Episode 16 - Pati Garcia: Anal Pleasure as Revolution

This conversation with Pati was so nice, we're posting it twice. Please enjoy this re-run of a spectacular conversation with non-binary, Latinx sexological bodyworker and midwife, Pati Garcia. Pati and Josie discuss queer pleasure anatomy and anal breathing to undo trauma and increase fertility, plus bonus tips to help top surgery scars heal faster.

“If you want to cause a revolution, everyone needs to have a little anal pleasure.”

[ID: A beige background and orange semi-circle. Text reads: The Intersectional Fertility Podcast Episode 16: Pati Garcia @patilapartera and Josie Rodrigueez-Bouchier @intersectionalfertility.]

Episode Transcript:

Disclaimer: This is an automatically generated transcript edited to be more readable. It may not be 100% accurate.

Josie (00:00): I’m Josie Rodriguez-Bouchier, and this is the Intersectional Fertility podcast, where ideas and identities intersect to deepen our understanding of fertility and ultimately our whole selves.

(00:23): Hello friend, welcome back to the podcast. So I am deep in creation mode over here.  I am creating content for the first cohort of Fertile and registration has opened, which is super exciting, and our group is already forming. I'm so excited to share space with these folks and the program starts pretty soon.

November 1st is the first day of our program and it will be for five weeks. So I am just deep in Fertile mode and getting really deep into creating this material and preparing for this group. So if you are interested in joining us, please do! You can go to my website, intersectionalfertility.com/fertile, and read the program details and join us.

(01:18): And I'm doing something today that I haven't done yet for the podcast, which is to bring back an earlier episode. So I'm actually really excited to do this because we've had so many folks join us who maybe haven't had a chance yet to go back and listen to some of these earlier episodes. So if you haven't heard this one today, we're bringing back Pati Garcia who is such a favorite one.

I've heard so many folks have come up to me and message me and talk to me about this episode. There's just so many gems in here. So if you haven't heard this one yet, you are in for such a treat. And even if you have heard this one, it's a great one to re-listen to just because there's so much good stuff in here. So I'm excited for you to hear it again if you've already heard it.

Please share with your people, post on social media, tag me, tag Pati, let us know what you think of today's episode and enjoy.

(02:19): Today, I'm speaking with Pati Garcia. Pati is a Certified Sexological Body Worker and Certified Professional Midwife at ChulaDoula Midwifery, creator of Shodhini Institute, educator at La Matriz Birth, and birth worker at BirthworksTT. Pati has been involved in revolutionary somatic approaches to feminist body autonomy cultivation, from a Latinx gender-nonconforming perspective since 2004. 

Pati's life work is intertwined with deep spiritual practices rooted in Andean and Mesoamerican culture, which includes the dream world as a place of healing and guidance. Pati is currently living their best life in Trinidad and Tobago and trying to conceive. You can follow their journey on Instagram @queersttc. 

(03:18): Welcome, Pati, thank you so much for being on the podcast. 

Pati: Thanks for having me Josie. 

Josie: Will you share with us your pronouns and where in the world you're located? 

Pati (03:29): Sure, my pronouns that I've been using since long ago has been they, and my name Pati. And but when I moved to Trinidad and Tobago about five years ago, I didn't want to be so bold and say “my pronoun is they” to all these people in a whole ‘nother country. So I just reverted back to she. And I was okay with that. And now that I no longer work at the original place that I came out here to work for, now, I'm embracing they again, so, yeah. 

Josie: Nice. And what's the language there? Is it more gendered, the language in general? 

Pati: Yeah, it's English, but it’s super gendered. It’s regular old English. 

Josie (04:19): Cool, all right. And you answered my other question, which is where in the world you're joining us from. So that's where you're still today, right? 

Pati: That's right. Trinidad and Tobago. It's basically the southern Caribbean. And very close to Venezuela. 

Josie (04:35): Oh, nice. Awesome. Cool. Well, I know your background is in midwifery. And I would love to know just what got you into that field. When we talked, when we met, we met on my Instagram Live party for my podcast launch, which was so fun and you told such a fun story about how you got into midwifery, the DIY midwifery. What was the word you used? It was like natural DIY gynecology? 

Pati (05:08): Yes. There you go. Yes, that's how it all began. Before I was a midwife, I did bodywork. I was a body worker. And one of my specializations is scar tissue remediation. It's a massage to help prepare the tissues after surgeries and having scarring. 

And at that moment in time, I was working a lot with many friends who had had top surgery. And so yeah, I was helping them heal the scars so that they could increase their mobility and reduce inflammation and things like that. And one of the things I experienced repeatedly was my trans guy friends telling me that they look forward to carrying children someday. And I was like, what? Because this is 2007-2008, right. And so I was still coming into wrapping my mind around what is trans? And what does that mean? And all of that. 

