Queer & Trans* POC Birthwerq Project
Meet the team!
Our team is composed of birthworkers, educators, community members and story-tellers that are either Q/TPOC-identified or work in solidarity with transgender and queer people of color communitites. Most of us are local to Seattle, WA, but have recieved support from all over the U.S. Come back to see more bios of presenters as we upload more soon!
Emi Yamasaki McLaughlin, LM, CPM, MSM
Emi’s relationship with natural birth started before she was born. Her mother went to a feminist health collective for her prenatal care and had all of her babies at home with midwives. While supporting her pregnant sister as a doula, Emi was fascinated by the simple, physiologic ways a person could be supported in having a natural birth. Needless to say, both her mother and sister are incredibly proud that she is now a midwife.
Emi is a small business owner and licensed midwife in a practice she shares with her best friend in Seattle, WA. Their mission as a practice is to raise awareness about the benefits of midwifery care among communities of color, the LGBTQ communities and teens. Her goal is to pave the way for up and coming midwives of color because we need more midwives to vision practice models that will best meet the needs of our communities. She focused her graduate studies on issues concerning women of color and racial and ethnic health inequities. Emi presented her Master’s thesis research, titled “Increasing the Racial and Ethnic Diversity of Direct-Entry Midwives: Exploratory Interviews with Black Midwives and Educators,” at the Midwives’ Association of Washington conference in November 2013.
Emi has been going to births since 2009 and has worked with hundreds of pregnant families. She believes that pregnancy and birth are a sacred time in a person’s life and that all families should have the option of a care provider and place of birth that feels safe to them. Learn more about Emi, her thesis research and her midwifery practice at www.homebirthinseattle.com.
Rafael/a Luna-Pizano, LMP, Labor Support
Rafael/a (Rafa) is grateful to be a surviving descendant of Filipin@, Mexica and uknown Spanish ancestors, baklat and curander@ ancestors; healing and growing. He has come to birthwork through bodywork, as he found bodywork to be an integral part of healing from any physical/spiritual transition, especially pregnancy. Being raised in a family that valued and practiced helot helot (massage), and later experiencing support through bodywork during life transitions, Rafa eventually pursued a license in massage therapy to practice in the state of Washington. Rafa has continued to work as an LMP since 2011, supporting transgender, gender-fluid and two-spirit/ed folks with bodywork and energywork. To learn more about his practice, visit www.xochimeh.com.
Rafa struggled to step into birthwork as a transperson, but they finally attended DONA-certified trainings to learn about 'doula' work. They (Rafa) found classes to be inaccessible for transgender folks and people of color, and uninformative about queer and trans pregnancy experiences. Struggling to find accessible information, Rafa has since been gathering birth education through self-study, attending births, talking story with queer elders and birthworkers of color, participating in the Prison Doula Project's workshops, and searching for traditional midwives and parteras who are open to teaching him. Rafa believes that all peoples have the right to experience pregnancy, birth, abortion, adoption, etc. in a respectful, consensual and safe way. He hopes to one day apply to midwifery programs that can provide competent and respectful full spectrum birth education about and for all bodies and all genders. Until then, he's just dreamin', prayin' and waterin' seeds for a new day.
Ana Otazo CD, FSD (presenter)
Ana ids as a Fat, Hard Femme, Tex Rican Queer. She works as a Nanny and Postpartum Doula in Houston, TX while building her businesses, Lucha Doula & Mama Sopa (Post Partum services and Catering). Ana is very interested in educating her community of POC and LGBTQ folks on chest/breastfeeding, queer parenting, and nutrition for diabetics eating on public programs. Ana trained with the Matrona, Open Umbrella, and the Cicada Collective. She has been an in-clinic and private full spectrum Doula since 2012. In her free time she enjoys cooking Caribbean food, read comics and radical lit, analyzing her cats, and queer dance parties
Claudia Serrato, Ph.C. (presenter, panelist)
Claudia Serrato, a critical nutritional red womb ecologist, a decolonial anthropologist, and a doctoral candidate in the sociocultural and medical anthropology program at UW, shares her knowledge on food, taste memory, and health in relation to pre-and post-pregnancy and infant/toddler feeding.
Crystal Barr, presentor
Crystal Azul Barr is a queer macha artist/educator/doula who is inspired to rebozo all beings who wish to be gently yet firmly held. Based in Oakland, CA, she shares her vida with the love of her life and their 2 cats.
Inga Aaron
I’m an activist, advocate, queer/Dyke Black ciswoman, single mother, grandmother, medical professional, performance artist and a natural questioner. I work as a medical professional, a doula and community integration specialist. When I am not gushing over my 2 delicious grandchildren, Derek and Nora J, I am trying to decide what to be when I grow up.
The work that I do every day is that of an activist. I have worked on oppression and racism issues since I was 5 years old when my family integrated a farming town in the Mid Hudson Valley, NY in the late 60s. I am passionate about any and all issues pertaining to the Divine Feminine. I am also passionate about queer issues and responded to a hate crime against a transwoman, Gwen Araujo, in our home town by partnering with my daughter and starting the first queer-straight alliance in Southern Alameda County. My daughter and I held the first queer prom in our area at our home, with 30 attendees. The next year it was at a Hilton Hotel with 200 attendees representing 8 Bay Area Counties.
For the time being, I live in Seattle with my family.