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In Response to Masculine Birth Ritual
Masculine Brith Ritual – A Podcast About Creating Life Outside The Lines
Masculine Birth Ritual is a podcast created by Grover Wehman-Brown, a writer, Baba to two kids, and a transmasculine butch who has carried a child. The podcast came out of a desire to connect queer and transgender people to roadmaps for survival in pregnancy, birthing, and parenting, and create space for more representation of transmasculine and gender-non-conforming people in those spaces.
I absolutely adore this podcast and the stories that are being shared through it. The discovery of this podcast came at an extremely critical moment for me, both personally and professionally. So I thought I would give a little bit of background and then return to the podcast itself and share pieces of it that have been most meaningful for me.
If you would like to learn more about Masculine Birth Ritual and listen, click here!
& consider becoming a Patreon to support the production and longevity of this amazing work!
Acknowledging and Affirming: My Own Gender Identity, Expression, and Social Transition as a Birth Professional
This past spring, I was in one of those places where it feels like everything is pulling apart just so that you can piece it back together in a new way. After leaving an unhealthy living situation to the call of, “go home, Jenna,” I moved back into to my parents’ house for a temporary hiatus (5 months) from a sliver of the responsibilities that I could give up (rent, groceries, utility bills), and I acknowledge the fact that I was able to do so is an immense privilege. I was exploring sobriety after – justly – questioning my relationship with alcohol. I was expanding my work as a doula – rebranding, establishing an LLC, hiring an accountant, adding new service offerings, working in a business coaching program, taking multiple courses related to my professional development…
Still, all of those shifts were nothing compared to one piece of myself that, while it had always been there, had recently begun to swell up, throb, and demand action – my gender identity. “Now is not the time,” I tried to convince myself.
Fast-forward through a whole mess of internal work.
Many of you know what came next, or you can probably guess. I ultimately decided that I couldn’t step fully into the deeply personal work of a doula without being authentically myself; I had to be transparent in order to be trustworthy, even if it meant being misunderstood by many, and all the loss that comes along with that misunderstanding. I began the social transition to out as a trans non-binary person in both my personal and professional lives.
It always seems like massive shifts happen all at once, rather than one at a time. Like nearly all transitions, the ones I was experiencing at this time in my life were painful, but worth it.
The only one of these changes that I ever catch myself doubting is my choice to be out publicly. I could look to blame others for this lack of confidence, but I won’t. The onus is on me for the way that I internalize the cultural narrative of the gender binary, and as a result fight with my own transphobia on a daily basis. I am responsible for the way I allow being misgendered and misunderstood to invalidate my sense of self, and the way that I question my value as a non-binary birthworker. This is an every day battle for me, and until recently, I failed to fully realize that this struggle makes me even more valuable as a doula, not less.
It was one moment recently – one small moment – that was so meaningful in affirming both my identity and my identity as it relates to my profession. Scrolling through Instagram one day, I noticed my friend Ray of Refuge Midwifery had posted about a new podcast. Enter, Masculine Birth Ritual.
My experience as a non-binary doula, and also as a non-binary hopeful future parent, is defined in part by a sense of isolation, despite knowledge that there are other people out there like me. So when I come across any connecting force for birth-y genderqueer folks – a podcast, an article, a facebook group – I find myself instantly uplifted.
As I began to listen to the podcast, I immediately felt parallels between the stories shared and my own experiences. Though each of the individuals interviewed have vastly different backgrounds and stories than one another, and myself, the connections I felt were extremely validating. Rather than diving deeply into analysis of those connections (because I’m not even sure I could articulate them clearly), I will instead share a few excepts from the transcripts of two interviews below, and then a very short list of affirmations I have been working with.
From Rabbi Elliot Kukla, a trans Rabbi & non-binary Papa, who cares spiritually for folks who are dying, as they process their grief.
I actually came out as trans the same year I was ordained as a Rabbi in 2006. So they were very connected for me. I didn’t plan to come out really that year it was a really difficult time to come out in the same moment as being ordained. But it really was you know discovering that I couldn’t step into this role of being a Rabbi without a coming out process.
…
We have a stereotype that elders are going to be the least open to a trans population and very sick people are you know the least open to something new. And I really discovered just the opposite that you know elders and people who are very sick and people who are dying and in moments of transformation. Are often you know going through a similar process that I went through when I came out of you know… cracking open and are often at their most open and most vulnerable. And that being served by someone who clearly is liminal in some way and is fairly marginal in some way can be a profound form of connection. In fifteen years now of being a chaplain of doing this kind of work I can count on one hand really at the times that someone’s really struggling with my gender. And those times have been spiritually powerful often. You know there’s been a couple of times I’ve had to just not serve someone but most of the times it’s been spiritually meaningful when someone struggled with my gender.
…meaning that we are able to use that struggle in something that is relevant for their spiritual care and that’s what I’m for for that usually you know we’re able to not get stuck in that but but figure out what it is that is what is being touched on in them. And maybe it’s something about their own gender or something about their own transition in that moment or feeling outside or feeling in-between things
or feeling like the world is changing really fast.
From Mac Brydum, a social worker, doula and transman who is trying to conceive.
I’ve found over the years through trial and error that that’s really where I shine and that’s where I’m happiest professionally, is being with people as they’re going through major life transitions and having a baby is one of the biggest life transitions anyone can go through. And I also just have a real love and passion and a real wonder, actually, about pregnancy and birth and parenting. And I think that stage of life for so many people is confusing and overwhelming. You hear a million different opinions and
sorting through all of that and figuring out what you actually want to do can be really really complicated.So in the last few years I’ve found that being a doula is the perfect fit for me because it’s this fusion of, you know, I think of it as a form of social work because I am supporting people through a major life change. And I also think of it as a spiritual practice in a lot of ways as well because when somebody is becoming, you know, they are taking on a new identity…
…and as a trans person I can understand a shift in identity. While I’m not a parent myself yet, I hope to be soon, and so one thing that I’m really big on is just holding space for that shift in identity for the parent.
Affirmations…
My trans non-binary identity makes me stronger as a full-spectrum doula supporting people through birth, postpartum, pregnancy loss, and abortion because…
- I understand personal loss.
- I am practiced in transformation.
- I know what it feels like to question myself.
- I understand that grief is inherent in transition.
- I know what it is like to feel misunderstood or invisible.
- I live in the space between who I was before and who I am becoming.
- I am familiar with the feeling of being lonely, even when I am not alone.
- I relate to the experience of existing outside of the “norm” in a space where “norms” are an illusion.
- I know that while others may relate to my experience or try to define it on my behalf, my experience is mine alone.
