to resources” or simple things like, “Access to affirming care.” Second parent adoption… for that to not.. not even be a thing! Or for it to be more accessible if it has to be a thing, right? But to me- I think some of those answers lend themselves toward this “assimilation” into cultures, structures, norms that we already know are a disservice to most people, queer or not. I think where I would want to start is liberation for everybody – queer or otherwise. What’s hard about that answer is that there is no clear answer, and what’s exciting about it is there’s so many possibilities! It’s like an imagination question – like, what would a liberated experience for queer and trans families BE around pregnancy, birth or life in general?

Katie: Yes. Oh. Ohhh. So energizing! I adore that answer. Truffle does too. Very pro-liberation. (Giant cat yawn) She’s also bringing her own thunder to this. What’s a piece of advice that you have for new and aspiring queer and trans birth workers?

JB: Find community! We can’t do this work in isolation. You and I both know there’s so many of us doing this work and it’s really exciting. In seeking folks who are interested in doing some more work who have similar identities, at least on paper, maybe some similar experiences, maybe even some similar value systems and frameworks for understanding not just the work they do but the way that they see the world. Even with all of those similarities, expect there to be conflict and expect there to be disagreement and don’t let that be discouraging. I think conflict and comparison, once people are stepping into this work and seeking community and making connections and finding spaces that feel resonant they can really easily (and I see this in my mentorship program all the time) get trapped in this place where either comparison or conflict stops them. Also seek out the type of care that you need to support yourself through those discomforts because they will come up. 

Katie: The framework of comparison or conflict being barriers for folks is so …. What a helpful naming! I know there are many projects floating around in your work – are there any that you want help cross-pollinating with other that are in the community? 

JB: Yeah! So, Ray Rachlin of Refuge Midwifery and I are working on a directory, not unlike LGBTQ Birth, but that’s trans-centered specifically. So that’s both a provider directory and a place for queer conception stories to live. It’s called Queer Conception Stories dot com! I think we’re seeking definitely more submissions in terms of stories and providers for the directory. I also think that, more largely, I hear so many of (myself included) of this community of queer and trans birth workers expressing the desire to specifically apply this model of care to gender trandition, social or medical. So all of us have that, and I think, have shown up in that work in different ways in our own communities. And there’s a few organizations that are doing that work in a more structured way, but I would love to see collaboration around –let’s actually make that happen on a large-scale. In a really cohesive, collaborative way. So that’s just like a seed that I like to plant any chance I get. 

Katie: Yes! Definitely something that I want to watch blossom. Yes! What else?

JB: There’s so many facets, too. I find myself reaching out to different kinds of professionals all the time. Someone planted the seed in my head of: for a lot of trans people, it’s very important to have a living will. Especially but not only if your name, your gender don’t align with things like your legal gender marker or your legal name. I’ve reached out to lawyer friends to ask “What would it be like to create a system for this to be a free service for trans people?” So I think there’s all these really awesome possibilities if we pool our resources and put our heads together to come up with systems for making these kinds of obstacles that we know are unfair and unjust – a little bit easier to traverse for people. So. Just naming that I think we need to call in more than just birth workers.

Katie: Yeah, absolutely. That’s something that’s very dear to my heart with my spiritual care hat on. I’ve worked as a hospital chaplain, and I’ve seen the places where because of who gets listed on advance directives, or people who have never made them, didn’t know they needed one and then suddenly the hospital “next of kin” hierarchy says, “OK, well, your mom now gets to make all of your medical decisions regardless of whether or not you’ve spoken to your parents in however long.” I’ve certainly seen that play out in really uncomfortable ways professionally and obviously so many people have personal experience of being in those situations. So important. I guess that’s also possibly one answer to this question, but what are some other things that are not natal or reproductive focused about you and your life that you wanna share? 

JB: I think I fall into the category of “my work is also sooooooo deeply enmeshed with my identity” that it can be hard to say. But. Pre-pandemic, I’ve sung in multiple queer choirs so I love to do that. I go to stand-up comedy open mics and try my hand at that

Katie: (gasps)

JB: So there’s places that I find I can take off the identity of doula for a second and set it down and bring some more levity about a life and a lifestyle that can be really heavy. So I love that, and I’m also, before getting into doula work, I was an environmental educator so of course spending time outside, being around animals, gardening. All things that I love. In terms of not natal but still adjacent – if everything is reproductive justice (which I do believe), just contributing to community organizing efforts, mutual aid efforts when and where I can and how I can with the resources that I have feels like it overlaps with work and also isn’t completely separate from the direct client care that I do as a birth worker. 

Katie: I am so excited about your post-pandemic stand-up sets. Wowow. wow.

JB: I’ve written like three jokes during this pandemic – it’s been rough. It’s been rough, y’all, I’ve tried. We’ll come out the other side.

Katie: Until that happens, where can people find you on the internet? (laughs)

JB: Not making jokes. I still try. 

Katie: Not making jokes, where can people find you being really serious on the internet?

JB: Because I’m really, really not gifted at introducing myself – I haven’t even named that my practice is Love Over Fear Wellness.

Katie: (laughs) We’ll link it at the beginning, it’s gonna be fine!

JB: So! @LoveOverFearWellness on Instagram or Facebook, and Loveoverfearwellness.com is where folks can find me.

Katie: Alright Jenna, thank you SO much. This was such a delight!

Categories
interviews

Alex Papale

Alex Papale, they/them, @thesexpositivePT and Flourish Physical Therapy. alex.papalePT@gmail.com

Emma: Alright, well, I am here with Alex Papale, and I am excited to hear a little more about you and your practice. If you want to start by saying where you are, and the kind of clients you see and the kind of work you do in the world, that would be awesome.

Alex: I am in Boston, Massachusetts and I am a pelvic floor and orthopedic physical therapist. I’ve been doing PT for two years, have been in Boston for eight. That’s just been my home base at this point. Predominantly working with, also based on preference and just happenstance of working with largely younger folks, which is really cool. A lot of college-aged people, lots of queer and trans folks, which is also really exciting because that’s my favorite group of people to work with if I had to choose. I work with everybody, but generally that’s the case. 

