Jo Botelho

Sep 26

Written By Vrindavani Avila

Description, audio, and transcript coming soon!

Listen to Part 1 :

Interviewer: Okay, so this is Vrindavani and I am having a remote conversation with Jo for the Trans Abortion Oral Histories Project. Today is June 11, 2024. Hi, Joe. Would you like to introduce yourself a bit?
Participant: Hi there. Yeah. Thank you, first of all, Vrindavani, for having me here. My name is Jo. My pronouns are they, she, I am an abortion haver. I haven't found the right words. I know that's like being commonly used right now, but I am somebody who's had multiple abortions. I am a queer birthing parent. I am a reproductive justice worker, community care worker, and I'm just excited to be here and share a little bit about me and my story with you today.
Interviewer: Yay. Yeah, I'm excited to hear more about you and your history. What about you starting with a little bit more background about who you are and kind of like how you came into this world.
Participant: Yeah, that's a great, what a big question. Okay, a little bit about me and how I came into this world. So I am a child of immigrants. I am multiracial, multi-ethnic, and my father is white American. But I was largely, and I mean largely, meaning like fully raised, by my Philippinex immigrant family. I'm second generation. Just learned all the terminology about generations for the longest time. My family was like, you're first generation, so I went by that. But I'm not. I'm not first generation. If anything, I'm definitely second generation. And my biological mom and the mom that raised me is, I think, 1.5 generation. She immigrated here from the Philippines around the age of eight, I believe, with her siblings and her mom. My grandfather was already here. They immigrated here from the Philippines in, I believe, it was the 70s, in the mid-70s, landed in the San Francisco Bay Area. And then I came into the world several, a few… not several, a few decades later. I was born in the San Francisco East Bay, in a far more affluent part of the Bay Area, in the Tri-Valley, in the San Ramon-Walnut Creek area, and that is where I was born. All of my primary education happened in that area, so I was consistently exposed to a much more privileged way of living, more like working middle class community. Really well-resourced education, really well-resourced everything, social systems in general. Although it was very strange to grow up in that environment, growing up in an immigrant household, my family ended up leaving the San Francisco Bay Area in the 80s when my mom was in high school because my grandfather wanted to move closer to his work, which was based out here in San Ramon. And he'd been saving for years. They lived in South San Francisco. They lived in a one-bedroom apartment for over, I think it was like close to a decade. A family of six immigrants living in a small one-bedroom apartment. And they did that for years. And eventually like siblings grew up and left and did their own thing. But yeah, they ended up out here where my mom met my dad. There's a… Camp Parks is in Dublin. It's a Army Reserve, Army base. And my dad was stationed on in Camp Parks Army Reserve. And that's how my mom and dad met. They're no longer together, but they met each other when my mom was in her early 20s. They very quickly got married and had me and that's how I came into the world. I feel like there's more to it but it was like I think that like the whole rushedness of it all is also pretty like indicative of like my entry into this world. Again I was raised by my immigrant family. My dad was not very connected to his family. They were low socioeconomic kind of upbringing background, traveled. My paternal grandfather was a trucker, so they traveled and lived all over the United States, from Washington State to Kansas to Florida. And so, I don't have a lot of ties to my paternal side. But that's okay, I was raised by a really amazing, loving immigrant family and that they are for sure 1000% the root of who I am in my community and in my world today. It was challenging, I think, just the intergenerational… everything intergenerational at play. But largely like my community work is rooted in being second generation, being the first person in my family to have been born in the United States and to be like growing up and being raised in the like Western normative culture and navigating that. So from a very early age, I was supporting my family and navigating everything, all the systems. Particularly, I had a knack for navigating the healthcare system with my family, with my grandparents in particular, who are both college educated, but immigrated here in their 40s. And so, Tagalog is their main, their native language. And there was language barriers, and there was cultural barriers, and all the barriers that they consistently came up against in getting dignified care. Which really is like the beginnings of me stepping into community care work, and what what has like created this trajectory towards me working in reproductive justice and social justice movements as an advocate. And for myself, I think, in a lot of ways. I feel like I can get really deep into the weeds with all of this. How am I, am I kind of following the line?
Interviewer: I mean, you're doing, you're doing great. Like if you, whatever you wanna share, however you wanna go, it's like up to you. You want me to ask you a question?
Participant: Sure, sure.
Interviewer: I mean, you said you started navigating healthcare services for your family. I guess I wanted to ask you how old you were when you started that and how was that? Or what was your experiences doing that?
Participant: I think that it's kind of blurry, right? I think that there was a point at which it just organically started happening when I was like, I think my earliest memories are around middle school. And it was when that critical thinking really came in. And I feel like I, even earlier in my childhood, I started to like question, like why… like I would hear the conversations that the adults would have, right? And I'd be like, why is this? Or like, that's interesting. And then I also had my own interactions, like going to the pediatrician. My mom… I think that this is largely because culturally and for various reasons, but my mom was like on it, was like following the recommendations to a T, did everything that the pediatricians… she just pulled out notes for me because she's been like doing this records purge and she was pulling out notes from like birth for me medically. And she was just really on it. And I think we talked a little bit about how like, she was just, like a lot of this is because I am an immigrant and a person of color and I did not want to deviate from what they told me to do. I did not want… they already were like, because we're… me and my siblings are multiracial and we genetically look so different. We're all biologically, we share the same families, but she was flagged like from the beginning. She was like, yeah, they were like, how many fathers do these children have? And like, why? Also like, that was all things that I absorbed so early on. Like, I think like earliest memories, I was probably like fourth or fifth grade, like hearing these things and being like, that's not right. Or like rude. Like being just like natural, like children defensiveness of like, how dare somebody say that me and my siblings don't have the same parents? And like, now I have a different framework of that, but like, just getting that, like, something's not right here. We're not being treated right here. My mom's not being treated right here. Like, what's going on? I think more formally, I started to step into a like, a formal role within my family unit of navigating healthcare in middle school, probably like seventh or eighth grade. So on my way into high school, where like I hadn't… I was so… from a young age I really loved science and anatomy and physiology and health. And as I was really involved in sports and so I was like always curious about like, how do I like heal my ankle sprain faster so I can get back on the court? Or like things like that. And so I think that my own personal passions and like me wanting to do certain things really drove me to want to know more about health and get a little bit more involved with my family too. Because to be honest, I was highly indoctrinated into Western culture in all aspects. In health, in nutrition, and things like that. And so like, was confused. It was me as a multi-ethnic, multi-racial child, youth trying to navigate like… my family lives a very different way than like what Western culture is. And I'm glad that I went through that. Like sometimes I think I felt shame around that for a long time of like, why are we so different? And like, why can't we be normal? And all of these things that I think so many youth go through. But the truth is like, in retrospect, I'm like, I'm glad that I went through that kind of like, disconnect and trying to like reconnect and like make sense of it all so that I could come to this point where I'm like, dang, the system's really, really set us for a spin here. And like culture, Western culture really like, tries to remove us from our roots and things like that. So that's a tangent, but all that to say, middle school, I really started to step more into a more formal role. And then by high school, I was attending visits and medical visits with my grandparents. And then into adulthood, I was acting more in a caregiver role, a liaison role and translating the best that I can. I don't speak Tagalog, but I understand Tagalog and I speak a little bit, like it's very like basic. But like helping to translate a bit or helping to just like translate essentially to medical providers, this is what my grandparents are trying to tell you right now. And that really became more involved in high school when my grandmother started to be pretty regularly diagnosed with cancer, various types of cancer across her body, as well as other health conditions, and then eventually my grandfather as well. And now in current day, they both have been diagnosed with dementia. And navigating that with my family, navigating the system to get them as much support as possible, but also caregiving in all of that. So it's definitely been like a fairly lifelong thing, but more formally, I stepped into that in my later youth, high school, middle school.
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Interviewer: That's amazing work. I mean, that's a lot of immigrant children, children of immigrant parents, like into that role. So it's not uncommon. I guess I wanted to ask you a little bit more about your relationship with your family, because it sounds like you're really close now and you took on these roles as like a child. So it sounds like there's a lot of love and care there, but yeah, what are some of like the values? And you also mentioned like Western values too that your family challenged. I guess like what were some of the values that you grew up in?
Participant: Yeah, I love that question. We weren't always… we haven't always been this close. And I think that's a complicated response actually. We've… my family, like the Philippinex culture is so relational and I think most, most people of color, like our roots, our cultures, are so relational, like it's so centered on that, right? But like my framework is through the Philippinex culture. And like that's something that I love so much about my culture. I didn't always feel this way. There were times where I was very much like, I want to be myself. I want to be Jo. I don't wanna be attached to this family. I don't wanna be bound by your expectations. It's been a struggle. I think so many children of immigrants can relate to that. Like that individualism, collectivism, and finding the balance, that more interdependent autonomy where you can be you and also have this amazing familial community support system through your culture. But it wasn't… I think I wanted to preface that by saying like, I was not always close. There was a big chunk of my life after I dropped out of San Francisco State, after I dropped out of college, where I really distanced myself and truly cut off my family in so many ways. It wasn't like a cold cutoff, like we did keep in contact from here and there, but I really needed space to like figure out who the fuck I was away from that family unit. And that was hard and challenging, but also like such a transformational part of my life. But all that to say the values, it kind of came full circle. And like, there are moments still where like, that the balance between values instilling a sense of wellness in like my own personal life and in our family life gets like knocked off kilter and it becomes more toxic, right? Like, we are highly dependent on one another as a family. And like, in the best form, we take care of one another and we support one another and we show up for one another. And like, we always know that there's gonna be somebody there that can like lend a hand or like back you up or just listen or like whatever it might be. And in the worst case scenario, It's like in moments where we're all depleted or like where things are chaotic and there's no direction, like we really kind of bring each other down. And so it's really interesting. Like, I think that goes with all the values. So that is for sure one of the values that growing up in my family and in my culture has instilled in me is a sense of dependence on one another. Or I think I really like the term interdependent autonomy, although we are constantly as a family working to figure out what that means and what that looks like. I think another sense is just like, I… and I struggle with this one too. I think a lot of, obviously a lot of people of color struggle with like the idea of resilience, where like, I'm so grateful that I am resilient as I am, that my family is resilient as we are. Like we are struggling through navigating end of life with my grandparents and dementia, and which comes with all of the everything healthcare. And we're struggling so hard, and yet there's still this sense of like, we've been through so much shit collectively, individually, ancestrally, we're gonna be just fine, and also why? It's like, also why do we have to continue to have to fight this uphill battle and navigate these systems that aren't built for us and feel like we're constantly butting up against walls and not having our needs met? And so, yeah, I kind of think of that. And I think of everything on this spectrum and I think values-wise, it's like resilience and just… I don't know that dependency is the right word, but just being able to show up for one another. And oh, gosh, the transparency, that too. We talk. We are talkers. It's not necessarily the most helpful communication at times. Sometimes it's too much. Sometimes it's harmful. Sometimes it's not thought out, and it's reactive. But we talk to each other, and we talked amongst each other in these different factions. And like information moves within our family unit. So yeah, all that to say, lots of amazing values growing up as a child of immigrants. Also like there's that fine line where it can get a little bit too much. But I for one am deeply grateful for my experiences. I think that it makes me who I am for better or for worse.
