Trans Bodies, Trans Choices

hey fam it's amara welcome to the trans podcast a show where we tell trans stories to save trans lives as a pivotal supreme court decision looms in the united states we've been hearing a lot about access to abortion and other reproductive health services far too often trans people are left completely out of the conversation but transgender people need access to reproductive health care too everything from contraception and family planning to sti testing and treatment to abortion but the barriers to access can be high and trans people have to deal with all of those barriers in addition to encountering providers who aren't trans competent and simply don't know how to interact with trans people accessing these services that's why we at translash launched the trans bodies trans choices short film and narrative series through trans bodies trans choices during this transgender month of visibility trans people are using their voices to reveal the personal stakes for our community and to center us in this discussion about body autonomy so that's the conversation we're having this week first we talked to writer and educator jack coimi gutierrez who tells their story in a trans bodies trans choices film you know my dysphoria usually comes from uh having a womb and being aware of said womb so imagine nine months of just being hyper aware of something that makes you feel violently ill i did not need that i was like i think i'm good then we talked to adaku utah the organizing director for the national network of abortion funds it's why folks who are specifically white supremacist folks who are tied to this system are so committed to controlling exploiting punishing and killing us for centuries because there is so much power in our cells in our cells to our bones to our muscles to our imagination by the way when you get done with this episode head over to translash's youtube page subscribe and check out jack's story as well as all of the powerful stories that we feature in the trans bodies trans choices film series before we hear from jack and adaku though let's celebrate some of your favorite stories and make sure you subscribe to our channel and hit the bell so you don't miss out on any of our future episodes when we say reproductive health services lots of people think that just means abortion but the reality is reproductive health covers a lot of ground people navigating these decisions often need support and community and that's where doula can come in doulas are advocates and companions who can help you navigate important health-related decisions and this week i wanted to highlight the work of birthing advocacy doula trainings or bat it's an organization that provides training to people who want to become full spectrum doulas full spectrum doulas can help people with every stage of their reproductive experience jb brown is bat's program director and lead teacher we have plenty of empirical data that suggests that access to peer support drastically improves the quality of care that people have and also drastically improves kind of the way they relate to their experiences as doulas we're positioned to give folks access to others who share lived experience and that that is probably one of the most significant things that we can do jb brown you and everyone at bat are trans joy now i'm joined by jack coimi gutierrez jack is a freelance writer and educator focused on the intersections of race class gender sexuality and ability they're one of the featured storytellers for our trans bodies trans choices film and narrative series their story will premiere on wednesday march 30th jack had an abortion at 20 and has written and spoken extensively about the obstacles they faced from accessing care to dealing with providers who didn't know how to talk about trans people they've been working on a series of stories about trans people and how they've been able to understand how the issues around body autonomy are so incredibly relevant for our community jack is out to help change the narrative by not remaining silent about their choice and to make sure that trans people can have access to whatever reproductive services they need in welcoming settings their writing has been featured in everyday feminism rewire and black girl dangerous they're also a storyteller with the abortion advocacy organization we testify jack thank you so much for coming on the trans podcast i'm jack coimi gutierrez and i'll see you next time and for telling your story in trans bodies trans choices happy to be here i'm not going to preview your story because everyone will just have to watch the film when it comes out one of the things that really caught my attention that i've heard you say is that before your abortion you had done quote everything right close quote and the reason why that struck me is we do have this idea this stigma about trans people and trans people's choices and i'm not going to preview your story of the way that abortion is supposed to factor into our decision making and it just really stood out for me and i'm wondering if you can just talk a little bit about that and about the idea that abortion has to fit into a narrative of it being right or in some cases wrong right or an errant choice which is one of the things that you really are trying to disabuse people of to preface obviously there's no wrong or right way to choose abortion that makes very little sense it's a choice that happens but whenever i met with anti-abortion folks usually the narrative is well you put yourself in a position to need xyz that's why this happened to you that wasn't my experience you