Emma: You can have a preference!

Alex: Yeah, I’m not discriminatory, obviously, of whoever – I’ll see anybody. But it’s obviously exciting with queer/trans folks coming in. Love working specifically also with kink folks – love that. Because I’m also a sex educator, I worked at a local sex shop for two years teaching workshops and I have taught workshops outside of there on pretty much anything from safer sex to kink-specific things, technique kind of stuff, sex across any age – sex for older folks or pregnant folks. Pretty much anything, love talking about it. So those things really overlap a lot. I’m not sure if it’s because of those things but also a lot of my patient demographics, people that I treat the most tend to have pain with sex, pelvic pain mostly. 

Emma: It’s so good to know who you can be honest with – like, which providers, you can be like, “This is me, this is my life, and also.. I need pelvic floor physical therapy, now what?” 

Alex: Yeah, it’s huge. 

Emma: Awesome. So glad we get to live in the same place. What are you queering right now?

Alex: Ugh, like I mean.. What are you not? Existing as a queer person these days… hopefully everything. I think just healthcare, I would like to say. Also sex ed, always. I think largely making it known that queer inclusive -not even just queer inclusive — and queer competnant healthcare is a necessaiyy and absolutely should already exist. I love what I’m doing, but I wish what I was doing specifically was not really a thing, because it should just be normal and expected. Which is unfortunately not the case. Same kind of thing with sex ed, I do a fair amount of sex ed for providers which is also really fun and also something I wish I wasn’t doing because it should just be included. Making sure that is always through a queer lens, because that is such a big lack in any sex ed. If people get any sex ed, it’s usually really heteronormative and cis-normative. 

Emma: Awesome, I mean, we need it – I’m all for it. I’m curious to hear a little more about what got you started in the first place. How does one decide to become a sex educator/pelvic floor specialist?

Alex: Great questions. I decided to do pelvic PT.. I was in PT school and not loving anything else – ortho’s cool, I don’t know, I didn’t really find anything I love. I have a distinct memory of working in a group during PT school. It was a research group of some sort, and I would always be like, “This is how this thing affects these marginalized groups, this is how this impacts trans people, or whatever it is, or LGBTQ people.” Someone else in the group made a comment like, “We all know what Alex is gonna do with their degree!” I was like, “What? Oh my god.. Ok, yes.” That’s the advocacy part of it. The pelvic side of that came in because I have chronic pelvic floor dysfunction and I have had it since my teens, really. I just never knew that that’s what was happening. It was literally me, in PT school, on a pelvic floor clinical rotation, before I realized like – it’s pelvic floor stuff and not the chronic UTI’s I thought was happening, or was telling myself. If it took me being in PT school, in a pelvic rotation to get the healthcare that I needed, how is anybody else supposed to access this? How are queer and trans people supposed to be able to access this particularly? So that became a big point of that. I was teaching a course for healthcare providers about trans inclusive healthcare and the sex shop I used to work at ended up tabling at it. I just ended up talking to them  – oh also sex ed is something I love to talk about, and they said, “Well, we’re hiring” so I picked that up and deeply fell in love with it. It was really cool to get a semi-formal (wasn’t really formal)… a very comprehensive sex ed training at this job along with having the experience of teaching workshops and learning a lot and having these resources available. 

Emma: That’s awesome, I mean I love a good personal draw story. That’s really when you can, I think, make the most impact with other people – when you personally are going through something they are, or that’s how they seek you out and find you as a provider. But it’s kind of funny that you ended up in PT school, not really thinking about it until deep into the program. That’s very interesting. 

Alex: I do think it’s wild that literally someone else had to be like “Well, we know what you’re doing,” and I was like, “What am I doing? Tell me please!”

Emma: “This is just how I live my life, iunno”

Alex: This is just what I get mad about! Obviously, I need to get paid to get mad about it. 

Emma: Yeah – thats right. Get paid! I love it. Well, you have touched on this, in terms of knowing about comprehensive sex education, and being queer/trans – not just inclusive, or competent –but focused, and in it yourself. Do you have a specific support philosophy that you bring to your work with clients?

Alex: I think that would just look like meeting people really where they’re at. I think that especailyl for queer and trans folks, especially with pelvic floor dysfunction there’s just so much shame that comes with that. Which is super relatable – and a lot of that can be… there are just so many facets of experiences and identity that can bring that up. Whether it’s trauma, whether it’s internalized homophobia or transphobia. It’s having a hard time being able to say out loud that you have this sort of dysfunction that largely affects your sex life, or your ability to experience pleasure which is already really hard to talk about. A lot of it is just hearing people and validating their experiences and just meeting people where they’re at. Whatever their goals are – working towards that and just validating them. Doing my best not to put my goals on somebody. If they just really want to be able to do this thing, then that’s going to be our functional goal and not, like, the kind of insurance pushed “oh they need to be able to insert a speculum” or whatever it is. Which you might have to do for insurance purposes, but it’s really important to need to …. Any of the little nuanced things that are important to my patients are things that I really try to center. 

Emma: Interesting. Did you say that being able to use a speculum is required by insurance? What was that?

Alex: Oh, yeah! That insurance – oh my god – so insurance will not cover “pain with sex” for folks that don’t have penises and that’s just generally true. So we tend to have to bill insurance with like, my favorite code that I use is just like “other muscle spasm” or “general pelvic pain” but it has to be like “functional goals” if insurance requires those, like, “patient will be able to insert a speculum.”

Emma: Wow. That’s fascinating to think about that side of it. 

Alex: It’s kind of wild – exactly – that’s obviously not most patient’s goals. Maybe it is for some people, but that’s not why they’re coming to PT. But that’s usually how things have to get billed, unfortunately. 

Emma: Yeah – wow, thanks for sharing that. Fascinating. Well – you told us a little bit about your pelvic floor work, your sex educator work… now I want to know about your natal chart. What’s your sun, moon, rising?

Alex: It’s a trip. Ok. So, I am a Virgo sun, an Aries moon and Aries rising. Like, yikes…. but..