Interviewer: Yeah, that's amazing. I guess I wanted to ask you, like you're talking so much about your family and your Philippinex culture, how much strength and all the values that come from these experiences. Would you like to talk more about like your relationship to gender, like growing up and amongst these different relations of culture and family?
Participant: Yeah. That's always been a challenge. So I identify as gender expansive, gender fluid. I think more recently have been exploring a little bit more of, like, my more non-binary femme side, that terminology was introduced to me recently through reading about community members' experiences. And I was like, is this… I think that's why I've always just, like, really landed with, like, I'm gender non-conforming, I'm gender expansive, because I've… from the beginning I feel like I really struggled with the cis heterogender norms that I grew up in. I remember coming out in high school and being like, I think I'm bisexual and like people being like what? Like you just you're just doing that for attention. Or like what does that mean? Like or like people being like completely misled and being like… and then being like, oh, like are you a lesbian now? And me being like, I don't know. Like I'm… I don't know, but you're not helping by like attaching all this meaning to me and how I identify. And then… and this was like high school in the early 2000s, right, where in a fairly affluent neighborhood in the San Francisco Bay Area, which I think a lot of people assume is very progressive and queer-friendly. And that was not the case. Everything about my existence was questioned when I felt that really strong desire to be like, I think I need to name that I am not like my peers, or at least the peers that I surrounded myself with, and that there's something different about me, and I want to be accepted as who I am wholly. But the idea of gender really was not introduced to me until after I had my child at 27. And so very recently, right? And I am constantly just amazed by youth because I think that Gen Z, if it weren't for younger millennials and Gen Z being like, we're going to say these things and we're going to use social media to share this information and we're going to like… we're not going to shy away from this. I don't know that I would have ever like… it just kind of blew my mind how sheltered I truly was. I moved to San Francisco right after I graduated high school. That was where I was called to be. I had spent a lot of time… my aunts had spent a lot of time bringing me out there. They both played for a lesbian softball league, so I was highly exposed to the lesbian community growing up. And it felt like home to me, like there was something… it didn't feel like 100% who I was or like that I shared my identity, but that was how narrow my view of gender and sexuality was for my entire youth. And even when I moved to San Francisco, I spent a lot of time with queer members of my community. And like, I just remember being like, tell me everything because like, you'll say something about what you experienced in dating or like, in socializing. And it's, it's like, it feels like something that I want to experience or feels like something that like, feels like home to me. And I … it was just a… so much exploration and gathering of information and like, really like taking that… such that narrow view and like opening it up and being like, oh, it's not what they told me. For… forever I just assumed that like there were girls, there were boys and that was my… with my family with my community, that was those were the labels that they assigned to us as children, right? I was assigned female at birth, I was a girl. But also I wasn't into the typical gendered, girly things. I like to get dirty, and I like to be physical, and I like to, you know, have adventure, and I liked to, like, not dress up Barbies, but, like, tattoo them, and cut their hair, and color them with markers, and do all of these things that my family, who, they're Philippinex, they're, they're… the country, they grew up in a time, my grandparents specifically, in a time where there was so much political and social unrest. I think that's always been the history of the Philippines since colonization. Highly colonized people, grew up in the church. And so for them, the support that they could give me at that time was to be like, you're a tomboy or like you're athletic. And I freaking hated it. I hated being called a tomboy And not because… I don't know. It just was like one of those things where I was like, how dare you like assign to me what you think I am? Like, does that mean that I'm not girl enough? Does that mean that I'm not femme enough? Does that mean that I'm masculine or that I'm a boy and I don't know that I feel like a boy? Like, I did not… my family, and the truth is like, although there were times in my life there was a lot of resentment towards my family, now there's a lot of understanding of like, wow, you also had this very narrow view of what gender and sexuality is. All that to say, as I deepen my relationship with my ancestry, I come to find out, and this is over the last five years is like, this was not the roots of our culture. Our culture was not gendered. We revered folks that identified off the spectrum, like we didn't even have gender, right? Our pronouns were gender-neutral, they were they, they were, you know, like blew my mind. But I think we feel like I skipped over a big part, which was when my child was born, I went through a lot of… I had had abortion experiences prior to my child being born, or like sexual wellness experiences where I experienced gender dysphoria or just being misgendered. And I didn't know that that was going on in those experiences. I knew that I didn't feel right. I didn't feel like… I think it was being pregnant with my son, like a choice that I had, right, to be pregnant and to continue a pregnancy and bring a life into the world. And the care that I received through that experience really blew the top off gender ideology for me. And I had not gone to college. I went to college briefly and dropped out but like I wasn't exposed to… like San Francisco State has an amazing gender studies program, human sexuality program. I wasn't exposed to those things because I left. I had to work. And I wasn't exposed to literature and like definitely the public schools in San Ramon didn't share information about this, right? And like so it was interesting when I re-entered college after my son was born and I started taking like gender studies courses and things that were interesting to me, I was just like constantly like a kid in a candy shop. I was like, what? And like introduced to new terminology. And like it was it was probably like 2018-2019 that I'd first heard somebody be like what are your pronouns? And I was like I don't know what that means but tell me more. And so I was like, I feel like I'm getting excited about it because it was such a healing, transformative experience to me to be introduced to these things. And I remember learning terms like pansexual, gender fluid, expanding on trans, because that is a term… transgender is a term that I'd known about for much of my life, but it was often used in a derogatory way, right? And, like, learning these things and, like, hearing the way that people explained it because we have social media and we have technology where things, people create these, like, beautiful stories or these beautiful reels. And, like, I would just be, like, on Instagram, like, oh my gosh, like, this is a thing? Like, this is… and I would write notes and I'd be, like… and then I would sit and I would journal and I'd be, like, well, I, I, you know, I don't feel sexual or romantic feelings. Like, am I Demi? And like, these different things. And so like, having this, it was like a whole new world had opened up to me. And to be honest, I think that like, that being opening up to me in like my late 20s, early 30s, there's a part of me that's like struggling and like, it's too late for me. Like, I can't be that like really expressive queer person that live, like queer youth that lives inside me. Like, and then there's a part of me, I have a… my therapist is quite a bit younger than me and queer and they're constantly like, stop saying you're too old. Like stop, don't limit yourself, like you're learning and you have… like you can explore this and you can like try on different, like… you can try on different things to see what feels right for you. I think that I have like, in a lot of ways, sold myself short because I chose a monogamous, very cis-hetero-presenting relationship. And when I came out to my partner, too, after my child was born, and I was like, I don't think that I am this, it brought up so much and it cracked things open. And we ended up separating for a while because he couldn't quite understand like what this all meant for him and like did I not love him anymore? Did I not want to be in a relationship? So it has been a journey. The gender journey for me has been a journey. And it will be. It will be for the rest of my life I think. But I think that the fact that it coincides with me raising up a little person to be in this world is pretty like… I think it's… I'm like thank you universe for this gift that like I could be learning all this alongside this little one who who hopefully will have a more liberated childhood and more… I mean, he already does, right? He's like, my pronouns are he, him, they, them, or ask me. And like, I ask Silas, I ask my little one consistently, like when we're filling out forms and stuff. So it's a start of a new cycle for our family, I think. And yet there's still, there's definitely a lot of sadness too. There's a lot of sadness and grief for the younger version of me that didn't fully get to like live through all the queerness that exists inside me.
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Interviewer: That's all… everything you're saying is really beautiful and gender… and being transgender and being under that umbrella is like, it's ever-expanding, like we're always gonna be on our gender journey, like it's like…
Participant: Love that, yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah, so it's a continuum and it's a process. So you're not late. But I guess I wanted to ask you, I mean you shared so much right now and I guess I wanted to ask you more about like your own abortion experiences because you said you're someone who has had multiple abortions. Do you want to share a bit more about…
Participant: Yeah, yeah I would love to. It's something that was really challenging for me I think for a long time because all these other pieces, right? My gender identity, my… just the family I grew up in, like there was so much working in those parts of my life that like it was not even something I had a capacity to process. But I'm in a good place with them. And I would say I think where this starts for me would be my very first time experiencing a surprise, unwanted pregnancy, which I was… it was 2000, the beginning of 2008. It was after I… because I had just left San Francisco, I found out I was pregnant over the winter break. And I… it was just not, it was a very hard time in my life. It was a very transitionary time in my life. I was really not getting the support that I needed for my mental wellness. I was navigating a very carceral mental health system.
Interviewer: How old were you at that time?
Participant: I was 18, on my way to turn 19. I was ending a relationship with my high school sweetheart at the time. I was struggling with chemical dependency. There was just a lot going on for me at that time. I did not know or have access to the resources that I needed to just survive at the time. I was surviving. I was surviving. And I found out that I was pregnant over winter break. I already knew that I had completely fucked up my first semester at college, the fall semester. I say that with a lot of grace too, because San Francisco State was my first exposure to political activism. And so I was working to pay for tuition and books. I did receive some financial aid, but not a lot. We didn't… I didn't know how to… I was the first in my family to navigate that system as well. So we really did not know what we were doing at the time. But I would often skip school to take more hours at work so that I could pay for my rent and try to eat food or pay for drugs or things like that. And I was spending a lot of time… I had been indoctrinated… some people that I went to high school with that I did not have a relationship with in high school also went to San Francisco State, and they really saw me on campus one day and latched onto me. I was also very lonely at the time, so I latched onto them and was indoctrinated into the Greek system, which my experience was incredibly problematic for me and for many people. But I was indoctrinated into the Greek system. Not really something that I-
Interviewer: The sorority, fraternity stuff. Okay, sorry.
