How did I come to meet you here?

I grew up in Western Massachusetts, an out queer child, and an out trans teenager, before gay marriage was legal in any of the 50 states, and before trans people had any access to insurance coverage for gender affirming care. Despite the liberal reputation of my hometown, I was ostracized in my learning environment and removed entirely from health and sex education in high school to “protect” me from homophobic faculty and staff. I was frustrated by the experiences I was having, and found a place in activism at an early age. The support I received from others who were different like me, the gaps they filled, the hope and possibility they provided me, were life changing. Where I had only seen dead ends before, they showed me pathways. When I thought I was alone, they showed me a community with space to hold my whole self. I wouldn’t have made it without that. 

I moved to New York to attend NYU and study Social and Cultural Analysis with a concentration in Gender & Sexuality Studies. I was 21 years old and in my junior year when one night before finals I discovered that I was pregnant, despite being told at age 18 when I began taking hormones that I would lose my fertility permanently. Reproductive medicine is ever evolving, and woefully lacking when applied to gender and sexual minorities; this was a lesson I learned the hard way. At that time, I knew I was in no way prepared to parent a child, but I wanted desperately to meet and know and love my baby, so I chose to pursue an open adoption. Throughout the course of my pregnancy, I repeatedly experienced judgmental, dismissive treatment from practitioners who were disapproving of my choice, or who were confused and off-put by my gender. I received no resources or support to bodyfeed or pump milk for my child.  I was not informed of the physical or emotional realities of birth and postpartum, and I was woefully unprepared for the inevitable grief that accompanies separation from a child, even in the most confident and connected open adoptions. Even with every confidence that I was making the right decision and had chosen incredible parents for my child, the experience was indescribably traumatic. 

I returned to learning radicalized by my experience. As I grieved the separation from my baby, I became acutely aware of the role that social inequity and stigma had in my own outcomes, as well as those of others. I took the background I already had as an educator on gender and sexual identity, and I expanded my scope of work to begin providing the pleasure based, reproductively informed, inclusive sex education that I had never had, full time. After a decade of programmatic work, learning and teaching about sex, pleasure, and relationships, and after experiencing birth a second time as a surrogate, I felt the call to bring my experiences wholly together - to provide education and direct support in the intricate work of family building, to seek out others in the same position I once found myself in, and to provide the support, care, and sensitivity I hadn't had. After my first time serving as an intuitive doula, I knew that I had found my calling. I enrolled with DTI and began training to provide full spectrum care so that I may support other pregnant and birthing people in having the positive experiences that we all deserve.