I have had this post floating around in my mind for ages. As I hear stories from clients about lack of consent, hear the updates on the anti-trans bills from Chase Strangio, and hear how the options for abortions are becoming more and more limited, I know there is a connection to be made from my stance as a doula and trainer.

The connection is that marginalized bodies need to stay marginalized in order for the status quo to continue. Capitalism, patriarchy, white nationalism, thrive on keeping folks in spirals of trauma, unable to get the care they deserve, and maintaining power and money. When a transgender person cannot get the life saving health care they need, they cannot fully participate in life and community, if they even survive. Pregnant people who experience trauma around birth and postpartum, have to struggle to make it through, and are constantly told that they should suffer in silence. When a person is forced to carry a group of cells to term, and have an unplanned for baby, or whose life is then at risk due to the pregnancy, how can they be a fully empowered human? All of these experiences are traumas on top of traumas.

We have to see our liberation as bound together. Trans folks bound with pregnant folks. New parents bound to the fight to eradicate racism. I believe my work as a trainer and a doula can help empower folks to make these connections. When we can understand this suffering not as our failure, but as a systematic problem, we can fight together. When we can understand our birth trauma in context, in the context of a system that was meant to silence us, we can fight together. When we can understand the government’s attempts to control most bodies as a direct assault on our bodies and the bodies of people we love, we can fight together.

Some more resources:

Eradicating Transness”: ACLU’s Chase Strangio on GOP’s Assault on LGBTQ Rights at CPAC & Nationwide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEZ5TDdQwjg

Criminalization of pregnancy has already been happening to the poor and women of color: https://www.npr.org/2022/08/03/1114181472/criminalization-of-pregnancy-has-already-been-happening-to-the-poor-and-women-of

Donate: https://houseofgg.org