Emma: Aries, alright, alright…

Alex: Also, starting to learn about houses – my Aries rising is in my first house, I think, so that’s also just even more Aries and, yeah… can be kind of intense. I think other aspects of my char that make that a little bit more palatable (well maybe not, this is arguable) but that my venus is in scorpio and my mars is in Cancer, which I think is very like the Virgo and the Cancer are the caretaker vibes. I feel fiercely protective of my patients and my work and the communities that I work with and I think that’s the Scorpio/Aries.. Also Virgo, honestly.. And Cancer….. I think my chart is honestly very accurate for myself and also, a little bit much. 

Emma: It’s cute. We can be true to ourselves and still be a little bit much. But it’s really sweet to hear the interpretation or how it comes into your work, even. 

Alex: It’s fun. A lot of just, I feel like the Virgo and the Aries to me is just a lot of a high quantity of somewhat finished to do lists, but it works out. 

Emma: I think a lot of people can probably relate to that – that’s awesome. Alright, well, I’d love to know if you have a favorite thing about being a queer sex educator and pelvic health professional and working with queer/trans people. I mean you’ve touched on a little bit, but if you have a specific thing.

Alex: I think my favorite things are the sense of relief from patients that I get sometimes. Just “ugh, you get it” or “ugh, it feels so nice” and whether or not this has been verbalized or just getting the sense of it – the comfort that comes with that. Just getting to know patients in general, building a relationship with them. Feeling like they’re like, “Oh, I can actually talk about these things and I can bring up these nuances of my sex life or my kink life or if folks mention they have multiple partners and that’s something that you don’t necessarily get to share with a healthcare provider. But it can be really important, and it just feels nice when patients feel comfortable enough to start to say those things. To earn that level of trust and comfort is really huge for me, and also for anybody – but particularly for queer and trans folks to trust a healthcare provider. It’s an honor, and it’s also heavy cause it’s like, I’m frequently told I’m one of the few for folks, oftentimes. Which is horrible and also relatable. 

Emma: Definitely. 

Alex: Honestly one of the things that I really, really love a lot. Especially with how much time I get to spend with my patients. 

Emma: Especially doing pelvic floor PT – it’s not like 5 minute in and out kind of work. Thanks for sharing that. That’s really sweet. So, in terms of pregnancy care, I know you mentioned that you would see pregnant clients and thinking of sex education in pregnancy, too. Is there something that you hope to improve about the experience of the perinatal period – postpartum, pregnancy, whatever, for queer and trans patients. 

Alex: Oh my god. Yes. Something in particular would be the hope that pelvic floor PT in general can be affirming and accessible for pregnant folks or their families. In any span of the pregnancy timeline – pre-pregnancy, during pregnancy, post pregnancy. Any of those times, I think, can be really valuable to have access to a pelvic PT even if it’s just for one session of being able to come in and learn a bit more about your body, or learn about your pelvic floor in general, or get a sense of what your pelvic floor is doing before you get pregnant or right in the beginning or whatever it looks like. To be able to have that baseline for when someone is going through a pregnancy, if things come up – low back pain starts up, if there’s pelvic floor pain or pretty much anything. Questions about how to have sex, all of those kinds of things. I would love for that to just be more available and I think a lot of folks that I work, with especially pregnant folks or postpartum folks, are things like “Oh, I wish I knew about you a year ago or five years ago. That this was even an option or that I could have told my friends or my whoever.” I’m always wishing this was more accessible. I wish people were told by other providers that we exist and that we can also exist in your corner for your care, especially during this really life changing time. 

Emma: Absolutely, I totally understand wanting to have that earlier touchpoint before things have to get really bad. Ideally. But yeah, that’s a great thing to work toward. Do you have a nugget of advice for any aspiring queer and trans pelvic floor PTs, sex educators out there?

Alex: I think my advice would be (for the pelvic PT side of it). If you ever find a PT that does the things that you want to do or has an approach that you want to create / make your own, in your own way or whatever it is. Basically, reach out to them. I think that being a student or being an aspiring PT, it can be really intimidating to see the people who “are doing it,” and feel like there’s a huge gap – which is because of our education system and healthcare system of creating this hierarchy. We’re somehow inaccessible. Especially for queer and trans folks, if you find someone who’s doing what you want to do – please reach out to them, myself included. If any of this resonates – I LOVE to talk to people who are thinking about or are interested in it. I can’t speak for everybody, but generally I think we’ve all been students and felt like no one is doing what we’re doing, especially queer and trans providers. I don’t want to be one of the few, I want to be one of the many. Trying to get other people there, I think. If you find anybody you resonate with, please reach out to them. In the sex ed side of things, I think something that’s really helpful for me is that (and same thing with PT) you’ll never know everything. At all. And you’re gonna know some things and once you get comfortable with what you know, push it more. And there will always be people who know something different than you and know something more than you, or have seen and experienced different things. Especially in sex ed, just cause someone has a degree doesn’t make them more knowledgeable than people …. Also because the sex ed world is so un… like anyone can call themselves a sex educator. Just be careful of that – be aware of that. Not to say that people who call themselves a sex educator and don’t have credentials (which is also an issue – the fact that people think you need credentials about sex). Just be aware of where you’re getting your information from, what you’re reading. Making sure you’re getting the viewpoints of marginalized folks, especially in sex ed. Cause sex ed is already hard to access for everybody. On top of that… just make sure you’re not getting all your information from a cis het white man please. Please. Which is hard to do sometimes in sex ed, which is frustrating. Find the educators who are not any of those things. 

Emma: Awe, I love that. That’s great advice. We’re big on… this keeps coming up with all the folks we’re chatting with – that, there’s many pathways to doing this work, you don’t have to have all of the exact credentials all the time if you are in these communities. 

Alex: Yeah. Do not, and especially for queer and trans folks, do not gaslight yourself about what you know. And your experiences. And your value in either world of healthcare, of PT, of sex ed. Just try. It’s hard, and I do it all the time, but try not to (laughs). Which is like, impossible, but… worth saying. 

Emma: Totally worth saying! And that’s real. Awesome, well are there any projects you have going on or things you wanna drop seeds, spread pollen on that we can put out there for you?