know a lot of people will say well we have a resources we can't get contraceptives to folks that wasn't my experience i volunteered with Planned Parenthood i was very well aware of sexual health and i used a condom it just broke and then i took plan b and then that didn't work so the universe just went you know what we're gonna humble you you're gonna have to navigate this one way or another for you the decision to have an abortion seemed to have so many intersections one of them being economic status like it wasn't economically the right time it wasn't the right time as well because of the way it didn't feel right for your body as a trans person also in so many other ways in terms of race i'm wondering if you can just talk about that talk about the ways in which there's so many things in which it just it wasn't right for you to carry in all these different ways i to this day do not ever want to be pregnant i knew that 10 years ago i know that now i am not someone who's going i don't even like kids let's be real i do not like children but on top of that there are of course a lot of challenges that go into being someone who at the time had just turned 20 i found out i was pregnant the month of my birthday so i was 19 and then just turned 20 when i finally took a test i was in my first going on my second year of college i had a part-time job and i was going to school full-time i did not have the resources to support myself let alone anything or anyone else i was in a really terrible relationship with my high school sweetheart that was not in a lot of ways just not something that was going to be a permanent dynamic you know i was navigating in that time as well my mental health i found out later that i am agoraphobic i spent a year in my house right after high school and then i have ocd all that together just it wasn't going to be something that made it easy for me to experience pregnancy and it's not something that i wanted you know my dysphoria usually comes from uh having a womb and being aware of said womb so imagine nine months of just being hyper aware of something that makes you feel violently ill i did not need that i was like i think i'm good also being trans also factored into the type of abortion you decided to have can you talk a little bit about that i chose a medication abortion versus the surgical one the surgical one being what you see in a lot of media it was also cheaper let's be real it was like a hundred dollars cheaper i believe at the time this is 2011 it was five hundred dollars to do a medication abortion and i was like oh my god i'm not going to do that i'm not going to do that and this way i could take these pills go home and go about my business and then hopefully or at least at the time i thought you know forget it ever happened to move on it didn't end up going that way florida is a bitch so i lived in florida when i when i did this and there was a law that passed in the summer in which i got an abortion where you had to have a transvaginal ultrasound in order to access an abortion so you had to have one before uh you got your pills and then i had to come back after two weeks for a checkup a follow-up and they had to have a transvaginal ultrasound do it again and i remember that they asked me if i wanted a printout of the ultrasound and i was like i think i'm good i'm sure that that's amazing for somebody out there uh not me i wish it had gone as clean as i'd planned where i could just be left to my own devices and just didn't end up going that smoothly as you said you were in florida during that time one of the things that you have just described are the hurdles that you had to jump through in order to be able to access your abortion in Florida, not surprising given Florida, for something that is right now still guaranteed by the Constitution, but here we are. And one of the things that's also key about your background and your experience is that you're Puerto Rican, you're Latinx. And I'm wondering if there were any other perspectives, thoughts, pressures that factored into your experience of trying to access an abortion that also included a dimension around race. It's not something that I thought of at the time, to be honest with you. Both of my parents are Puerto Rican, they're different races. So coming from a mixed race background, they both grew up on the island. And that culture is a slightly more conservative, but I think my parents have been really chill. I've always been very self-involved. This was something that I had decided that I was going to deal with, and it was going to be me, and I wasn't going to involve my family. My immediate family and I are not that close. It just wasn't something that got brought up. Whenever anybody had anything negative to say about my abortion experience, one of the things that they would bring up would be race and ethnicity to make it be like, well, have you seen those or heard of those billboards in Florida where they have like, they're killing the black community because they're aborting black babies. So I hate that shit so much. So someone would bring that up to me. That would always be something like, these are minority babies. You see how this is white supremacy. No, it's not. No, this is not. I just chose an abortion because that was the best choice for me. I'm not rejecting my own identities because I didn't want to have a child. I'm good. Yeah. And you didn't want to be pregnant because it wasn't right for you, period. Yes, exactly. It's not that more complicated. And people decide to have medical procedures all the time because of what's right for them. I think that's an important thing