What on Earth is a 'Gender Doula'?

QUEER WORD
GENDER DOULA

What it means:

A person who offers emotional, practical, and informational support to a trans or gender non-conforming person during their gender transition.

Let’s use it in a sentence:

Thankfully my gender doula talked me out of naming myself AJ after my favourite boy band member from the 90s.

A little bit of history:

I love it every time this newspaper clipping does the rounds on social media and shows up on my feed.

A sweet little reminder of what good parenting looks like - supportive, humble, loving, funny.

But also because it perfectly illustrates what we all already know. Coming out is a weird process and is kind of like being born again.

Only this time, no one's waiting with a warm blanket and gentle reassurances. No one's there to slap you on the bottom and gush over how perfectly formed you are.

But what if someone could be?

Well, maybe not the arse slapping.

Or the forceps to the head.

Or, come to think of it, the afterbirth.

Hold on. Where was I going with this metaphor again?

Oh yeah! Have you ever wondered what it would be like if you had someone to stand beside you during the messy, scary, beautiful process of becoming yourself? Someone to say: you're not crazy, you're not alone, and you're going to figure all of this out?

Well, that's precisely where the gender doula comes in.

And what exactly is a gender doula, I hear you ask?

Well, before we get into that, let's make sure we're all on the same page about what a ‘doula’ is.

The term, in our current use of it, is relatively new, but the history of the word itself is quite... interesting, to say the least.

First showing up in ancient Greece, it is a word that was originally used to refer to a female household servant or slave (And if you're wondering, the male equivalent was a doûlos).

It wasn't until the 1960s that the term was picked up again, reintroduced to English by anthropologist Dana Raphael, who used it to describe a person who 'mothers the mother' during pregnancy and childbirth.

It’s kind of like a nurse at the same time as definitely not being a nurse - a trained professional providing non-clinical emotional, physical, and informational support.

In the decades following, the term continued expanding to reflect the full reality of pregnancy. The 2000s introduced full-spectrum doula to describe someone supporting people through all pregnancy outcomes - not just birth, but abortion, miscarriage, and fetal loss too.

Enter: the Gender Doula

Then, in the 2010s, Eli Lawliet, PhD, heard birth doula Erica Livingston say, ‘There should be a doula for every threshold in life.’

And something clicked.

Because what is gender transition if not a threshold? One that’s scarily disorienting, thrilling, and mostly unmapped. Lawliet picked up the idea and ran with it, becoming one of the first full-time gender doulas (without the whole ancient-slavery thing, though).

But what exactly does a gender doula do?

Imagine, after years of struggling with your gender identity, you make the brave decision to transition.

But where do you even start?

Sure (depending on the transition you choose) there are doctors' appointments to book and legal forms to fill out (oh, so many forms!).

But beyond that, there's an eye-watering to-do list: coming out to friends, coming out at work, managing relationships, fielding awkward questions and sitting through stilted conversations - all while trying to keep your mental and emotional wellbeing somewhere close to functional.

It's giving me palpitations just typing this out….

Which is why, although it’s a massive oversimplification, I think of the gender doula as the person who holds your hand through the process.

They help you stay on top of your transition admin, strategise for potentially fraught conversations, and give you a pep talk when it all feels a bit too much.

So… why aren't gender doulas everywhere?

Honestly, it’s hard to say. To me they seem as obvious as wheels on suitcases, but the concept is still relatively new, and it takes time for things like this to catch on.

But there's also a pricklier truth that needs to be acknowledged - many trans people face financial precarity. With higher rates of unemployment and lower average incomes (not to mention the often eye-bulging cost of medical transition) support services like gender doulas can feel like a luxury rather than a lifeline.

Most of us don’t have parents printing retractions and love letters. We don’t walk into a waiting room of blankets and soft voices when we step into ourselves.

But maybe we should?