Participant: Not something I had planned to do, but was very much exposed to a lot of partying, a lot of drugs, a lot of sex, a lot of abuse in that system. And so struggling with that while trying to work to survive while trying to like maintain this image of like the studious athletic person that my family saw me as while not going to class and really like struggling with traditional schooling too. That's something that I struggled with forever, and then college was like oh now you have to be responsible for like showing up to class and taking all the notes and like all of this. And I struggled with it. And so I, on winter break, I went home and I didn't tell anybody, but I feel like I made a silent promise to myself that I was not going to go back. Which I was 18, you know, at the time, and had not told my landlord that I wasn't coming back, had not told the schools, had not told my family. Just kind of was like, I'm going to park myself here and see how long I could be here before somebody notices that I've gone missing. And it wasn't too long before my mom noticed. But it started a big feud. I did not tell her that I was pregnant. Me and my high school sweetheart at the time who I believed at the time to be the other partner involved in my pregnancy had been… it just was not a good ending to our relationship. And they had been… started a relationship with somebody else and did not want to be involved and were ignoring my calls, even though I was like, I'm pregnant, we need to talk about this. So it was a pretty desperate time in my life. I had already gone to Planned Parenthood in… my local Planned Parenthood to get medication, but I grew up in a very Catholic household. And so the thought of abortion, it was like, for me, it was like, I don't think this is an option for me. But also pregnancy is not an option for me.
Interviewer: What option do you have?
Participant: What option do I have? So I kind of just ignored it for a few weeks. And I think I was like, I think that I was probably around maybe around like eight or nine weeks pregnant when I started to miscarry. And when I say I started to miscarry, I tried everything at the time that I could. I was punching my stomach. I was taking as much of the drugs that I had access to as I could without feeling like I was going to kill myself. Like the purpose was not for me to overdose, but I was like, these aren't good for you, right? So if I take a whole bunch of it, it has to like end the pregnancy. But I was… and we didn't have like the internet that we have today either. This was 2007. Yes, the internet was available. There was Google and there was like Yahoo and old versions of Ask Jeeves and stuff, but like...
Interviewer: AOL and stuff.
Participant: AOL, exactly. There was no forum, like the forums on the dark web were like… I didn't… it was too scary to even like post anything there, you know? Or like ask… definitely felt like I couldn't ask anybody because like, what were they going to think? Like I'm pregnant, like what if they tell me that I need to keep the pregnancy? I, you know, didn't want people's opinions. I knew what I wanted, which was to not be pregnant and I was going to figure out how to do that. So I exercised really hard. Like I said, I self-mutilated and I punched myself. I took medications. There were points where I did think about like throwing myself down a stairs or like I'd heard stories, right? Like I'd heard like you can use a coat hanger. I didn't know what that meant, but I like had a basic, I was into anatomy and physiology. I'd already taken like three anatomy and phys 101 courses at that time. So I was like, I know what female genitalia looks like. I'm going to like, I'm going to handle this. And so I did everything that I… it was scary. It was like scary. So I, I think that like, I tried everything that I could to self-manage my abortion outside of going to Planned Parenthood, telling anybody else or sticking instruments inside my body. And then I started to bleed and was like, I don't know what this means. Maybe this is my period. Maybe I'm not pregnant. I think that I just didn't have information. And when I think back about those memories, it's so blurry. It's so like, I feel like desperation, like the desperation that I felt at the time. And just like I was a child. Like when I look back, I'm like that was a child version of me going through something incredibly painful and confusing and not having any information about what was available to me. And like… or like knowing like the basics but like not knowing that it was safe for me to go to Planned Parenthood, that they weren't going to tell my family that like… or things like that you know what I mean? Or like having access to like family experiences and stuff. So that was my first… that was my first experience with pregnancy, self-managed abortion, and wanting to… like being in a situation where I was pregnant and did not want to be pregnant. And the complications too of like having… I had left the Catholic church at that time but had not shed the Catholic guilt. Like that was fucking crazy and so heavy and constantly looming over me. And there was a part of me that was like, I like kids. And like, I think that I'm good with kids. And like, maybe I do want to parent. I think there was that voice too. But the strongest voice was like, this is not it. This is not, this is not how your story is going to go. My mom had also started having children… my dad and mom were in their early 20s, and I think witnessing, like being raised by young parents in the way that my parents raised us, because I think there are some young parents that are just killing it and like really incredible. But my parents really struggled as young parents. And maybe not so much that they were young –
Interviewer: Didn't have support, yeah.
>>>>[ Audio Time: 39:57 ]<<<<
Participant: Didn't have the support, exactly. And so… and I knew that I wouldn't have that support. Like maybe I would have. My brother ended up having his first child when he was 21 and we all showed up. So maybe I would have too, but like, it was not what I wanted. And that was it. So that was it. And I… that story, like I bled and it was painful and it was scary and there were things coming out of me that I was like, I don't know what this is. I'm going to flush it. And like, I don't want to tie my… that story was flushed down the toilet along with everything else for very, very, very many years. It was something that the only people that really knew were my… I did tell my brother, who was, he's 19 months younger than me, so he was like 17 at the time, maybe just turning 17, and was like, what the fuck? And like, never asked me again about that. Was just like, okay, I don't know what this means, you know, and like… so he knew. And then my partner, my ex-partner at the time who just ignored the whole thing. And so it was a very lonely experience. But like I said, I flushed my story down the toilet to you and like for years just didn't talk about it. But then I would hear stories, right? This was, I was 18 going on 19. I turned 19 that March. I would hear stories from people and I'd be like, I would want to be like, me too, or like, I went through that. But then of course, the shame of self-managing, right? It wasn't like I was like, yeah, I went to Planned Parenthood and I got my first-
Interviewer: Yeah, it wasn't called self-managed during that time, or yeah.
Participant: No, it was like, I felt like a, I felt, because of the stigma, I felt like I'm a criminal, I've done something wrong. If anybody finds out, they're gonna call me a murderer, they're gonna call me… all… I beat myself up for years on that. Until, I think until maybe it was like Obama's second term when I like started to get more… I started to like build more of an understanding of politics. And like that was like, that's always, abortion is always such a like big political thing, right? It's what people like, it's like such, it's like a staple on people's platforms. I'm for it. I'm against it. And I just remember being like, I guess I have to decide whether I'm for it or I'm against it. And I was always like, this was like my early 20s, right? Because I first voted for Obama in 18, when I was 18 that year. And then the next time must have been I was 22. And so it was probably around then, 2012, or 2012, that I was like, I was living in Oakland, I had, oh, gosh, I had been exposed to a lot of radical ideas in San Francisco, that like my little, like Asian, very, like, very protected mind was like, Oh, my gosh, like people believe these things. And like, so I was, again, with my gender journey, my political journey too was also just a lot of people being like, breaking down all of these norms that I was indoctrinated into. Being in a family that was an immigrant family that has a history of colonization or ancestry, going to school in the United States, all of these things. I had all of these ideas of how the world worked and then started being introduced to these people who had all these radical ideas, and they were just knocking these beliefs left and right. So I was just like a new little baby political learner at the time. And I was like, I have to make a decision about abortion. And I didn't really even give it a second thought. I was like, I'm pro-choice. I wouldn't make that decision for myself. And that's exactly what I used to tell people. I think that people should have a choice to have an abortion or not, but I wouldn't have an abortion myself. And that was a lot of the self-hate and self-stigma around my experience. I think it was like wanting to like really like wrap that up tight by being like, I myself would never have an abortion, like let me protect that that vulnerable part of myself by saying no.
Interviewer: So did you see yourself as not having had an abortion during that time?