for us to mention. But one of the things that you've talked about, that really just blew my socks off was your experience inside of a mainstream abortion provider. I won't name them. You can name them if you want to. And just the experience that you had around dealing with people who are titularly, like on paper, when you read it, are on your side, on the side of people who are progressive and people who are pro-choice and people supporting abortion rights. But that when it came to supporting your, abortion rights and your reproductive justice rights as a trans person, literally said to you in conversations that you had, well, we'll worry about cis women first and then eventually we'll get to you and other trans and non-binary people and we'll eventually extend these rights and these services to everyone. Can you talk a little bit about that and how that impacted you in terms of what you were perceiving? Oh, I have a lot of shit to talk about. I've got a lot of shit to talk when it comes to this. Let me, let me begin. So I had an abortion when I was 20 and then I had always been somebody that considered themselves pro-choice. I find out later in life that there is a very clear distinction between people that are pro-choice and people that are pro-abortion. That distinction, I was enlightened to this fact by Renee Bracey Sherman, the head and creator of We Testify, the program that I work. After I had my abortion, you know, I joined, I joined a group on campus called Voices for Planned Parenthood. I believe they're called something different now. And I actually did an internship and a fellowship with Planned Parenthood. I was going to conferences. I was in it. I thought that my career was going to be in public health. And I thought because of my experiences and because of all the identities that I live in and, and, and experienced that it would be, I thought it wouldn't be a great resume builder. Honestly, I was like, yeah, if I just put all this effort into this, I'm going to be able to provide care for people from my community and it's going to be good quality care. I would try so hard to get us to be more intersectional. I would be like, okay, well, this wording for this campaign is incredibly cis-sexist. Let's talk about that. Can we break that down? I get that this is a national campaign. This isn't something that you decided yourself right now, talking to like whoever's running it. But in our messaging, when we're talking, can we say people, can we say folks, can we get something a little neutral here because we want to be accessible. And even at some point in my fellowship, I was a one-on-one presentation with the entire education apartment. And I had my supervisor, my then supervisor who no longer works for that company say to me, Hey, Jack, can you stop correcting me when I misgender you? Because it takes me out of my thought process. And I was like, Oh, that must be so hard. Can you imagine what it's like to be me? The person who's being misgendered because that's an act of violence. Oh, a concept. If I had to be told by one more specifically like white white people, we're always telling me, Oh, we have to take care of women first. We have to take care. And they, of course they mean CIS women. We have to take care of CIS women first. We have to take care of them because you know, once we get that, then we'll move on to other minorities. It's like, no, absolutely not. That's not how this works. We aren't free till we're all free. And I thought that at 20. And I think that now, so going into these spaces and then learning about the difference between that and like reproductive justice spaces. I felt a lot more comfortable in much more radical spaces. And I ended up just piecing out of public health altogether. I decided it was not something that I was going to do. I went another route and now I sell dildos. So. Listen, we'll come to that in a minute. The distinction that you're making right now as well between the language of pro-abortion and pro-choice versus reproductive justice is one that is grounded in the difference between one that is binary and one that's intersectional because the term, reproductive justice was actually coined by a black woman, right? Loretta Ross and a famous article about thinking about the totality of the body autonomy of people. And so even the lens, you know, for you moving into reproductive justice spaces makes sense because it is a much more intersectional framework for thinking about how to be inclusive when we talk about the full range of needs that impact people's ability to be autonomous in their bodies. It's just a really powerful thing. Powerful story. And I think even that idea of segmentation, right? It's never worked that way. It's never worked that one group of people within a marginalized group gets rights and then it suddenly explodes to everyone else. It doesn't work that way. It's never worked that way in history. And for you calling that out, I just think is, is accurate. It's just, it's just a fact. One of the things that you do now, as you kind of alluded to is among other things, sell the importance of feeling good about our bodies and emphasizing pleasure and us bringing in the idea of sex and sexual pleasure into the ideas of being able to occupy our bodies. Can you talk about why that space is so important for you now and why you think it's an important part of the conversation overall, especially for trans people? Something I never really got to discuss when I worked in public health spaces, when I was trying to go down that route is pleasure. You know, I feel like it was, funny enough, it was very