Alex: I’m working on, since I have more time available, working on trying to not gaslight myself and my worth and just working on my website and things like that. Just having a platform kind of. I’m always looking for people to collaborate on any realm of workshop. I love teaching. Any realm of workshop of anything I’ve said – anything that might be of value or interest. I love to do it. Love collaborating very much, so if anybody’s trying to do that. Just creating networks. I have a running list of anybody that reaches out that’s like “Hey, I’m queer or trans or kink-friendly or xyz and I resonate with what you’re doing.” I want to have referrals for people, so I’m always working on that. If anybody wants to let me know who you are, please do that. 

Emma: That’s awesome. Yeah. More overlap in any of those ways is welcome. 

Alex: Please. Please reach out, love it!

Emma: Beautiful, well is there anything not sex-ed related or not pelvic floor related about your life that you wanna share? 


Alex: Ooh, I’m sitting in my room right now and I’m looking at the amount of plants that I have. I’m one of those queers (laughs), I am a plant queer. So that’s a fun. You can see my palm. 

Emma: Plant parent, that’s awesome. 

Alex: Also a snake parent as of this quarantine


Emma: Fun! Oh new quarantine snake!

Alex: Yeah, I have a 4 foot quarantine snake named honey

Emma: Oh my god, that’s amazing! What kind of snake?

Alex: She’s a corn snake, love of my life, like – it’s great. I call her my primary partner (laughs).

Emma: That’s so sweet! Aw (laughs).

Alex: Truly. I’m like, “Oh, is this what this feels like? To love another being more than yourself?”

Emma: Ohhhh, that’s hilarious. I’m so glad you said that.

Alex: So I guess those are fun things to know! You can’t have a conversation with me and have me not be like, “and my snake!”

Emma: Well, I get it now. That’s amazing. Well where can people connect with you if someone is an aspiring trans PT or looking for pelvic floor stuff in the Boston area or even tele-health. Where do people find you?

Alex: I have a not-super-active instagram page, but it does exist! And I am on it. I check it, but I’m not great at telling myself I can take up space on social media….. Unpack that at another point. It’s @thesexpositivePT if you’re just trying to keep up with general things. Flourish Physical Therapy is where I work, so I am on Google there. I have an email address, if that’s helpful. I can send that to you…

Emma: I could plug that in.. yeah, we could do email (laughs) (It’s alex.papalePT@gmail.com)

Alex: Yeah! And please anyone literally feel free to just email me anytime. I do check it somewhat regularly. Please feel free to. I’m not the quickest email replier, but I will eventually and, yeah.

Emma: Thank you so much, Alex for hanging out today and talking about yourself. I really enjoyed it, thoroughly. So (laughs)

Alex: Thanks for the invite, thanks for having me.

Emma: No problem. Take care!

Categories
interviews

Luar Wolf

Luar Adonis Wolf, they/she, ella/elle, Little Moonlight Doula

Katie: Alright, thank you so much. It’s so exciting to talk to you. To just get right into it, could you tell us a little bit about you and your practice?

Luar: Sure. So, my name is Luar Adonis Wolf, my pronouns are they/them, she/hers, and in Spanish I also go by ella and elle – the feminine and gender neutral pronouns in Spanish. I’m 29 years old, and I live in New York City on occupied Lenape Haki-nk land, and I’m also intersex, queer, nonbinary. Also identify as trans, and I am a non-Black person of color, specifically Dominican and Puerto Rican. Wooh! A multitude of identities that are just part of my every day my lived experience.

In terms of my practice, my practice/my business, whatever I’m gonna call it – is called Little Moonlight Doula and the reason why it’s called Little Moonlight Doula, is because it’s actually named after my first name. My first name means Luar, which is Portuguese for moonlight. So, in Portuguese, little moonlight would be luarzinho – it was a nickname given to me by some of my Brazilian friends. And my first birth is actually a moon-named baby, after Jupiter’s moon Isle. SO, putting those one and one together, I have Little Moonlight Doula, so a moon helping bring a moon earthside (laughs). What also makes the name unique is that my first birth was a Black nonbinary person, giving birth to a moon-named baby. So, that is where the name of my practice comes from, and I think I’m just gonna keep it forever cause it literally marks who I am.

My practice is basically a full-spectrum reproductive service. I do birth and postpartum, I also do the full-spectrum of doula services. I’m also a reproductive care worker, aka “essential healthcare worker.” I work with Planned Parenthood currently, and I also am part of other full-spectrum doula collectives. And my practice is very rooted in being gender inclusive and queer/trans, gender non-conforming and nonbinary affirming, especially for queer/trans BIPOC people. It’s also rooted in reproductive justice, in decolonization, and so many different types of frameworks that I try to continue striving, not only in my work, but in myself and in my communities. I think that can sum the logistics of my practice. Oh- and I’m also a Certified Bodyfeeding Counselor and a Certified Childbirth Educator. That’s it! (laughs) It’s really hard to name every specific of what you do, because you’re like, “Oh, I gotta throw this, I gotta throw this…” so, I’m just a multitude of things that I can actually use to give back to my community and uplift my community and give my community access to specific things that they don’t generally get access to. 

Katie: Yeah, absolutely, I totally hear how tricky it is to try to put all of the things you do into boxes, when you are someone who is serving your community in ways that may not actually fit into any those roles, or exclusively into any of those roles. 

Luar: Yes, I’d rather put it on paper rather than speaking about it because I’m like, “Oh! I forgot about pointing out that specific thing and that identity” so I try to put it all out there. But yeah, that’s what my practice does. My practice is just me, myself and I, so it’s just very solo work, and doing everything (laughs)

Katie: The little moon helping other moons!!!

Luar: Yes!

Katie: I love it so much. It’s also one of the queerest things I’ve ever heard. 

Luar: I had to. I had to do it. I had to make it queer as fuck. 

Katie: You did, and it is! Ughhh, and on that note, what are you queering right now? Or what are some of the things you’re queering right now?

