Reproductive Justice!

I spent much of this weekend attending workshops and plenaries at the 30th annual CLPP Reproductive Justice Conference.

"Birth is sex," said the incredible Mohawk elder and midwife Katsi Cook. Well, of course we as a culture are so afraid of birth, (I'm paraphrasing) replied Cara Page, my conference crush, we're still terrified of sex and sexuality in all forms! Birth is such a big part of occupies my thoughts these days, as I'm a doula-in-training and going back to college in the fall to start on the path of becoming a midwife. So I went to all the birth-related workshops I could at the conference -- Expanding the Doula Model of Care: Training and Being an Abortion Doula, Empowering Birth, and Reframing and Empowering Parenting and Mothering. It was powerful to be in a completely pro-choice space, where all choices -- abortion, adoption, parenting as a young woman of color or an older transman or anyone at all -- are affirmed and supported.

When I think about my own hopes for birth and parenting, it's so tied up with all kinds of complications because I'm queer. I want to give birth to my children (at least some of them). It took me a long time to own that feeling without guilt: guilt for not wanting to adopt "when there are so many children who need homes," (although I have more complicated feelings about adoption now, but that's a different post). Guilt for not being enthusiastic about sharing childbearing with a female partner -- it feels selfish, because I want it so much. Confusion about how I could be so queer, but still want to be "the mom." 

One night in college, I stayed up really late with my friends in our co-op, sitting on the floor drinking red wine out of mason jars and talking about our futures. As you do. I got very emotional about my dilemma and said something along the lines of, "I love women -- I love dating them, sleeping with them, being with them -- but I want to have kids, and I just want to be the MOM!" My wise friend looked at me and said, "You don't want to be the mom -- you want to be the parent your kids like best." Which was of course completely true. I want to have the kind of relationship with my kids that I have with my own mom, but that is independent of my partner's gender. And of course, the older I get the less I want to be the parent my kids like best -- I wouldn't want them to have favorites. I just want to have a great, fun, honest relationship with them, and hopefully my partner will too.

That said, one of the things that is so wonderful and...relaxing, somehow, about being with my genderqueer beau, is that in our relationship, I know that I would be the pregnant one -- Beau isn't interested. It's one of the many ways that being with Beau makes me more comfortable in my own skin, in my own desires. We started dating very shortly after I ended a two and a half year, long distance, emotionally abusive relationship in which I felt very judged as not queer enough, and not radical enough, particularly in my desires to have one committed partner and to raise children with that person. Lots of things have given me some perspective on how fucked up that was (time, distance, therapy, friends, a relationship with someone who isn't, as Michelle Tea put it "a queer douchebag"). It's actually amazing to me how much more settled I feel now that I can begin to envision a future for myself, with someone I love, without feeling judged for it. But of course, that shouldn't be amazing at all.

And....somehow I managed to write an entire post that was going to be about the CLPP conference, and turned into something else all together. I'll try to put more thoughts about the conference down later, but they're still all swirling around in my head.