sterile. It was a very sterile environment. It was just like your body does this and this, and that's it. I kind of pivoted into a different kind of wellness. It's sexual wellness and working in an erotic boutique. I get to focus on that aspect. Our community is often de-sexed in a lot of ways, whether it's, we don't want to talk about gay sex and what that looks like, or we don't want to talk about trans bodies and what language we should, we should be using there. Now that's all I focus on. Now that's all I talk about. One of the main points of me entering this particular field was to make it more inclusive, to make it more trans inclusive specifically. I am the first out trans store manager that they've had. I, they didn't know about pronouns till I got there. It wasn't something that was addressed. Now we have pronouns in our email addresses. We have business cards with our pronouns. There are pins that are given out to new hires. It was so important for me to be out at a job, to have a career, where I could be out and run my little store as, as a place where anybody could come in and they would feel comfortable. And it's been some of the most rewarding work I've done in my life. Yeah. It's so, so important because as you say, our bodies are only spoken about in the negative. And so the work that you're doing is really important. Finally, given all the experiences that you've had in your body as a trans person and all the experiences that you've had in your life, all the different ways from working on policy to experiencing abortion, to thinking you were going to be in social work to now focusing on sexual health and sexual pleasure. If someone asks you, why is it important for trans people to be forefront in the conversation around body autonomy in this moment? What's your answer? We have historically not been allowed to have body autonomy. We are probably in a lot of ways, some of the most restricted folks when it comes to that. So I want to give folks with the least amount of access, the most visibility. I want us to have conversations that put us at the forefront that explicitly not just go, Oh, afterthought, we also want to, we want to remember the trans people too. Yeah. Them too. No, no, no. We should be the first group in mind because there are some folks that are just going to be in particularly marginalized positions. It's not equitable for us to be in that position. It's not equitable for us not to give that extra care where it's needed. I've there's been such a culture difference in my life. life and in my work now that I have an impact in my community. And I'm specifically trying to hire and work with other trans people of color. I want to uplift those voices in those communities more than anything, because we need, we need that. We need the most help. We deserve the most visibility. So I'll do everything I can to do that. Well, Jack, thank you so much for doing that and for telling us your story and for expanding our understanding of why this is so important for us and our community. And I'm just expressing deep gratitude for you at this moment. Thank you so much. Thank you. That was Jack Coimbe Gutierrez, a freelance writer and educator whose story is featured in the upcoming latest release of Trans Bodies, Trans Choices. I'm excited to welcome Adaku Yuta, who is an organizer, healer, and performance artist. Adaku is currently the organizing director of the National Network of Abortion Funds. The National Network of Abortion Funds' mission is to remove financial and logistical barriers to abortion access, regardless of race, gender identity, what part of the country you live in, or your ability to pay. Given how both reproductive and trans rights are under attack, often from the same right-wing groups, Adaku's mission in bringing people together across multiple divides to preserve body autonomy is especially crucial in this moment. But she's not new to this. Adaku has worked in social movements for radical change, with a focus on gender, reproductive, race, youth, and healing justice since they were 18. Adaku is the founder and director of Harriet's Apothecary, a healing village led by Black cis women, queer, and trans folks committed to living out Harriet Tubman's legacy of liberation and has infused healing justice in their organizing work for Yale University, Black Lives Matter, and Planned Parenthood, among others. Adaku has been recognized as a 2020 laundromat community impact honoree, a 2017 Essence Magazine Woke 100 changemaker, a 2012 Sexuality Leadership Development Fellow with the Africa Regional Sexuality Resource Center in Lagos, Nigeria. Don't say that too fast. And if that wasn't enough, they have performed with New York's Decadence Theater. Adaku goes by the pronouns he, they, and she, and is non-binary. Adaku, thank you so much for joining us. Oh my gosh, I'm so excited and honored to be here with you, Amara, and so grateful for your life and all the ways that you doula liberation into possibility in our nows and our futures. Thank you so much for that lovely introduction. Of course, of course. Thank you. Thank you so much. So I'm wondering if we can start off this conversation kind of in the heart of your work. You know, there's so many ways to approach overview conversations of what's happening with regards to, you know, how do we start off this conversation kind of in the heart of your work? So I'm wondering if we can start there. What, from where you sit, are some of the key issues with regards to abortion and abortion access right now? So in this work, it's really important for me to really ground us in a holistic picture of