Luar: So, in general I queer everything that I touch, and step on. Whether it was the spaces that were designed for me, I’m going to queer it and (trans)cend it. Putting the parentheses around (trans) around transcending, with a little wordplay there. I touch everything and my intention is to make sure that queer people and trans people and trans people and everyone with a gender expansive identity can exist in spaces safely. And specifically now, I am queering what doula means, in terms of the full-spectrum to include and re-define the doula role to do gender affirming support. Specifically, gender affirming surgeries and hormone care and how we can be a doula for that. Especially for a community that goes through these things alone and have no support and no care and very isolated. And the support that they technically do get is literally the closest other trans friends and chosen family. I think those types of surgeries, especially in the recovery period, they need a lot of support. They need support that is intimate, they need support that comes from loved ones and chosen family, and they also need support that comes from a professional role. In terms of like, “What can I do for you? How can I help in your recovery? How can I show up for you to make sure you’re being advocated for and taken care of in the hospital, during the surgery and after surgery?” How do we turn this role to show up for members of our community that literally go through these things the majority of the time alone?

Katie: Fuck yeah, oh that’s so important. What inspired you to get into reproductive support work?

Luar: So before I even knew the word existed, it’s always been there in my heart and in my waves and in my mind. I can trace it all the way back to when I was a little adolescent. I was spending a week with my aunt and she was actually going through a divorce and she also had gotten pregnant at that time. It was a very complicated situation without going into much detail. And for some reason, my aunt was going into the hospital really late at night, trying to evade the family from knowing so she was just making sure that me, my brother, my little cousins were all in bed and we were taken care of, so that she could sneak out and go to the hospital. But I was up, and I was hyper-aware, I was like a little adult. I was like, “Where are you going?” and she was like, “I’m going to the hospital” and I was like, “Nobody should go to the hospital by themselves!” So even as a little kid, I was already speaking from a doula intentions and doula heart. I was like, “you shouldn’t go to the hospital by yourself, let me come with you” she said, no, and I said, “Nobody should have to go to the hospital by themselves, you need someone to be with you.” I was very adamant that she ended up taking me. And the memories that I have are very vivid and clear, which was just me being there with her, when we got called into the OR she was just lying in this weird examination room and we were literally in there for hours. Hours. And it was overnight, so I told my aunt, “I’m going to turn off the light and you just get some sleep that you can,” and I just stayed vigil(?) over her until the doctors came so she could get some rest. And then there was a part where I couldn’t go with her. Then, hours later, by myself I was in the waiting room, she finally comes back and she had her own room and they had put a bed for me. And years later, when I have a conversation with her about that, especially getting into this role, and learning about miscarriages and abortions, I have a conversation with her, I’m like, “Did I support… did I help you? Did I give you support through something no one else knew at the time?” and she said, “Yes, I was having a miscarriage, I had to do a D&C.” and that just blew my mind, I was like, “oh my god I’ve been an abortion doula all my life.” So, when I look back at that memory, everything just touches, like, oh my gosh, she was going through an abortion and she was going to do that with the intention of doing that by herself. I was just like, “No, you shouldn’t go by yourself, you need help, you need support, let me go with you.” So that was my first memory of getting into this work and beyond that, I was present for many of my cousins’ births or postpartum. Watching bodyfeeding and pumping and all this stuff, so I’ve been around all this, especially in a family that’s majority single mothers and just women, women of colors, so I was very raised around that matriarch energy. And witnessing the matriarch give birth to the next generation of me and my cousins and witnessing that as an older person compared to the other cousins. Then, fast forwarding, just specifically the actions brought me to work is.. I got into doula work in an “nontraditional” “nontypical” way which is through abortion. Most of the doulas I meet usually do birth and postpartum certifications first, and that’s usually what you hear the doula role for. I actually started as an abortion doula, leading into the rest. I remember my first day of being accepted into The Doula Project, and being trained and I was like, “This is amazing, this is so needed” and also in collaboration with actually starting to work for Planned Parenthood. Just exposing myself to the reproductive healthcare space and how important it is to have access to abrotions. Making sure that everybody, and not just ciswomen, but everybody across the gender expansive identities have that same access to these services. So that’s what brought me to my journey today!

Kaite: I love little baby Luar as an abortion support person, this is – ohh its so beautiful! I also got my start in doing support work in abortion support…

Luar: Yes. You did the backward route.

Katie: I feel like, I honestly forget that’s not how a lot of people do it. (laughs) It just made a lot of sense to me at the time. And maybe you’ve already answered this question in your story of like no one should have to go to the hospital alone, but um – How do you describe your support philosophy?

Luar: It’s weird, because I don’t ascribe to forming core values, or missions and stuff like that because I see that a lot with nonprofits and a lot with capitalist spaces where they just make these philosophies and missions and values and it’s just for marketing and branding and there’s not acutely heart to it. My support philosophy is simple, everybody needs support. Everybody across the gender spectrum needs support. Everybody in a violent oppressive marginalized system needs support. So, just give it. Give it freely, openly, and make sure everyone has access to support. So that’s why a lot of my work, as much as I want to create something that’s “profitable” or sustainable – that’s the better way, sustainable. I was raised in and come from a background and a culture that is very community centered, and if I go back into that: we were not really concerned about “how much money I can make by supporting you as a community member?” Yes, be sustainable for yourself, but at the end of the day: one of the ways we dismantle white supremacy is by returning back to our communities and uplifting and centering our communities and giving them access to things that they typically don’t get, which is support. So that is literally my philosophy if you want to call it that, but it’s just like.. Give support. Don’t try to commercialize support. Don’t try to commodify support. Don’t try to capitalize support. Support is something that we as human beings should be doing for other human beings, and showing up for other human beings. And that is the way we are allies, essentially to other community members.

Katie: Yeah, ugh! The privatization of care just feels like one of the biggest scams to communities from the settler colonial state.

Luar: Exactly! Honestly, like, in a better and more perfect world we wouldn’t need doulas. If medical racism didn’t exist, or the violation of so many peoples’ bodies and consent and bodily autonomy didn’t exist, doulas wouldn’t be here. Because of what they have done to support and what they have done to care. 

Katie: Yeah, oh, preach it, oh! So, I’ve asked you about your natal work, I also need to know about your natal chart. What’s your sun/moon/rising, and whatever else I need to know? 