Participant: Yeah I think that I did. I think that I like, for much of my 20s, actually, I think that I didn't talk about it, but I think that if I would have voiced my experience, I would have voiced it as like I had a miscarriage, or I would have lied and said like I've never been pregnant before, you know, or like that that experience didn't happen. I think that like I didn't talk about it, but I think that like if I could dig back into my brain at that time, it was really like blocking it out. Like this did not happen, I did not have this experience. Nobody is… I think that like I at the time I made this oath to myself that this was going to go to my grave. That nobody would ever know that this had happened to me. And that my brother… like I trusted that my brother wasn't going to tell people. The other person was already out of my life at the time. I was like whatever. I and I'd also like broken off from that social circle of friends, so I was like, whatever information they want to talk about, whatever, I'm just, I deny it, it's not, it's not real. So I do think that like, there was a lot of like, I really… the self, the stigma, the self stigma was at an all time high at that time, where I was like, it's not, it's not a part of my story, I'm not going to share it. And didn't realize how much that was festering inside me too until recently, probably until my second abortion when I realized I have gone through this before. Some of these feelings are the same. It's a different experience, it's a different story. And also this feels familiar in my body, what's going on. But yeah, so I made that choice, was like, remember being so proud to like tell my family to like, I… because they were always like, my grandfather was like making donations to 40 Days Of Life, and I'd be like, don't do that. Like, you know, like, you know, trying in a very like, basic elementary way explaining my political ideology and like my beliefs around abortion, access and care and choice. And then… so that was like, that was my 20s, I think, like, so that was 2012. I was around 22 when I started to like really think more about abortion care. And then my son, I got pregnant with my son. And then again, that… my beliefs were questioned because it was me and my partner at the time had just, we… my son was born out of like love and reconciliation. I had a few months prior to me finding out I was pregnant with Silas, I bought a one-way plane ticket to Spain. I was gonna… we were, we were legally married but we were in a very unhealthy place in our relationship. There was a lot of emotional abuse coming at me. There was a lot of like codependency coming out of me and I was done with the relationship and wanted to run away. So I bought a one-way ticket to Spain. I moved out temporarily out of our house into a communal living situation. And then somehow we started to reconcile and then I found out I was pregnant. And I remember that moment of being like, I'm making the choice to continue this. I don't know what it was, but it was like so different than my previous experience where I was like, nope, this can't happen. I was like, I'm going to continue this pregnancy. And to be honest, Vrindavani, I don't know. Like, it's hard for me to talk about because this is my child who I love and I'm so glad that they're here and I don't regret that in any way. But there's… it's hard for me not to be like, I was not in a good place for me, right? I would never define this for anybody else, but for me, I was not in a good place to be bringing a child into the world. My partnership was struggling, I just planned on running away to another country, I was living paycheck to paycheck, depending on like friends for housing. I had no real clear direction. I was incredibly depressed and like really struggling with my mental wellness. So there's a part of me that's like maybe my choice to continue my pregnancy with my child… not maybe, like it was directly affected by my previous experience and the guilt and shame and years of like beating myself up. But I did not want to go through that again. I did not want to go through what I went through in my teens again. And so from the moment I found out I was pregnant, I was like 1000% fighting to keep that pregnancy. My partner was like, wait a second, wait a second, I don't think that we should continue this pregnancy. I think that you need to consider getting an abortion. And it caused so much conflict in our relationship. And it was a really, really, really… it's a really strange part of our story because we had been married for three years at the time, legally married for three years. We'd been in a relationship for five years at the time. We hadn't really had that conversation. We definitely didn't come to consensus as to whether we wanted to start a family. I was very back and forth. If anything, my partner was the most steadfast and like, I don't, you know, if it happens, it happens. But like, I don't really wanna raise a family. I don't really wanna raise children. This is the first time I really… like talking about this outside of me and my partner. We've done a lot of talking about it, but like that was a pivoting, pivotal moment in our relationship where like… I mean, there's a… I think that I caused a lot of harm in that because on one… in one case I was like, this is my body, this is my choice. Like I was really living that like, this is my body, this is my choice, I get to choose. And also I had a partner who I love and care about telling me like, I'm also here and like, it's not my body and I'm not pregnant right now, but I contributed to this pregnancy and I don't think I want to do this. So it's, it's, I think it's a story that like happens so often that we don't talk about or give voice to is like the dynamics of like two people that are involved in a pregnancy and negotiating like, you know, we all oftentimes we hear that like… oftentimes we hear that like we both wanted to get pregnant. Like that's the the romanticized version of pregnancy, right, is like you see it all over Instagram of like two people, married or not, that want to have a baby and both people are incredibly excited when the pregnancy test is positive. Or the opposite side of like two people who do not want to have a baby and they get the pregnancy test and they're like, this is like doom, we need to figure out what to do with this. And not like the vast gray area of like feelings that come up when a pregnancy happens, even if it is planned, right? So yeah that's… I think that I could like talk forever about that, but I guess the short version is like, we did not agree on this, and I ended up making the choice that I was going to continue the pregnancy. And I also was not like, I expect that you be here. I was also like, if this is not a choice that you can make for yourself : show up for me… I don't want this to come across as me justifying it, because I really do… it took me a long time to get to this place of like, I did not listen to my partner at the time. I did not listen to what they wanted for their life or what they needed or the implications of what that meant for this person for me to continue my pregnancy, and the harm that I caused in not listening. And I felt very strongly about making a choice about what I wanted to do with my body. And, although there are parts of that experience and story that I do regret and wish that I could do differently, I don't regret bringing this kid into my life. Because they're incredible. It's complex. It's like, I feel emotional talking about it because it's so complicated, right? It's like, I can't imagine a world without Silas, without my child. And also, I made a decision for two people… three people. I made a decision for three people, and like I don't know that people understand the weight of that decision. And that that like, yes, there are so many factors involved. But like I think sometimes we sell people that can get pregnant short on like how much weight that decision holds. And so it's complicated. I don't know if I can say it any more than like it's complicated, it's complicated. And, yeah, but I chose to continue the pregnancy. And it was fucking difficult. And being pregnant in a rural part of the state of California in a genderqueer trans non-binary body while navigating my gender identity and my identity as just a freaking living breathing thing on this planet, while navigating my issues with my relationship, was really really challenging and like kicked into gear for me my calling. I don't know what the word is, it's like I tell people like I don't… because they'll be like, thank you for the work you do. And I'm like please don't thank me. I don't have a choice at this point. And the truth is, yes, I do have a choice, but like, this is my choice. I choose to do this work because of my life experiences, pre-pregnancy with my child, pregnancy with my child, postpartum with my child, like all of it. Even the healthcare experiences with my grandparents, like all of those, those three big stories that I shared so far, like my youth and navigating that with my grandparents, my first experience with unwanted pregnancy and self-managed abortion and the years that followed that, leading up to pregnancy with my child, and that experience of transitioning into parenthood, are the like the foundation of why I do what I do right now. And the sad thing is like it's like beautiful and tragic, right? All of those experiences, like, I see how they've scaffolded to, like, bring me where I am now, and, like, I have some strange sense of pride in those things, and also, like, so much pain and so much grief around, like, why? Like, why did I have to go through those things to, like, get to where I am now? Or, like, why do people have to go through similar experiences to get what they need, like just like basic things out of life, right? Like reproduction and procreation or whatever… like choosing to have a family or choosing not to have a family, like so much stigma and so many barriers and so much loneliness and so much disconnection, that once I started to see that people were out there doing the work to like bring that connection and remove it from isolation and de-stigmatize all of it. I was like, this is where I belong. This is where I need to be. I don't want anybody else. And I know, that's impossible, right? Where people are going through similar experiences, experiences to more intense degrees as we speak. But it was just one of those moments. Like it came full circle to me when I brought my child home and look… the next day looked at this little being and went, oh shit, now I am raising a person. And that's responsibility. And we talked about values earlier. My family, responsibility, like that was like, we don't define it the same way I think as like Western culture defines it, but like, I am responsible to this child. I'm responsible to this community. I'm responsible to this planet. Like that's something I've always grown up feeling. And so I think when that reality hit that like I made this choice to bring this child into this world, I take this responsibility very seriously. I'm going to live into my values and live into the work around reproductive justice and social justice and anti-racism and harm, all of the political frameworks and ideologies that I am a practitioner of, like this is all of it. That was a lot, but it's interesting. I've talked about the stories in isolation and to be talking to you today in a more linear way of laying it down that path, it's pretty eye-opening. I think I'm going to be processing this for a while too.
>>>>[ Audio Time: 58:29 ]<<<<
Interviewer: I mean, yeah, thanks for sharing all that. I mean, we don't, I mean, thinking about my own history, it's like, I don't really see it in a linear format, because it's continuously kind of living through me. Like the history, you know, and so I don't know, I'm also of social we're the same age. I don't know if… we're both 35. So when you're talking about the different times, I'm like, oh, yeah, I was, you know, I was 19 and stuff.
Participant: Yeah, and it's like wild to… I love that. Thank you for sharing that connection because sometimes I don't know… like it's so funny. Like I default to thinking that like amazing radical people are younger than me because I have such like… sometimes I have like this positive resentment towards my like… our generation now that I know. Like some some people in our generation, I'm like, yo, what? Like we grew up in the same time, how could you be so this way? So like so so I appreciate that.
Interviewer: Yeah yeah I mean we went over time the of the of what's on the schedule, I don't know if you still have more time to share.
Participant: I probably have a hard stop at four, okay?
Interviewer: Okay that's fine. Yeah if you want to keep talking like I'm available, okay. Um so you had your your your son Silas at 22 and you said you had multiple abortions?
Participant: Well I had my son Silas at 27.
Interviewer: Oh 27, okay.
Participant: Yes 22 was when I first made that like conscious decision about how I felt that first like, very, like, uninformed rudimentary decision about how I felt about abortion. And that shifted five years later when I got pregnant with my son. So I had Silas… I got pregnant at 26, and Silas was born at 20… when I was 27. 2016. Which, like, I tell people all the time, I was like, I was a baby having a baby. I know that, like, that's, like, a very normal time to be, like, having children, I guess. I would like to also dispel the idea of normal timing for having children. But I think just where I was at in my life at 27, I was like, I feel like a child.
Interviewer: I mean, isn't that like a millennial thing that we all kind of still feel like children? Maybe because a lot of our childhood was robbed in some way. I don't know.
Participant: Yes. Yes. I feel like there's a part of me that's like, actually, the timing worked out perfect. I am a child raising a child and so this child gets to see like immaturity and that we're imperfect. But yeah, so that… I had Silas at 27. My partner was 31 at the time. We had… we were both… we had nibblings already at the time and yeah, I was just a wild… it was a wild landing. I really struggled postpartum. I think the medical terminology would be that I had postpartum depression and psychosis. I think what really happened is that I was wholly unsupported as a birthing parent, as a new parent. And that year, that first year was desperate and I did… almost did not survive that year of becoming a parent. I… there were multiple times where I really thought that the only option was for me to stop living. And somehow, with support, like very little support, but with powerful… little and powerful support from certain members in my community, I made it through and decided to go back to school and to get… to seek mental health services and be very discerning about the mental health services that I sought. Like very much like I'm not just gonna take any any therapist or like I'm not just gonna like… I'm gonna be very discerning about what I need because I had been parenting also like really forced me to come into like, this is what I need, these are my beliefs and I'm not gonna settle for like anybody that like wants to sway me otherwise. I knew I needed support, and I knew what kind of support I needed, so I really went after that. And then became a doula at the time. And not formally, although I did enter into a training. I didn't feel entirely engaged with it at the time, and then I realized, oh, it's like doula work in 2016 was largely white cisgender women.
Interviewer: Did you go through D.O.N.A. kind of thing?
Participant: Oh, it was not… so it was a D.O.N.A. It was not… I think like I tried to, but I couldn't afford the D.O.N.A.
Interviewer: It's expensive. Yeah, it's for white cis women, like you're saying.
Participant: Yeah, exactly. I went to Birthing Arts International. Have you heard of that one?
Interviewer: I think so. Yeah.