(06:17) So when my own friends in that very intimate vulnerable space of bodywork are telling me, and at that point, I'm already a doula, a birth doula, right, and they're telling me “this is what I want to do with my womb,” right. And of course, back then there was such an assumption that when people transition maybe they will get hysterectomy, right, that’s part of the package. 

And to hear that there's a desire to carry a baby. I was like, oh my God, that is so cool. I want to be a part of that. I definitely want to be a part of holding that space. I felt like it was really revolutionary and it just felt like I was being called then literally by my friends. And then what started happening is, I started dreaming of catching babies. And I was not ready, I was not ready for that call. 

(07:12): And I said no way. I'm not that smart. That was my automatic response, like I am not smart enough to be a doctor or a midwife or any of that because I was so traumatized from undergrad. You know, when you're first generation going to undergrad, I went to a very predominantly white university and that was very traumatizing. 

Yeah, I was like, I don't have it in me to go back to school to learn all of that, all right. Like you're calling to yourself, and I kept ignoring all the dreams, so many dreams. I ignored it, ignored it. And eventually, I got to go back to Peru. My mother is from Peru and my cousin got married. And so we went to the wedding. 

(08:03) And I met with a doula from Peru, and we just went for coffee. And we started chit chatting. I told her about the dreams I'd been having. And she recommended, “Why don't you go and get at least an assistant midwife training at The Farm?”, which is Ina May Gaskin, this white midwife, this spiritual midwifery kind of thing. Back then there wasn't much controversy about who she is. 

Josie (08:27): Right, yeah. Today there certainly is. 

Pati: Oh, yeah. And I mean, it's well deserved, right, the critiques. And so back then I went, I came back from... My resistance had been, I felt Tennessee was too far. And my friend was like, but you're in Peru, that's a lot further. I was like, oh, right, perspective, okay. It's in my own country. 

(08:54): I came back, I went to the farm for a week, I definitely spoke up and out a lot about being one of the only People of Color, first generation folks there. The training was 13 of us, and three of us identified as People of Color. And so I, back then this is 2009, people were barely getting really politicized in that way in the context of birth work. And so I felt very rebellious when I was there. 

And but I still, my goal was, if I can digest this information, and understand it, then I will consider continuing the education. So I did it. I got it. I came back, I was so fortunate to fall right into, how do you call this? Assistance, I was an assistant for home birth midwife. I started going to home births and assisting and it was a rush. 

(09:53): I mean got to understand it on a visceral level, how simple it can be and safe. And how uncomplicated a birth can be. It almost feels like if you get the flu, and you're home sick with diarrhea, and all kinds of things, that is more dramatic than some births that happen at home, oh, yeah, I got this, fell in love with it. And then I continued. So that's how I got into it. 

Josie: Wow, I love that story. Oh my gosh. 

Pati: Thank you. 

Josie (10:28): When you were talking about your specialty, and helping trans folks with their scar tissue after top surgery, I wanted to put a pin in that and come back to that and ask you, because I know so many of my listeners are going to be in that scenario, or are in that scenario already. Are there any tips that you have that people can do at home to address those scars? 

Pati (10:53): For sure. One of the things I noticed is many times there had been a resistance to touch. I think part of the suggestions when they go home is to touch and massage, right. And sometimes because there was a surgical site, there's an apprehension. And so there's just sort of a delay in addressing it. 

And so, my suggestion would be is to push through that resistance at least to just touch base with that part of your body and allow yourself to integrate with your own hands that the situation right. But one of the things I am preparing and it should be coming out in June-July, is a scar tissue remediation for top surgery class. 

Josie: Oh, no way. Oh my gosh, amazing.

Pati (11:46): Yes, people have been asking me, a lot of young queer birth workers, queer birth workers of color. That's kind of my crew of folks that I’m trying to work with the most. They really showed interest because I taught a Caesarean class, a Ceasarean scar tissue remediation class last fall, and it was very successful, and people really loved it. 

And so since that was actually my introduction, working with trans bodies, and the top surgery scars, was the basis of me moving on to doing caesarean scar tissue remediation. Right, and so in that class, I had to share what actually started me was this, you know. 

Josie: Oh my gosh, that's so cool. I didn't even know that, what a lead in. 

Pati (12:33): Yeah, so I think it's very important to have good support, when you're going through the surgery, and very much, I think, very much like someone experiencing a birth it's like their own rebirth. So we need to give a lot of tender loving care for an extended amount of time. You know what I mean? 

Josie: Is there anything particular topically that you would want to put on there or just massage with just nothing added? 

Pati (13:02): I think that there's different recommendations as far as depending what level of healing they've done. There's gonna be antibiotic type creams probably being used immediately after, but I would say within six, by six weeks or later, I would recommend castor oil. Castor oil literally helps reorganize confused tissues. 