Luar: The number one queer question, it’s like the first date question when you date other queers and trans folks, right? My sun is in Aries, I was born on April 7th. My rising is Leo, and my moon is in Capricorn. I (laughs), so everybody’s always asking me, “Oh my god” because of me being a doula, “I need to know your chart so I can know what made you a doula!” It’s more like the fiery, passionate, impulsive nature of showing up for people from my Aries and my Leo. There’s a reason why I became a doula, and that’s my activism energy which pours down into my doula. I think, what maybe essentially touches my doula in my chart is my Venus is in Taurus cause a lot of people that I have in my life that are Taurus, they are very caregiving, loving, showing up for everyone around them (besides themselves). So I would give credit to the Venus in Taurus for being the reason why I’m a doula. 

Katie: Oh, love, I love that. And, not to turn this into an astrology interview, but I feel like that Venus/Taurus energy’s so beautiful, when I think about both that very giving, very caring but like, it’s an earth sign, it’s a very grounded, – it’s not just a like “I’m just giving of myself without knowing who I am or what I’m doing” It’s not that savior complex mindset, there is that real groundedness of “this is coming from who I am.” 

Luar: So many of my – one of my best friends is a Taurus. Even a lot of Taurus like a call, so they’re like “What do you need, Luar? You want something? What can I do for you?” Like, y’all just live for caring! 

Katie: And what’s your favorite thing about being a queer support person or about working with queer and trans folks and families?

Luar: There’s so many things. The one thing I can really touch upon is being in space with  people like me, or people that belong in the same spectrum of gender expansive identities like me. We don’t get that. When you talk to a lot of queer/trans or gender non-conforming and nonbinary people, we’re very isolated. Or we’re in very small communities that for me is not enough. Ideally, I want a community in terms of- arms distance, the way we can touch things. But one of my favorite things about doing this work, in terms of me being a queer, nonbinary femme, is showing up for others that are like me. It’s such a different feeling because we can actually take a lot of burden off our shoulders. We can take down that thick skin that we put up to protect ourselves in a lot of cis spaces. Seeing that easy breath, that fresh air that goes into our lungs when we’re in good space and community with others like ourselves is one of those things that just brings me joy. Even outside of reproductive spaces, when I show up in very sacred safe space with my trans besties or other trans kin, it’s just amazing, being in community. Actual, authentic community. Not just a community that is just built on trauma bonding– yes, cause it’s a lot of that! As a community, I don’t want that. I don’t want our community to be built on trauma bonding or oppression olympics and titles and this and that. When we get together and find others like ourselves, it’s just the authentic and unconditional love and support that we give to each other is just amazing. That is just one of my favorite things, seeing, when I as a full-spectrum worker show up with somebody or a client that has those same identities, they’re like “Oh my god, I don’t have to educate you. I don’t have to explain what a pronoun is. I don’t have to do this free labor. I can just exist and be me and I don’t have to explain myself.” That’s just one of the most beautiful things to see, because I can take that off your shoulder and do that for you. I think that’s one of the things that keeps me going – just the amount of queer/trans, gender nonconforming, gender non-binary people that exist that are giving birth, that are just getting surgeries, or doing hormone support just need community members to show up for them for care. It’s just beautiful to witness and experience and be able to offer that so that is one of my favorite things –  among so many reasons.

Katie: That good queer and trans magic. 

Luar: Yes. Hella. Queer. Trans magic.

Katie: If you could improve one thing about the experience of pregnancy and birth for queer and trans folks, what’s one thing that you would want to see?

Luar: Sigh. Everything, everything! I just want to see us enter medical spaces or healthcare spaces and not having to experience transphobia from its individual to its systemic levels. Seeing that, for our communities – for them to just enter healthcare and not worry about being misgendered or using the wrong pronouns or being dead-named. Actually just giving them care that they have a right to and deserve and is centered in their identities is something that I wish to see. If that answers the question. 

Katie: Oh, yeah, it sure does. Yeah.

Luar: Because it’s really hard to pinpoint one exact thing, when the future that most of us see for ourselves and for our community is EVERYTHING. Everything. If I have to do one specific thing: end all corrective surgeries for intersex children and babies. That its not the first thought for a medical doctor or MD to be like, “We need to correct this.” That would be one thing, as a start – end corrective surgeries for intersex babies.

Katie: Yes! And on the flip side of that, what’s a pice of advice you have for aspiring queer and trans birth workers?

Luar: I think you’ve heard this before, and a lot of others who know me have heard me say: Fuck imposter syndrome. Besdies dysphoria for those of us who expreiene dysphoria, the other next thing would be fuck imposter syndrome. Don’t doubt. Don’t question. It’s hard – but the moment we allow confidence to take hold of us in this specific work, in this specific space, by just repeating that mantra and having others who instill confidence into you and support and just inject that into you. That’s gonna be my mantra for new folks: fuck imposter syndrome. We can do this work, we have a right to do this work, we have the right to stand up for ourselves and others who are like us so we can show up for those people, too. Don’t question your ability. A certification or a training does not give you the doula title – that’s always been inside of us. As human beings, as people that have come from a community centered background and cultures and traditions (laughs) Nothing can give you the doula heart, nothing can give you the doula role. No training or certification is gonna give you that.  Because that’s not something they can instill, that’s something that’s always existed. It’s just being awakened through a training. And you can exist totally outside of that, but don’t expect that a training or certification is gonna give you what you’re looking for. It’s just going to give you the tools and the resources and the foundations for doing the work. The role and the work itself has always existed inside of you because it’s essentially and fundamentally: You as a human being showing up for another human being. 

Katie: Oh! So good. So good. I also, I want a classic looking cross stitch that I can frame somewhere that says, “Fuck imposter syndrome”

Luar: I need something like that, or I need a t-shirt. (laughs) With a big ole trans flag on it. 

Katie: Ahhh, I love, I love. Wow. Aside from making that t shirt, are there any projects that you want help cross pollinating with others in the community: stuff you’re thinking about stuff youre building?

