Trans and queer people have been supporting each other spiritually for as long as we have existed, by which I mean since forever.
Though I am unaware of others before me who used the term “gender doula,” the work I do in my practice draws sustenance and inspiration directly and indirectly from myriad lineages of radical care work. These legacies include formal institutions of learning, and they include the wisdoms whispered to me from strangers on subway trains, laughs shared over communal meals, the embodied knowledge that pulses ancestrally through my soma, and so on.
While it would be impossible to name every being who has shaped me, there is power and accountability in naming those whose brilliant labor and love I recognize as integral to the development of my gender doula practice. I name them here, with short annotations.
May we honor where we have been, so that we may know where we are going.
Eiko Otake – I took a class with her in college titled Delicious Movement for Forgetting, Remembering and Uncovering. It radically altered my understanding of my body and other bodies, empathy and listening, and history. Eiko creates solo work and collaborations with her partner Koma.
Resource Generation – an organization that mobilizes young adults with wealth and class privilege towards the equitable distribution of wealth, land, and power. I’m not a member anymore, but I owe much of my early politicization around race and class to RG.
Third Root Community Center – I grew up here as a young adult, professionally and spiritually and collectively. A place where when people ask you “how are you doing?” they actually want to know the answer! Eternal love for the amazing healers, caretakers, and community members who have passed through this space: Julia Bennett, Geleni Fontaine, Emily Kramer, Makeba Judge, Anyanwu Uwa, Stephen Switzer, Angela Ueckerman, Sherley Accimé, Jomo Alakoye-Simmons, and and and ….
Divine House Tenants Association – Divine House (named for Father Divine, who was a previous owner of the house) was a 20 person collective house in Brooklyn, NY where I lived for over three years. So much learning, and love, and grief. Some books that I found helpful: Creating a Life Together, Vegan with a Vengeance, and The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities.
Babeland Workers Union, a member of the Retail Wholesale Department Store Union – I worked at Babeland as a sex educator and organized with my rad babes to unionize, despite horrendous union busting on the part of the company’s leadership. Fists Up For Babeland forever! Read about our campaign.
Union Theological Seminary – I am so grateful for my theological education, in particular all of my peers motivated by justice and truth and God and community. Perhaps not surprisingly, being deeply entrenched in an explicitly Christian institution made me reach for the first time towards my Jewish roots. All institutions are haunted, but this one at least had some friendly ghosts. Thanks in particular to the following professors and mentors who, each in their own way, taught me about integrity and passion and making ways out of no ways: Rev. Lea Matthews, Dr. Aliou Niang, Dr. Cláudio Carvalhaes, Dr. Jerusha Rhodes, Dr. Su Yon Pak, Dr. Deborah Paredez, Dr. John Thatamanil, and Dr. Jane Huber.
Clinical Pastoral Education – After hundreds of hours training as a chaplain through CPE, I have come to believe that it is a fundamentally violent program, particularly for those spiritual care providers who are not white, straight, cisgender Christians. And yet, there are those handful of human gems whose spiritual commitment to care inspires me to this day: Stephanie Barnes, Amelia Catone, Rev. Virginia Vogel-Polizzi, Rev. Karen Ferguson, Vanessa Coker, Paul Benz.
Hana van der Kolk – a genius movement community weirdo, who was both supervisor of my seminary field education and a collaborator on a ritual art project cocodamah (collective containers of desire and maybe also healing).
Bodies That Matter – a weekly somatic practice group for trans and nonbinary folks committed to body liberation, in the lineage of generative somatics, facilitated by B Stepp (founder of Have Heart Wellness). Oh my how we’ve grown together!
A Sacred Passing – Community death midwifery and education organization with whom I trained as a death doula, based on unceded Duwamish land, also known as Seattle, WA.
My loves present and past, you know who you are <3