Participant: It was like a more affordable option. They offered payment plans but also like very white cisgender women and like very like… I remember like going… and it was it was asynchronous, right, which is what I wanted too because I was like I struggled with traditional like sitting down listening to lectures and and doing the assignments and taking the tests. Well testing I'm fine with, but like it was not what I wanted. Birthing Arts International was wanted. I do feel like I also probably got scammed a little bit just because I don't know who… it's so interesting. I've been meaning to go back and see if this program still exists and learn more about… because I have a different way of vetting things now, having been in reproductive justice work for some years now. It wasn't that long ago, it was seven years ago, but still, I just remember it just did not feel like I was getting what I was paying for. All that to say, I went through that program, chose not to get certified because I was like, what the fuck is this? I learned some… I learned like the basics, right? I learned like… I learned like basic western pain and pain coping or sensational coping methods and like was introduced to spinning babies and hypno babies and like all these different things. And so that was great. Not really. But I also… it was just like a stepping stone for me into more birth work. But I struggled because I really struggled with the capitalistic side of birth work, where like, people are marketing and branding themselves and selling themselves. And I tried and was like, this is not… and then I like I read all about the business strategies and like how to charge and like charging for your worth which I full heart fully believe in. But I was also not called to… like my first… I remember my first like three interviews with birthing families were wealthy, middle class, white families in Berkeley. And I remember meeting with them and being, like let's meet halfway, because I was living with family in San Ramon at the time. I was like, let's meet halfway in like Diamond District or somewhere in the eastern part of Oakland. And they were like, what? I was like, yeah, I know some cafes. We'll just meet. There's nice outside spaces to sit. We can talk. And I just remember talking to these people and feeling like they want me to control the situation for them. They want what they want in this birth experience. And that's a question that I've always asked, right? It's like, tell me like your dream birth experience, right? Which like, I love that. Like, I love that visualization when I'm working with birthing people of like, if you could like paint a picture, paint that picture of what your birth looks like, I think it's a pretty decent place to start. But they would paint these pictures, and then I would go on to be like, okay, and this is how I can support. And then there would be the questions of like, yeah, but I don't want this, or I don't want that. And I'd be like, birth is incredibly unpredictable, and I don't know, I can't promise you anything. And really struggled to be like, this is what I can offer you, and this is what I can't offer you. And so instead of like leaning into that or like being assertive with my boundaries, which I've always really struggled with, I would either be like, yes, and then feel like I failed because I wasn't stretching to like fit their needs or just ended up like being like, I'm not gonna do this. And that's what led me more into community care work where I was like, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna use everything that I learned and the skills that I've learned to like really connect with people that probably can't pay with me. And I'm gonna be okay with that. Even though I needed some sort of wage to like support my family, we were struggling. But my partner was like, was working, making minimum wage, or like a little bit over minimum wage in like a shift lead position. And… but we had family support. I had that… we had that privilege where we had family support. We can live with family and like pay really cheap rent and like what have you. And I was getting government assistance. So I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna help people that need help and not ask for compensation. And it became my comfort spot because I was like, I don't have to sell myself, I don't have to ask for money, there's no exchange of goods, and I'm helping people that truly like… I think that at the time I had a very much like a savior complex. Not… okay, I'm selling myself short there. It was the same… the white savior complex was ingrained in me and so like and also catholicism. Also white saviorism. Was like just help people because that's what you're meant to do. And like who's going to help them if you don't help them? That was my thought at the time. Very… I am very far removed from that now but still it was like that's what drove me to continue doing it. And so I would pick up like odd jobs and things like that. Like I guess it would fall under the umbrella of like postpartum work where I would like go help a new mom like do laundry or like pick up things for them. And that went like full gear once we moved back to Bishop. We left the Bay Area when Silas was two and a half and moved back to Bishop and I think I shared this with you when we talked last time. Got into Facebook marketplace, somebody had created a like moms helping moms page and and my community care work is like deeply rooted into like, this person needs a faja from… and somebody has it up in Mono County, which is like, you're somewhat familiar with the area, like 45 minutes up the highway. So I'm gonna go up to Mono, do my grocery shopping up there, pick up this faja and then deliver it to this family in Bishop. Or like somebody needs formula and like Health and Human Services has it. So I'm gonna go pick it up at Health and Human Services and deliver it. It's like a lot of like… and I did that… I worked at Instacart for a brief time when I was a new parent, so it was a lot of that, like it was a lot of like, okay, the people, the community has the resources, it just needs to be moved, so I'm going to be the one to move it. And then of course, like I would connect with these people, and they'd be like, thank you so much, let me tell you my story, or like, I need somebody to talk to. And then so more of that emotional side of doula and birth work or life work in general started coming in where I would sit with them and just companion and hold space. And then, of course, with stories, more resources are needed. And so I would gather resources or do research or get them connected with people or look up information when they were like, my doctor told me this and I don't feel comfortable with it. And just give people resources to advocate for themselves. And that is like the heart of my community care work, is very scrappy, very like self-taught, self-directed, directed by the needs of my community, and very just like informal really. And also like, I think that I, for a long time, like I didn't really see it as anything impactful. And I'm trying to give myself a little bit more grace as of late and be like, it was it was it was reciprocal, right? And that's where I moved away from a savior complex and was like no I am getting… I am not… I am not doing this to get something for myself out of it. I'm doing this because people did this for me in a time when I needed it and it helped me and now I have a little bit more resource. I have a car, I have access to a car, I can pay for gasoline. I have access to internet where I can like communicate. So I'm going to use the resources that I now have to like continue to like pass this along and create this cycle where we're taking care of each other and community.
>>>>[ Audio Time: 71:56 ]<<<<
Interviewer: That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. I know we only have like 10 more minutes and you have a hard stop at four and I don't know if you'd be interested in doing kind of like a part two because we didn't really get to to your work at Access and being a healthline, you said manager or coordinator?
Participant: Yeah. I'm a healthline manager. I co-manage the healthline and I manage the intake side of things that are new callers. So we're the folks that are first connecting with people doing a lot of referrals. Yeah, I would love to set up another time. There's a part of me that's like, I don't feel like my story is complete if I don't talk about my work at Access or my two most recent abortions in 2020 and the beginning of this year.
Interviewer: Yeah, maybe we could pause right here, if that's okay, if you, unless you wanna share a little bit more.
Participant: I'm okay with, yeah, I'm totally okay pausing here.
Interviewer: Okay, I'm gonna stop the recording and –

Interviewer: All right, so this is Vrindavani, and this is part two of our conversation with Jo for the Trans Abortion Oral Histories Project. Today is Wednesday, August 28th, 2024, and this is being conducted remotely. Welcome back, Jo.
Participant: Thank you so much. I'm so glad to be here again with you.
Interviewer: Yeah, I always feel like it's starting like a podcast. I don't know why.
Participant: No! It's not a podcast. I love it though. It's nice to try it. Try it out.
Interviewer: Okay. Yeah. So like we were sharing, I was sharing with you before, like we kind of your first part of your history was more like your production in the, in the world. Maybe, I don't know where you were, you would like to start with kind of where you are in the world now or most recent, like six plus years.
Participant: That sounds great. I can maybe start, I think where my brain is taking me right now is my… technically my third abortion experience, which led me to dive deeper into the work in my community and eventually apply for this job here at Access. And I can talk a little bit about my work at Access and also, perhaps if we have time, share… I know we could potentially schedule another session.
Interviewer: Part three.
Participant: Yeah, part three, part three. Share a little bit about my experience going through an abortion as somebody that works in an abortion fund, which didn't know that I'd have that experience, but I can talk about that a little bit too. So maybe I'll start with, maybe I'll start with what brought me deeper. I think I shared a little bit last time about my work in communities, particularly in rural communities. At the time of my third abortion, I was living in the Eastern Sierra of California in a small rural community in Bishop, California, like rural and remote. I think there's parts of California that are rural, but still in close proximity to urban or suburban environments. But Bishop is, the Eastern Sierra is so different, as you know. It's like you have the Sierra Nevada as this amazing majestic wall on one side, and then you have the desert leading into Nevada, the state of Nevada on the other side. And it's the deepest, I think it's like the deepest, you know, Death Valley is the deepest place in the continental US. It's a very remote place, and that's where I was living at the time. And this… at the time I was separated from my partner, COVID had really become like a very real… like it's always been a real issue, but it was like…
Interviewer: Just kind of starting, yeah.
Participant: Right, exactly. Just starting. People were somewhat… I mean, people, the seriousness of it for me was really evident at the time. So me and my partner were sharing a home with our child, our young child. I think Silas was three at the time. Locked down in a rural part of the state, not knowing like how we're gonna get groceries. We lived 15 minutes from town as well from the nearest grocery store. So it was kind of a very interesting time. It really simplified life for me, but also it was incredibly complicated going through all of that. And over that time, I was online, like a lot of us, and that was how we were staying connected to community. I joined a mother's group in that area on Facebook. Which I always struggle with those groups, especially being genderqueer and non-binary, because I feel like I always have to leave a part of my identity joining some of the mom groups. Past experience, I think I might've touched on past experiences, but yeah, so I joined the group and really started to see like, there is a huge need in this area. And the pandemic and COVID is making this need so like, so intensified. And by need, I mean, like basics, formula… formula, diapers, sometimes people would be, and I say brave enough, like I truly honor the bravery of these people in a small rural conservative area to go online and be like, I need emergency contraception or like some sort of birth control or like I'm pregnant and I need help. Those sorts of things would come up. Not quite as often, and it would always be kind of like, this is what I'm going through. Just like testing the waters, how is somebody gonna respond in this group to me? And to be honest, most responses, like some of those would never get responses and some of them would get shameful responses from people in the community. Sometimes there are people, it's not, like it's a monitored or regulated group. And so sometimes community members would say really awful things. And so it became like really evident to me the need in our community for support. At that time I'd already been doing community care work and doula work, I had trained while I was still living in the Bay Area. And so I started to put myself out there a little bit more and really struggled because I think that like the communities that I wanted to focus on, I just wasn't the person that they needed. And that's fine. And that, for me, that was fine. But it was just one of those things where it's like, I wanna help, I don't know how to plug in yet. And also just, I was going through so much too. I think that was, that's something that I'm really working on is like unlearning the savior mentality that I was indoctrinated into growing up. I think we talked a little bit about this as it relates to like my family line and just growing up in the so-called United States. Like those growing up in a religious household, all of that, that like I need to save people or like I am struggling myself. So let me put all my attention to others so that I can, you know, all of the complexities of it. So things kind of dwindled for me there in my community activism. Plus I was incredibly limited being like navigating… transitioning towards single parenthood with a young child in a rural community during the pandemic. I was pretty lost at that time. As things started to shift a little bit more and I started to feel a little bit more settled in how I personally was gonna be navigating all of those really big life transitions, I started to date. And in, I think it was in May, 2021, I found out that I was pregnant and didn't want to be. And it was, I would say, of the four abortion experiences that I have had, there's been two where the pregnancies have been very wanted and two where it was like very evident for me from the beginning that it wasn't the time, it wasn't the, and even then, like, it's funny, I like want to jump to say this, not that the pregnant… no, it's like the pregnancy was not wanted. I think there's still that part of me that's like navigating the nuance in my own personal experiences, but this definitely was one of those pregnancies where I was like, I don't want to be pregnant right now. This is not, this is not part of my plan. This is not something that I can take on right now. Simple, simply like from the moment I found out, this is not what I want. This is something that I… I need to end this pregnancy as soon as possible. And so I… navigating all of those things that I was navigating, single parenthood at this time. I had gotten myself to a place where my partner and I, who is my current partner, but at the time we were separated, we were able to find our own separate housing. We both at the time were operating, existing, surviving off very limited resources. Part-time minimum wage jobs.
Interviewer: And this is all still in Bishop, right?
Participant: All still in Bishop, away from family. So we had finally, and then during the pandemic, so we couldn't find a place, we couldn't like, there was a point where we were like, we don't even think we can move right now and like move into our separate spaces. So at the point at which I found out I was pregnant, we were living in separate spaces, still navigating what that meant to co-parent, still so much pain between us. Um, but yeah, so I felt very alone and isolated in that experience. Because I really, um, I think my part, my ex partner at the time, but my current partner now, he was the only person I told, um, and this was not a pregnancy by him either. So I can imagine that was incredibly difficult for him to hold. And he couldn't. And I never, I've never felt resentment towards him for this, but I think that I told him in the hopes that like maybe you can show up for me. And I didn't even ask that because it's not something that I felt I could ask of him but it was just like a moment where I was like I really… I'm I'm gonna let this person know, but truly I'm alone in this and I have to navigate this on my own. And so I, um, being in Bishop was, and not, truly at that time I really didn't know what my options –
Interviewer: Yeah, I was going to ask you, like, what were the reproductive health care options in Bishop at the time? I mean, this is three years ago, right?
>>>>[ Audio Time: 9:52 ]<<<<
Participant: Yeah, there were, I… in the middle of a pandemic where I felt like the only way that I could gather information was on the internet and calling people, I was hitting dead ends everywhere. I called the rural health clinic, the women's health clinic at the rural health center, which is not the first place that I wanted to call, having had prior not great experiences, both as a pregnant person and just for wellness care. Like an unwillingness to gender me correctly, an unwillingness to use the language that I used. A lot of shaming, a lot of like just really awful… I guess like to give context to it, when I found out I was pregnant with my son Silas, they were the first point of care for me. And very quickly I was like, I can't give birth here. I can't, they clearly don't trust me. They clearly don't trust me to make decisions about my body. I don't feel comfortable with them. I feel like they're minimizing my experience. And I'm talking like, I'd be like, I feel the baby kicking. And they'd be like, no, you don't. You can't possibly feel the baby kicking because it's too early to feel the baby kicking. Like things like that where I was like, okay.
Interviewer: Just say that's great, like awesome. Like that's not that hard. Even if you don't believe them, just be like, awesome. Like you're feeling your body. I don't, I don't, okay.
Participant: Right, right, exactly, exactly. And so that was the first place that I called. And I remember being like so nervous. I think I even hung up a few times because I was like, what am I gonna tell… I feel like that was exactly the thought. I was like, what am I gonna tell them? I'm pregnant and I don't want to be? That like literally… and then sure enough like I called and I was like I'm pregnant and they're like congratulations and I was like, okay.
Interviewer: They don't offer abortion care basically.
Participant: Right, right and that's where, that's exactly where I like came to know all of these things about… this was like my first… seeking care for myself was the first time that I experienced like this this… it was my first experience with like this is truly an abortion desert. Like I didn't even realize. I guess like even in my head, I was like, you can go get Plan B at the Vons, and you can walk in, and if it's expiring, it's on the shelves. You don't even have to go to the… so I was naive in that way of like, there, we can get the care that we need here. And also, I very much was like, believed the narrative of the people in power. California is an abortion safe haven. Even at that point, they were like, abortion is accessible, available in California. And it was humbling for me because it was my first experience seeking that care for myself in adulthood. The only… I'm wrong… this is not my third. This is my second experience. So this was, I shared with you a little bit about my first experience as a recent high school graduate. This is my second experience. So gosh, how many years later? A lot, a lot of years later. This must have been two… 13 years.
Interviewer: Well, I don't know. I can't do math, but I think we graduated high school around the same time, so that's why I'm trying to.
Participant: Yeah. So over a decade later, right? And I think I shared with you, too, the nuance of that first experience where really it took years. It probably wasn't until my second experience that I truly started having grace for myself and acknowledging what my first experience was. And like truthfully, like the truth of it and not feeling shame around that experience. So the second experience was, it was my like awakening, if you will, to like the reality of abortion access in the state of California. Yeah, so in a sense I called around town, even called in Mammoth and was like, okay, there's not a place here. The little bit that I got from the folks in Mammoth was like, you can drive to Reno. And I had Medi-Cal at the time, so they were like, they're not gonna take your Medi-Cal, they're in Nevada, but you can drive to Reno, you can drive to Bakersfield and you can get medication. And I was like, I don't want medication.
Interviewer: Those are the closest major cities?
Participant: Yes. And I did end up calling a crisis pregnancy center in Ridgecrest, but knew a little bit about CPCs and pay clinics at the time. Like, not as much as I know now, but enough to know, like, this is, like, and I was also, I left the Catholic Church. I was very anti-religion. My partner is atheist, and, like, shared a lot of his beliefs with me. And so immediately when I was on the phone with him, I was like, no. And I asked, point blank, I was like, do you provide abortion care? And they wouldn't even say the word. And were just like, how do we get you down here? And I was like, no, this is not it. Hung up, never answered. I think I even like junked their calls or blocked their calls because they did call back a few times. And then I got connected… I don't, I can't even remember. Maybe it was through an NNAF, through abortionfunds.org. I really wish that I would have documented this a little bit more, but somehow I got connected to, this is how I got connected to NWAAF. My father and stepmom live in Bend, Oregon, and they knew that I was having a hard time. They did not know that I was pregnant. I was not going to share that. I didn't share that information with anybody except for my ex-partner. And they knew I was having a hard time and they were like, we're going to send you 60 bucks in gas money. Come up to Oregon, spend a few days with us, bring Silas, we'll take care of him. And I was like, this is the opportunity. This is the opportunity for me to get the care that I need. Somebody's going to be able to watch Silas. I don't have to make an excuse, like I'll figure out some sort of lie to tell them for why I'm going, need to step away for a few hours, but this is how, this is my chance essentially. And so I called, I looked up clinics in Bend, found the Planned Parenthood. Bend made an appointment for the time that I'd be traveling up there and then asked them about financial assistance and they connected me to NWAAF, Northwest Abortion Access Fund. Immediately called NWAAF. The next day I was violently sick and so nauseous, loaded up my, oh gosh, it was like about to be four. He was three and a half. My three and a half year old in my van, got some gas and drove up to Bend, Oregon from Bishop, which is like a seven and a half hour drive. It was, it was a journey. And it was, I mean, it was –
Interviewer: With a three year old, too.