Luar: Yes, so: one of the main things I haven’t announced yet… I’m working quietly behind the scenes on creating something, a support circle, called The Lavender Tent. It’s basically sacred safe space for queer, trans, gender nonconfirming, gender nonbinary people to come together to do sacred story telling. Basically share our lived experiences, like through different parts of our transition. Whether it’s just medically or non-medically. An example like that would be having one of those spaces, one of the modules or coming together or getting onto the Zoom call virtual space will be talking about metaphorical death. That’s an example, coming together as queer/trans people to talk about metaphorical death and the multiple metaphorical deaths we go through. What does honoring and grieving and mourning, individually and collectively, over our past self- our former selves, our former selves, our former dead names, look like? How do we give a personal eulogy for that? How do we just go through the process of grieving and mourning, that so we can make space for the new and affirming identities in order to root ourselves within ourselves? Honoring the decay. So that’s an example of one of the support circles – it’s going to be called The Lavender Tent and I’m going to announce, hopefully soon, in terms of getting sacred safe space for us as a community to come together as a community to talk about stuff like that, through sacred storytelling. 

Katie: Ohh, so amazing. So important. So needed. Ohh, I love that so much. And what’s something that’s not reproductive related about you and your life that you want to share?

Luar: One of the things about me is my practices in Afro-caribbean traditions that I’m a part of. I’m also a witch, I practice witchcraft so those are very fundamental in terms of medicine for being medicine for me, its also cultural and ancestral for me. Keeps me together and sane. Outside of that, I also do spoken word and I do a lot of writings and poems. I’m also an artist but I keep my artwork to myself because I’m very weird and sensitive with showing my artwork. Outside of reproductive healthcare spaces, those are a lot of the big parts of me that others might not know about. 

Katie: Finally, where can people find you on the internet?

Luar: Everywhere! (laughs) I’m on Facebook as Little Moonlight Doula, I’m also on Instagram as Little Moonlight Doula. I also have a website: Little Moonlight Doula dot com! I made sure that name was grabbed across the spectrum of social media platforms – so facebook, instagram and my website is literally just Little Moonlight Doula! 

Katie: Awesome, thank you so much, this has been a treat! 

Luar: Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity, I appreciate it! 

Categories
interviews

Emma O’Brien

Emma O’Brien, she/her, Birthkeeper Herbalism and Lavandoula

Katie: Can you tell us a little bit about who you are and a little bit about your practice?

Emma: Sure Katie thanks, my name’s Emma, I use she/her pronouns and I am a professional birth attendant. Snd I do full-spectrum work, so I attend abortions, miscarriage, stillbirth, birth postpartum, lots of stuff. And I’m also a clinical herbalist, so I help people with plants.

Katie: And what are you queering right now?

Emma: Love it. I am queering herbal natal education. So, I have a project right now called Birthkeeper Herbalism that I am putting together sort of class topics on different fertility situations from conceiving to postpartum and doing it in such a way that doesn’t gender plants and people! Which is hard to find in herbal education. There’s a lot of amazing queer herbalists doing work and a lot of amazing queer herbalists doing work, but in our area, there’s not a lot of overlap. Yeah, so, that’s what I’m queering right now.

Katie: Yeah! And what inspired you to do the work that you’re doing right now?

Emma: It’s a good question, I feel like I was always kinda drawn to support work in one way or another. When I was even in high school, I worked at an organization that did domestic violence advocacy and would sometimes do on call hospital advocacy shifts if folks went to the emergency room after an assault, so that is extremely similar to a birth doula role or an abortion support person. You know, you meet someone in this medical setting that can potentially be uncomfortable or traumatic in this very specific day of their life. So, that was sort of the beginning of the path. And when I met someone who worked as a birth doula, I was like, “that makes sense! I’m gonna look into that.”

Katie: Yeah, and what’s your support philosophy?

Emma: Usually I tell people that their philosophy becomes by philosophy. I really like to support people in their decision making processes. I’m a big information sharer. So when, I mean really like the informed part of informed consent. I really like to nonjudgmentally support whatever your decisions are as long as individuals feel like they have what they need to make that decisions. Whether its an emotional decision or a really fact based research decision. I’m there for it all.

Katie: So I’ve asked you about your natal work, but I’m also curious about your natal chart? Whats your sun moon rising?

Emma: I’m a libra, libra sun, October 4, and a saggitarius moon and gemini rising

Katie: Alright alright I’m a libra rising so I feel like that’s why we’re friends. What’s your favorite thing about being a wueer support person or about working with lgbtq+ families?

Emma: Yes. Just the layer of honesty, I feel like, that’s baseline there, y’know, just the comfortability you have talking to other queer people about these things. So you can say something and not be worried that you’re not gonna be received well. And for many folks, at least in our area, there’s not a ton of queer childbirth prep options or parent groups that are specifically queer and all that. So sometimes being that one queer person touchpoint in someone’s fertility, pregnancy and postpartum is yknow, really meaningful! There are a lot of parents desperate for that, so.

Katie: Especially I think going into some of these very medicalized settings where there’s like so much expectation of what your family looks like or how you talk about yourself to have somebody who you at least know is – who you know at least SEES you in that way can be so valuable to families.

Emma: Totally, I love it.

Katie: Yeah. If you could improve one thing about the experience of pregnancy and birth for queer and trans families, what would it be?

Emma: Ideally, my dream is to connect more queer families with queer and trans birth workers of all types. So, there’s folks who support people through their fertility process, there’s people who are antenatal birth workers who can help you at home if you’re high risk pregnant, y’know, postpartum support. All of that. I just think there are lots of queer people doing all this work out there and I don’t think parents always know where to find them. So, yeah, that’s it!

Katie: What’s one piece of advice you have for new and aspiring queer and trans birth workers?

Emma: Well, first of all, thank you, you’re amazing, you’re needed, please stick around, and also don’t go it alone. Yknow, when I first trained as a birth doula in 2010 I was definitely the only queer person at that training. And I wasn’t really sure if I could hang with the whole birth scene in general, so having y’know located a couple other queer or “pro choice” birth workers in the early days would have been really amazing. Took a little while to build that community, so yeah, just don’t go it alone.