where this work sources from. This is about honoring and protecting our sacred birthright to bodily autonomy and sovereignty. And for us, particularly with the National Network of Abortion Funds, we have a really clear North Star that orients us to shaping a world where every single reproductive decision is made. And so I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about that. So I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about that. Creating ecosystems of care and really responding to not only the lack of access, but the cultural punishment that has come from policies or governments or the state really trying to control and punish how people are choosing to exist and support their bodies. And so folks who've been working within our network in autonomous grassroots organizations have been creating these ecosystems of care within and outside of this state. identity. For some folks, it's violent harassment or even forced sterilization of our bodies with or without consent. And all of this violence really impacts how trans folks, non-binary and gender non-conforming folks trust their bodies being cared for within or outside of a health care institution. And this can really impact whether folks choose to go get care or they might postpone or refuse care when they need it. I'm also thinking about our trans migrant folks where hospitals in particular have been a site of surveillance and have put trans migrants back in detention centers or in closer proximity to policing and jails. And the folks who are supposed to be caring for our bodies because they're either not educated. Or want to be educated about trans health and affirming care can spread misinformation and the quality of care that they're offering can cause harm. These are all both sites of harm. They're also sites of change that need to happen now and into the future to make sure that wherever our people choose to access care, we can get it when we need. It's affordable and it is affirming and trustworthy. So. Are all these complexities ones that are understood increasingly by the mainstream reproductive justice movement? You mentioned that historically they hadn't gotten it. But I'm wondering if there's any shift or change. You know, those institutions are still really key in terms of the conversation and the money and the power that goes to try to create these broad-based movements for justice and change. Yeah. I would say. Some folks are on their way and doing their work towards the embodiment of this. And some folks are still are not there yet. I think what I've noticed, particularly inside of our work, we have more folks who are recognizing, reclaiming, demanding, demanding that when we talk about reproductive justice, we hold all people, all gender identities. And it is not just. And it is not just cis folks at the center or an essentialized form of womanhood that erases our people. I feel proud of that work. And there is always more. There is more. And I think that, you know, for anybody that's listening to this, that's part of the reproductive health, reproductive rights, reproductive justice. I think it's so crucial that we keep asking ourselves, how is the work and the way that it shapes? How is it colluding with transphobia? And what are the ways? What are the ways that we need to transform and create more expansive possibilities so that more trans folks, gender nonconforming folks can be in their dignity and humanity and be celebrated and honored as they access reproductive care? When you've gone to the rooms of the various national actors, we're talking NARAL and Planned Parenthood and now all these other, you know, mainstream organizations and you say, this is why. It's important that y'all get and include issues around gender identity, specifically transphobia, race, economic access, disability. Like, when you go and tell them this is why you have to get it when it comes to abortion, what do you say? I say that we will not be doing right by our people if we are not living and working inside of these intersections. And in fact, the work that we do moves. It moves into a space of violence and erasure when we are choosing not to hold abortion access at the intersections of racial justice and economic justice and gender justice and disability justice. We are forgetting and erasing sacred people who are a part of how we are able to live whole lives. And we cannot win without trans folks, gender nonconforming and nonbinary folks. We cannot have justice. We cannot have liberation when we leave bodies behind. It's actually reinforcing what reproductive oppression and what violence teaches us to do with bodies, you know, erasing and deciding who's worthy of care and who's worthy of attention. And I say, fuck no to that, that there's actually more room for for us. Yeah, I think that's right. I think it's such a basic. Premise that we win the more that we bring people in, you know, like that's like you. I'm often mystified by people who don't understand why it's important to bring in people who live at these intersections because this directly impacts us, too. And it's just basic math. Get out your calculator and just start adding. We started. This isn't a big picture view about body autonomy and sovereignty, but this issue of occupying body and body space and the body as the first step in liberation, a free body as the first step in liberation. This is something that you've actually devoted your entire life to. And I'm wondering if you can just tell us kind of as we end our conversation. Why you think. Why you think body autonomy is so key. It's, of course, key for for trans people writ large. It's one of the things our community is predicated on. It's one of the reasons why this is a natural issue for us to be involved in. But I'm just wondering, as a person who is non-binary and who occupies their body as a key step in liberation, why do you think body autonomy on an individual level is so essential? Why do you think body autonomy is so essential for us to be able to live out our life force? I love this question. I mean, our bodies are. For some of us, our homes, you know, it is the place where we will live out our life force and our bodies are also places of power. And it's it's why it's why folks who are specifically white supremacist folks who are tied to this system. It's why folks who are specifically white supremacist folks who are tied to this system. Are so committed to controlling, exploiting, punishing and killing us for centuries because there is so much power in ourselves, in ourselves, to our bones, to our muscles, to our imagination. And we are able to not only imagine the kinds of worlds that allow for us to be free, but we're also able to make these worlds real and possible. And so for me, I hold the body as sacred, not necessarily. Because of, you know, capitalism's desire of what we can produce, but because of how we can live, really how how we are able to live in ways that are in integrity, to legacy, to ancestry, to the present moment and to the futures that we desire. The pathway to building a world where we are satisfied, liberated, loved comes through us. You know, it comes through the fractals of our bodies and not just with us. It comes. In connection with bodies that we can trust and feel like we can build, we can build worlds with. And that, for me, feels crucial. Well, thank you for that. The phrase that our bodies are how we world build should go on a T-shirt and should be handed out to every trans person in the world. It's our creed of core. It's what screams from our spirits. Adaku, thank you so much for engaging in this conversation. About the intersections of abortion access, reproductive justice, body autonomy and trans rights and issues right now. And thank you so much for your practice of healing in this work that I think is so essential and for making us think about centering our bodies and everything that we do, including the fight for liberation. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for for. For your listening. Thank you for your care and also for creating so many platforms where we're able to share our stories and feel free in them and feel heard in them. I adore you. And so honored by you and this this work. Thank you. Thank you so much. Deeply appreciate that. That was Adaku Utah, who is the organizing director at the National Network of Abortion Funds. Thank you so much for listening. Don't forget to head to the Translash Media YouTube page to subscribe and check out our new video series, Trans Bodies, Trans Choices, and stick around all the way to the end for something extra. If you like what you heard, please go to Apple Podcasts to rate and review us. You can also listen to Translash wherever you get your podcast. Check us out on the web at Translash.org to sign up for our weekly newsletter. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at Translash Media. Like us on Facebook and tell your friends and everyone. everybody. I keep telling you that in every podcast. The TransLash podcast is produced by TransLash Media. The TransLash team includes Oliver Ash Klein and Callie Wright. Our intern is Marana Munson-Burke. Alexander Charles Adams does the sound editing for our show. Our digital strategy is handled by Daniela Capistrano. The music you heard was composed by Ben Draghi and also courtesy of ZZK Records. The TransLash podcast is made possible by the support of the Huizing Simons Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and many others, including some of y'all listeners. Hey, y'all, what am I looking forward to? Well, I'm looking forward to going to my first, I think, concert or music, anything in New York City at the end of the month, literally on TransLash. of Visibility. It's a group out of Brazil called Cria, which does a combination of music and dance from favelas, which are the places that you've probably seen in anything that you've seen about Rio, where you see kind of the low-income housing, poor housing above the hills in cities. They're literally where people who are poor were pushed. So in any event, it's a font of culture, and there have been tons of Brazilian. movies and artists that have come out of favelas. And so it's going to be really interesting to see how this group, Cria, which I'm going to go see at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, is what they're going to do and how they're going to be. It's also going to be weird because I'm still wearing my mask. Lots of people aren't. I still have a little nervousness about going out in crowds, but I'm still doing it because I need to re-acclimate to the world. And if anything, just to give myself a break, I'm going to go to the Brooklyn Academy of Music. I'm going to go to the Brooklyn Academy of Music. From being in quarantine, I've been pretty strict with myself about being COVID safe. And I better go do stuff while we have this lull because all of the things that we've done are kind of ensuring that I think there'll be another wave. So I'm going to take advantage of this to go see Cria. Oh, by the way, I speak Portuguese and lived in Brazil for a while, but that's a whole nother story. So I'm looking forward to getting there. Getting out in the world before the next wave of COVID hits.