Participant: With a three year old. And it was, it's interesting, because it was, it's like something… kicked in with, in… like survival mode kicked in, right? I was like, I, the only way out is through. I just need to keep going until I get the care that I need. I just need to keep going until I get through this. And yeah, and then we drove. I remember stopping to get sick on the side of the road. I remember I couldn't do the whole drive in one go because I was feeling awful. So we ended up camping near Susanville, which was really scary. Just being a brown person in like a predominantly white rural neighborhood where people weren't very nice to me at the campsite when I tried to check in. We're in our car, so I think there was already like so much judgment about like, what is this person doing with this little kid? I didn't sleep at all that night, even though I knew that I needed to try to rest. I was just like focused on like making sure that Silas, my little one, was safe for the night. And then we picked up the rest of the journey. It was so wild doing all of this through COVID too, especially … I take it very serious. Like I took, I understood the seriousness of the situation. And so there was a lot of like, it's the first time my kid had McDonald's and like which was kind of a blessing in disguise. It really like helps me shed a lot of my shame around that too of like… because I think that like I was very much like very crunchy parent and like they're only going to eat this. And so it was an incredibly transformative journey for me and it helped me kind of like really like understand and the things that we turn to to survive and take care of ourselves. Made it up to Oregon. I think I told my dad and my stepmom that I was going to get an IUD or something like that. I was like, at least I could say that, you know? At least I knew that I was safe enough with them to be like, I'm gonna get birth control because, you know. And I just wanted it to be aligned with like what I might be experiencing. And I'd never had a surgical abortion at that point. So I didn't really know what to expect. And yeah, so along this journey, I'm on the phone with NWAAF trying to get funding. They were really amazing. I have a lot of love in my heart for the NWAAF folks. They were like, what do you need? We'll provide whatever funding. I ended up still having to pay like hundreds of dollars out of pocket and put that on a credit card. I think I was just, I just scanned the receipt recently. I think it was like, NWAAF covered like 400 and I paid 350 out of pocket, which was huge. That was a huge support. And it was a huge impact financially on me. Like, I think that my first paycheck with Access, I finally like paid off that bill. Which is such a cool, like, it was like a cool moment where I was like, abortion fund supported me and abortion fund supported me. I'm laboring for it, but still. Yeah, but we made it up. We made it up to Bend. I told them I had an appointment to get an IUD that I would just be like no more than a couple hours and then I'd be right back. And so I think I was incredibly fortunate to have family to watch my kid. I support people on a daily basis that don't don't have that and that is an immense barrier for them. And of course our health care system too is like children can't be in here and you know. So I went in early. I did not know what to expect. I like heard stories you know and experienced, you know, the Planned Parenthood in Walnut Creek always has protesters and I've driven by that. And so didn't know what to expect. There were no protesters. It was really quiet. The people up there too, I think I ended up sending them a card a few months later because it was I mean it was transactional and… it was like a mix of transactional and relational. They were incredibly sweet, the Planned Parenthood staff, but I was like moved through very quickly. And because I was traveling by myself, I didn't have any sedation. But I think the most memorable person was the medical assistant who put it on, who like asked me if I wanted music and put on like music that I wouldn't have picked for myself but it didn't matter. Like it was just like the thought, right, the sweetness. She was real with me. She was like, this is going to be painful and you're probably going to get really hot. So if you want to take off your sweatshirt and I can put a drape over you, I can get a cool rag, like doula'd me, you know, like was like, I don't know, like this is somebody who I've never met before in my life. We'll never see again. And in that moment, I just felt so loved and supported by this complete stranger. And that's the person that I remember the most in that experience. Oh man, it's making me teary. Like, I wish, like, that person, wherever they are, so, so much happiness, all the goodness, because I don't, I don't know if they understand the gravity of the support they provided me in that, like, 10 minutes, 15 minutes that I was with them, just, like, to feel seen and to feel witnessed, particularly because I felt so alone in it. And so, so much that like, I was, I had to… and I was pissed. I was like, I can't believe I have to do this by myself. I can't believe… and like, also pissed at myself, right? And that, I feel like that's a lot of what folks go through in some of their experiences. Like, so much anger at like, why did I put myself in this situation? And like, all of the, so I was processing a lot. But then afterwards, it was done. I was, you know, slightly in pain, but also incredibly relieved. And my nausea was gone immediately. And I drove back and hugged my kid and was like, it was like that moment, Vrindavani, where I was like, this is why this matters. Like I remember like making that choice for myself and then hugging the shit out of my little… but like the little one that I had the choice to bring into this world and being like, it like hit me. And I think in that moment, I was like this, like, I will never stop doing this work for the rest of my life. Like, this is why this matters, that I can feel in my power by having the choice to make decisions about my family and how I build, choose to build or not build a family. And like, I didn't know what I know now, but like, it was like, I remember that feeling, right? And I think I shared a little bit, like, the feeling that I had when my son was born was such a powerful feeling. Like, I'd never felt in my power before. And it was the experience that I had making a choice and having access to abortion care in that moment is akin to that. Like, it's different, but it's the same. It was still that moment of like, I get to make a choice about how my life is gonna look moving forward as it pertains to my responsibilities in raising other human beings. And right now, I can't take on another human being. And right now, I wanna focus my energy into this human being that I made the choice to bring into this world. And right now, I don't wanna put my body through this. And like, I could go on forever, but it was such a… it was like one of those moments where it's like the relief, just like the relief and the spaciousness that came with being able to access abortion care just like blew me to bits in like the best possible way. It was like, it was like so much, so much relief. I think I keep going back to the word because it was just relief and it was power and it was choice and it was agency. And it was one of those moments where I felt like I was reclaimed so much that had been taken from me. And the truth too is like parenthood and stepping into motherhood in the way that I did too. I was like, I remember just being pissed. I was like, nobody tells you… nobody tells you the truth. They say it's hard, but they don't really know. They don't really see what that means. And they don't really say… and so I was mad about that. And so I think it was like that reclamation of like, well, I'm telling myself the truth because I stepped into this and I'm having my experiences. Yeah. And so it was just, it was a beautiful moment. And I think like, it's really interesting that I think I've started to celebrate my abortion anniversaries. And June 17th, I'm sorry, July 17th is like, I just put the dates in my calendar too. I think we talked about this where I'm like, some people are so good about it, but July 17th, my second abortion is the one that like, I think it's like one of those stories that, I didn't think it was the most powerful out of all my stories. And then the more that I like sit with it, the more I'm like, I feel like this is, like this is the one that I want to shout from the rooftops, right? I was a parent during a time where it was just not a choice that I wanted to make for myself to continue a pregnancy. And I had to work really hard to get to that point where I could access care. And when I accessed care, it completely changed my life. And that's like, I think that's a story that doesn't get celebrated as often. And I'm glad that I'm hearing more and more of people's experiences with that coming out and coming to the forefront. Yeah.
>>>>[ Audio Time: 26:32 ]<<<<
Interviewer: That's really beautiful, thanks for sharing all that. Like I mean it sounded like a struggle obviously and it was a struggle for you to get to that point. But having that celebration, sense of relief, joy, love at the end was all worth it.
Participant: Yeah, thank you. And I love that you brought that, love, like that… I think I wasn't until maybe a few months later because then after that, I think I returned to Bishop. I let my body heal. I returned to Bishop and was like, this is the work. It wasn't the work that I was doing at the time. I was working, I think at the time, I was working part-time for a non-profit that is Wilderness Rites of Passage, and then I was also working part-time doing social media for a local brewery in Bishop. But it was one of those moments where I was like, I probably have a lot on my plate. I was studying. I was studying to get my associate's degree. I was working two jobs. I had a little one. I had like a toddler, a preschool-aged child, going through separation, learning how to navigate, you know.
Interviewer: Coparenting.
Participant: Coparenting and also like taking care of my like taking care of myself and like being trying my best to become financially independent since I was so dependent on my partner after I gave birth to my child. It was a lot and still I was like I'm going to dive deeper into this work. And so I… that was what really spurred me to continue to get deeply connected to other types of pregnancy-related care. At that point, I was like all about particularly postpartum care because of my experience. It's funny that our life experiences lead us down these paths, right, where I'm like literally every type of learning that I've chased after has been because of a point that I've been in my life, and then me wanting to be like, I want to make sure other people have access to this information because I didn't, and now I do, and now I don't want to keep like… I want to… like flyers everywhere and so I really started diving into um reproductive justice work within my community at that point. I started to become a little bit more resourced. And what I mean by that like I was safe, I was I had stabilized. I was in a lot of debt due to my separation and due to accessing abortion care because I was also like driving. So 60 bucks isn't isn't gonna get you to Oregon. So I got into debt traveling with travel expenses. It was not something I even knew to ask NWAAF about at the time. So it's funny, cause people are like, why didn't NWAAF pay for it? And I was like, I didn't ask them. I didn't, it wasn't something that like-
Interviewer: They said either.
Participant: Yeah, they didn't say it either, yeah. And it wasn't something that I knew existed. It was not like, I was shocked that they were even paying for part of my procedure. I like, I was like, is this real life? Like, are you, you're really gonna, you're gonna send this clinic this money? Okay. And I don't have to pay it back? Like I remember going through that process of like, am I gonna have to pay this back? Are you gonna be calling me? Am I gonna get sent to collections? Like all of these things. So yeah, I didn't even know that practical support existed for abortion care at the time. And yeah, so went into debt for that. And so I wasn't like, I wasn't resourced… I was resourced. I felt that I was resourced in a way to give back to my community. And so I started doing things like seeing, you know, seeing on Facebook marketplace, like what this mom needed. And then if I had the money, like going to the store. I didn't, I also hadn't been introduced to mutual aid at the time. Maybe like small bits, cause I… news travels very slowly. And even though some of these like movement based practices have existed for such a long time. Bishop, it wasn't something that was like, people weren't like, it's COVID, we need to practice mutual aid. It wasn't, it was a lot of like, Bishop still is very much like we think about ours. I will, I would say the one caveat is that the indigenous youth out in Bishop, they were, they're doing it. They're like practicing mutual aid. But I was, it was like my first introduction to like, oh, I'm actually doing mutual aid. I was like, okay, like somebody in Mammoth has like a postpartum wrap. I'm gonna drive up to, I have money, I have gas in my car, I have a day off. Silas and I are going to drive up to Mammoth, maybe like play in one of the lakes, pick up this wrap and bring it back down to this parent. And so I was doing things like that. If I had money, I'd get formula or diapers or things like that. If I didn't have money, I would ask other people in the community, I'd be like, do you have the means to do this? And so I was doing a lot of that. And that was, it was, there was reciprocity in that too, because I think that I was kind of, I'm like deeply also invested in the mad movement. And I think that my mental health at the time going through a separation, being isolated during the pandemic from family and my community, being in a small town where like people don't take into account all… it was also like one of those moments where like gender justice was really huge in my life. I was like, yeah, people don't really want to like hear out both sides of a story when a couple splits. Like, especially if there's a child involved. So I was getting a lot of flack and like struggling with that. And so I was like, how do I feel? I need to feel this time where Silas is away from me. And I feel like I'm, I truly am like losing myself and struggling with my mental health. And so I started doing what I've come to know as mutual aid. And it was a truly enjoyable experience for me to be able to be like, I have the time. That's my resource right now. I have the time. I maybe have a few extra bucks in my bank account or I have a vehicle that I can use to drive and to help kind of bridge gaps in my community in that way. And I don't think my impact was huge. I wasn't helping every single person that needed help, but it was one of those moments where I was like, okay, doula work can happen outside of a delivery room. Doula work can happen in different ways. And I'm gonna do it in whatever ways that I can, as often as I can. Yeah. And that got deeper and deeper.
>>>>[ Audio Time: 32:56 ]<<<<
Interviewer: Were you calling yourself like a postpartum doula at that time, or?
Participant: I was no longer. I started using language community care work. Because I used to, when I lived in the Bay Area, I had a website. Like I was like full on doula with the website, with the free consultation and all of my rates and everything. And I switched. At first I was offering like full spectrum support and then I switched to postpartum support because it was really challenging to leave a young one to be in birthing situations, birthing experiences. But even then I really struggled. I think I might've talked to you about this. I really struggled with like marketing myself. And then found that like the folks that could reach out to me were often like people in Berkeley and Oakland. They were white heteronormative cisgender couples that were upper, middle upper class that really had high expectations of what I could do for them. And then I had to get really good about being truthful about like does not… what I what I do is not control your birth experience. I can't. And so I kind of got really disheartened I think and stopped practicing as a doula until I moved to Bishop. And at that point I kind of had some imposter syndrome too, where I was like, I was still letting people know. I still had car… business cards and was passing them out. I provided a lot of free support to people that were a couple. There was a couple of people that reached out and were like, I know that you provide postpartum doula support. I have a friend that just went through a pregnancy loss, and I never felt good about charging for support when it came to pregnancy loss. So I supported people in that way. But I was not monetizing my work as a doula. I wasn't marketing myself as a doula. And so I started calling myself a community care worker. It was like one of those moments where I was like, I guess I'm not doula enough because I've not, I've since changed my mind hugely about the usage of the terminology. And then also just to caveat, I think I told you like my doula training was through Birthing Arts International, which at the time was like a, it was like a very basic, very like high level training. I couldn't afford to do donor or any of the other, like high, more, more known, more –
Interviewer: Recognized.