Katie: I can certainly attest to what It meant for me as an aspiring birth worker to be able to have you in my community and to have somebody I knew who was really willing to share information and support

Emma: Yeah, no gatekeeping!! Birth is for everybody

Katie: Yes, and finally, what’s something that’s not natal or pregnancy/birth related about you and your life that you wanna share with folks?

Emma: I’ve been thinking about this a lot, cause obviously it’s 2020 and we’re home, but my partner and I are pretty big like urban homesteader type people. So, we literally in the quarantine have tanned leather and canned pickles and I make medicine – obviously as an herbalist, getting a lot of plants and mushrooms from the world and making medicines for people. Um, what else – trying to think. It’s so funny, like, “get yourself a lesbian for the quarantine” or whatever – I’m like, yeah, my partner’s sharpening knives on rocks and it’s very practical. So, yeah!

Katie: Awesome, is there anything else about you or your work that you want to share?

Emma: People can find more about us at lgbtqbirth.com, my project with herbalism and natal topics is birthkeeper-herbalism.com and my actual birth support practice website is lavandoula.com 

Katie: Alright, thank you so much!

Katie interviews emma

Katie: Can you tell us a little bit about who you are and a little bit about your practice?

Emma: Sure Katie thanks, my name’s Emma, I use she/her pronouns and I am a professional birth attendant. Snd I do full-spectrum work, so I attend abortions, miscarriage, stillbirth, birth postpartum, lots of stuff. And I’m also a clinical herbalist, so I help people with plants.

Katie: And what are you queering right now?

Emma: Love it. I am queering herbal natal education. So, I have a project right now called Birthkeeper Herbalism that I am putting together sort of class topics on different fertility situations from conceiving to postpartum and doing it in such a way that doesn’t gender plants and people! Which is hard to find in herbal education. There’s a lot of amazing queer herbalists doing work and a lot of amazing queer herbalists doing work, but in our area, there’s not a lot of overlap. Yeah, so, that’s what I’m queering right now.

Katie: Yeah! And what inspired you to do the work that you’re doing right now?

Emma: It’s a good question, I feel like I was always kinda drawn to support work in one way or another. When I was even in high school, I worked at an organization that did domestic violence advocacy and would sometimes do on call hospital advocacy shifts if folks went to the emergency room after an assault, so that is extremely similar to a birth doula role or an abortion support person. You know, you meet someone in this medical setting that can potentially be uncomfortable or traumatic in this very specific day of their life. So, that was sort of the beginning of the path. And when I met someone who worked as a birth doula, I was like, “that makes sense! I’m gonna look into that.”

Katie: Yeah, and what’s your support philosophy?

Emma: Usually I tell people that their philosophy becomes by philosophy. I really like to support people in their decision making processes. I’m a big information sharer. So when, I mean really like the informed part of informed consent. I really like to nonjudgmentally support whatever your decisions are as long as individuals feel like they have what they need to make that decisions. Whether its an emotional decision or a really fact based research decision. I’m there for it all.

Katie: So I’ve asked you about your natal work, but I’m also curious about your natal chart? Whats your sun moon rising?

Emma: I’m a libra, libra sun, October 4, and a saggitarius moon and gemini rising

Katie: Alright alright I’m a libra rising so I feel like that’s why we’re friends. What’s your favorite thing about being a wueer support person or about working with lgbtq+ families?

Emma: Yes. Just the layer of honesty, I feel like, that’s baseline there, y’know, just the comfortability you have talking to other queer people about these things. So you can say something and not be worried that you’re not gonna be received well. And for many folks, at least in our area, there’s not a ton of queer childbirth prep options or parent groups that are specifically queer and all that. So sometimes being that one queer person touchpoint in someone’s fertility, pregnancy and postpartum is yknow, really meaningful! There are a lot of parents desperate for that, so.

Katie: Especially I think going into some of these very medicalized settings where there’s like so much expectation of what your family looks like or how you talk about yourself to have somebody who you at least know is – who you know at least SEES you in that way can be so valuable to families.

Emma: Totally, I love it.

Katie: Yeah. If you could improve one thing about the experience of pregnancy and birth for queer and trans families, what would it be?

Emma: Ideally, my dream is to connect more queer families with queer and trans birth workers of all types. So, there’s folks who support people through their fertility process, there’s people who are antenatal birth workers who can help you at home if you’re high risk pregnant, y’know, postpartum support. All of that. I just think there are lots of queer people doing all this work out there and I don’t think parents always know where to find them. So, yeah, that’s it!

Katie: What’s one piece of advice you have for new and aspiring queer and trans birth workers?

Emma: Well, first of all, thank you, you’re amazing, you’re needed, please stick around, and also don’t go it alone. Yknow, when I first trained as a birth doula in 2010 I was definitely the only queer person at that training. And I wasn’t really sure if I could hang with the whole birth scene in general, so having y’know located a couple other queer or “pro choice” birth workers in the early days would have been really amazing. Took a little while to build that community, so yeah, just don’t go it alone.

Katie: I can certainly attest to what It meant for me as an aspiring birth worker to be able to have you in my community and to have somebody I knew who was really willing to share information and support

Emma: Yeah, no gatekeeping!! Birth is for everybody

Katie: Yes, and finally, what’s something that’s not natal or pregnancy/birth related about you and your life that you wanna share with folks?

Emma: I’ve been thinking about this a lot, cause obviously it’s 2020 and we’re home, but my partner and I are pretty big like urban homesteader type people. So, we literally in the quarantine have tanned leather and canned pickles and I make medicine – obviously as an herbalist, getting a lot of plants and mushrooms from the world and making medicines for people. Um, what else – trying to think. It’s so funny, like, “get yourself a lesbian for the quarantine” or whatever – I’m like, yeah, my partner’s sharpening knives on rocks and it’s very practical. So, yeah!

Katie: Awesome, is there anything else about you or your work that you want to share?

Emma: People can find more about us at lgbtqbirth.com, my project with herbalism and natal topics is birthkeeper-herbalism.com and my actual birth support practice website is lavandoula.com 

Katie: Alright, thank you so much!

Emma: Thanks Katie!