Participant: Yeah, more recognized organizations. And so even with that, I ended up not certifying because I was just like going through it. And I was like, frustrated.
Interviewer: It costs more.
Participant: Yeah. I was frustrated. I was like, oh, gosh, like, who can afford, who could afford to go through these programs? And then even like some of the like, some of the free things that they like throw out every once in a while, webinars and stuff to like, bring people in, I would go to them and I'd be like, this feels slightly problematic. I don't know why, but it does. So I struggled with that. But yeah, at this point, I wasn't marketing myself. I was literally like, and I was, there was a, there's still a part of me that's like, oh my gosh, what a creep. I'm such a creep. I was like, somebody would be like, does anybody have this? And I'd be like, I don't have this, but I know somebody that has this and I'm gonna go drive up and give it to you. Like, here's my phone number. If you're comfortable with this, text me your address. I'll come drop it off on your porch. Things like that. And it was, but it was, it was cute. I think me and my little scrappy little community care, there were times where a friend would be like, hey, I heard you're going to pick up something for this parent, here's 20 bucks, just drop it in the bag, or things like that. So it was also a moment of bringing me a lot of hope of like, wow, we really do care about each other. Like we really do. This friend does not know about this person, who this person is, even though it's a small town, and they're still gonna bring me some cash to share with this person. So it was really beautiful. And it was like, just more fuel for me to be like, this is the work I wanna do. I wanna continue to do this. And like, cause I always said that too about doula care, right? And that, this also shifted too. But when I first started as a doula, like I spent so much time on my website and then I remember telling my partner, I was like, I feel gross about myself. Like, this is like care that I feel like everybody should have. And then I'm putting these rates, but then a lot of the white-led doula organizations too, they come in strong. Not in the way that Sabia Wade or other people of color that are doing doula work come and like reciprocity and how do we resist capitalism and continue to receive reciprocity for the services that we're providing. Because we also deserve to live.
Interviewer: We need to live, yeah.
Participant: We need to live and we need the resources. But like, I think the message that I had kind of been told from a lot of these white led organizations was like, like, I know you're new, but you're worth it. And so like, put the highest rate that you could possible and things like that. And I just didn't feel great about that. And then like, so I've since shifted where I'm like, kind of like more of like, take from the rich, give to the poor situation where I'm like… and even then, I don't have a lot of time to do this work, But as I consider how I'm going to continue to sustain doing reproductive justice work, I really do miss working in communities and do see myself moving maybe more towards, in the next few years, transitioning out of my work at Access and back into community with a different mindset. And I still think I have a lot to learn from other doulas at this point so that I can enter back into the work in a sustainable way, in a centered way. Yeah.
Interviewer: Sorry, that was an error on my part, but I wanted to ask you because you were talking so much about doing mutual aid in Bishop right after your second abortion experience. But how did that lead you to do work with Access? In the time that we have left, I don't know if you want to talk about your work at Access.
Participant: I would love to. Yeah, so what that led me to, it was like a culmination of that abortion experience, my second abortion experience, doing work within my community, and also the barriers that I faced with that, right? Sometimes I didn't have money, and a lot of times I couldn't provide the support that was needed. And already feeling activated and then being pissed off about Roe versus Wade being overturned. Also, like, very much at the time, too, understanding, like, Roe versus Wade isn't enough.
Interviewer: I mean, you had an abortion under Roe, right? That's why you had to travel all the way to Oregon and get, yeah.
>>>>[ Audio Time: 39:57 ]<<<<
Participant: Exactly. I was like, it's not enough. And now you're going to take it away. And knowing, like, I was living in Bishop at the time and just being like, this is going to change, like, this is going to change everything. And I remember, like, having particularly male, cisgender male friends within my community being like, what do you mean? It's California. It's not going to change everything. And I was like, one, first of all, that's problematic because are we just thinking about California here? But two, y'all know a little bit… like at that point, I had started to share a little bit of my experience with some of my community members. Because I was so like, I can't believe I had to, like after the dust settled, I was like, I can't believe I had to travel out of state to do this, and this is not cool, to say the least. But yeah, so what led me to Access was I was really exploited in my job at another nonprofit. It was a white-led organization, and I was one of two people of color working for the organization. There was a lot obviously, like you lived through it too, like there was so much social upheaval and a lot of like interrogating our systems and how how are we centering a lot of performative activism. And I think the organization I was working for at the time was steep, heavily steeped into that and was causing so much harm to the two people of color that they employed so it was incredibly painful to work for this organization. And I couldn't, it was Bishop, I could not, I don't have a college degree, I didn't have a college degree at the time, I was finishing up my associate's degree. I couldn't leave. And so I was like, I need to find a new job. I put in 200 applications the winter before Roe was overturned and was bused and was just like this, which further activated me in reproductive justice. Because I was like, a lot of the, even when I got to the point of getting an interview, I was being forthright with people. I was like, I'm a parent. You know how they ask you in interviews, job interviews, they're like, is there anything else you want us to know about you? And I would always say the same thing. And I loved that I said this, even though I knew, chances are they're never gonna call me back after this, but I would be like, I'm a parent to a young child and that is my priority. And so I just want you as a potential employer to honor and recognize that that is my work in the world right now. And like this job, I will show up as often as I can and do my best, but it will come secondary to like my role as a parent raising another human being. And I didn't at first do that. And then I was like, I would talk to people and I'd be like, you're clearly… I was dealing with it with my current job, where they were not recognizing like my, they weren't recognizing anything about me being a parent. They would often like talk down to… this in the middle of a pandemic. So sometimes I would have a three-year-old on my lap and they would be like, this is not appropriate. And I'd be like, you're not appropriate. Like, what do you mean this is not appropriate? I'm showing up to do this job. And yes, that means that I have to split my time with this other human. So all that to say the job was awful. It was exploitative. It was breaking my spirit. So I knew that I needed to get out of there. I was already in the community doing some level of reproductive justice and community care work. I was helping with local indigenous leaders and also other community members. Organized rallies, organized marches and things like that, which was also, there's so much problematic with that within the community and a lot of like centering white community members. So I was incredibly activated. And then somehow stumbled upon, because I was doing my research, as I said I put in 200 job applications and then kind of took a break and then the Dobbs decision came down and Roe was overturned. And I had some interesting, conflicting interactions with community members around what that meant for our community and was really asking for them to like see how we could do long-term work and not just this, not just like, yes, let's plan the rally, let's plan the march, and like, how do we continue to do work within the community? And wasn't really getting a lot of support. And so I started to gather resources and go out and talk to health care providers and created a resource guide for the Eastern Sierra, which is still alive today. I no longer take care of it, but a former board member of Access and also somebody that was born and raised in Bishop and moved back to Bishop now takes care of and curates the form. But I was plastering QR codes and resources all over town. And then came to, as I deepened my knowledge of reproductive justice work, found that Access was hiring and was incredibly nervous. I put in applications to WeTestify and to NNAF prior to Access and just never heard anything back. And so I was kind of like, maybe I'm not good enough for that world. You know, I don't have a college degree. A lot of my experience is like scrappy community-based work, and maybe they want to see more… even though I'd worked for a non-profit, it was like very finance and admin centered and I was like maybe they want to see more of something else. But I put in this application and then in September of 2022 Access called me back and I went through the process of interviewing and was like wildly blown away. Because I was like there's no way that a non-profit exists and is so willing to talk about these radical issues and like hear me out. Because I was like I'm going to show up as my full self here, not hold anything back. And if they still want me then maybe it's like maybe this is a good thing. And so that that's what brought me into this work. And um I'm I definitely you know we're winding down on time so it definitely maybe like a part three that focuses on my work at Access because there's so much. But yeah that's what brought me… it was like that that was the pipeline, right? My second abortion experience, an experience that put me in my power was the direct pipeline to me wanting to do… mobilizing me within my local community. And then me searching for this… an opportunity for me to continue to do my heart work which is reproductive justice in every sense of the ideology. To be able to pay for my bills and make sure that my family is taken care of. And it can be incredibly challenging at times to have stepped into that role where the way that I make my livelihood is also like the way that I live my life. It could be really hard. I can talk about it more next time, but it can be really challenging to like define the bounds of that sometimes, which is what I'm struggling with right now. And I don't think that I could see myself doing any other work. I do miss, I think I've shared with you, I miss community care work. I miss being more one-on-one and intimate with folks and supporting folks for longer periods of time. Where abortion funding can, although we're really, at Access, really trying to shift this, it could be really transactional. And really just like, we even say like we're meeting people in this pinpoint moment in their experience.
Interviewer: Very urgent, very urgently too.
Participant: Very urgently, yes. And so I think I miss a lot of the like, being able to slow it down for folks and like even in an urgent moment of urgency, being able to be like, let's slow it down. Like we're going at the pace that you need to. And just like what it means to build a relationship with somebody.
Interviewer: That's all I was gonna say, yeah.
Participant: I miss that. And I try, it's not like I don't try. Like there are moments where I'm like, I feel that urgency and I'm like, this person seems like they need somebody to hear them or witness them right now. So I'm gonna sit here and be on the phone with him for an hour. And that's not typical, and yet I'm gonna let them have the space because this is their moment. So yeah, I'd love to share more about that, but it's always so beautiful to speak with you because to be able to like retell my story and kind of see that pathway and have more clarity of like, cause it gets hard, it gets hard. I had, I told you, I mean, the last time we were scheduled to meet, like I was having one of those moments where I'm like, why am I doing this? Like, why, why am I doing this? And, and there's, it's so easy to lose the hope, I think, especially with the powers that be doing what they do. And I think it's like in these moments where like, I can't stop smiling right now cause I'm like recounting this and I'm like, there was purpose and there still is purpose. And I came here for a reason and I'm here for, for many, many reasons, both my own and because of the stories of others that have allowed me to witness their journey, so.
Interviewer: Communities you're a part of and support. Yeah.
Participant: Right.
Interviewer: Beautiful. Okay, well, I'm gonna stop the recording there, if that's okay.
Participant: Awesome. That sounds great.

Vrindavani Avila

Jo Botelho

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Oliver Hall

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Trans Abortions Oral Histories