And that's what a scar is. It's tissue that is trying to come together desperately, right. And in that desperation, it's all confused. And so that's when you get keloids and the scar itself doesn't allow for much blood to, it doesn't oxygenate through those tissues. So you lose sensation, right. And the castor oil helps reduce that. So it helps make the cells come back together. 

Josie (13:51): I've never heard that described that way. That's fascinating. I recommend castor oil packs a lot of times in my practice. 

Pati: Yes, exactly. 

Josie: And yeah, and I never thought of it that way, I love that visual. 

Pati (14:03): That's what it is. I say castor oil to begin, right. And then when you, when the person feels comfortable with just massaging the area, and they want to take it another step further. Then I say, the castor oil packs, right. I don't like to say right away, because I think it takes that, because once you do castor oil packs, the level of healing, that is a rapid way to heal. 

And I feel like sometimes castor oil packs, that might be something you do maybe after the third time you really touch your body, right. And then when you're ready to really dive in deeper, then you do the castor oil packs. I'm a very gentle, all my approaches are quite gentle. 

Josie (14:49): Right, same. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I love that. Oh, that's so cool. You'll definitely have to tell me when your offering goes live and I will share it with my audience, because I think it'll be well received. 

Pati: All right, you're on. Definitely. Cool, I will. 

Josie (15:06): That was amazing. I wanted to hear all about that your background and what led you to midwifery. And then something else you talked about was pleasure anatomy. This was fascinating to me, I had never heard that term before. Would you explain what that means and why it's important and anything else you want to share about it? 

Pati (15:25): Sure, absolutely. So pleasure anatomy is a concept that I studied when I studied sexological body work at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Human Sexuality. It's in San Francisco. And yeah, so here's my thing, right. I became a body worker in 2004. And I studied a lot with Ellen Heed. And Ellen Heed taught me traditional Chinese medicine, pain and orthopedic evaluation, shiatsu, which is basically that's what I learned first. 

(16:03): And then she took sexological bodywork, and soon after she says to me, I think you would actually be good at that. And I said for real? Oh, gosh. You know, I'm always cautious of these things because being Latina, you always get hyper sexualized, no matter what, right? And so, great. Is that what she's doing? Just like saying that I exude eroticism, and therefore I should be a sexological body worker? 

(16:33): Well anyways, I said, sure, let me go try. And it was a very interesting training, I really was into it. Again, this is 2010. It's super problematic. It's mostly white people. I was very triggered a lot of the time, they did not know how to hold space, at least the two main teachers. 

(16:54): But luckily, luckily, there was Captain, Captain Snowden. Captain Snowden was the assistant and he's trans, and he's white, he's an ally. So at least, I mean, I didn't even know I was getting triggered. 

He pulled me aside one day and was like, “I saw you raising your hand and I saw that they never called on you. How are you feeling?” And I was like, “hah, that really happened?” “Yes, I know, you had something to say and I want to know what you had to say, because you don't actually get to speak much in that class.” 

Josie (17:26): Wow, how validating. 

Pati (17:28): Right, that was my first time. At this point, I'm 30 years old. And for the first time, someone is saying something about my experience, they're witnessing me. 

I'm 30 years old. I am years out of my bachelor's program where that happens all the time and no one ever said anything to me. And I didn't understand why I had all these problems with school. And so it's in that context where I start to learn about how, what the impact is of working, and what is it called, white violence? 

Josie (18:02): Absolutely, yeah. 

Pati: Oh my gosh, it really stunted my growth and I hadn't known that. But luckily, I did have Ellen Heed, who really saw my talent in being a body worker. I'm very, oh, what is that type of talent called? You know, it's like a physical understanding. 

Josie: What would it be? 

Pati: Very important to me, because when I realized you can be intelligent in that way, I was like, oh my God, I am really smart. 

Josie (18:37): I love it. Is it somatic? Is that the word, maybe? 

Pati: Oh, yes, yes. There you go. So I'm somatically intelligent. So there you go. You know, I didn't even know that wasn't intelligence until I became a body worker. And so I studied sexological body work at the suggestion of my mentor, Ellen Heed. And immediately within that training, I got invited to teach Blowjobs 101. 

Josie: No way! 

Pati (19:06): Basically it was for cis gay males wanting to explore trans men. For trans men who were newly in their trans experience, very interested in cis gay men. And Captain signed me up to teach pleasure anatomy to this crew of trans men and cis gay men who wanted to figure out how to do oral sex in a respectful manner, right. 

So this is a combination of trans anatomy and pleasure anatomy. So because of my background, when we come to talk about pleasure anatomy, it does come from a feminist perspective where we break down the anatomy. Obviously, in cisgender terms would be to talk about the clitoris, and that the clitoris has a hood, and this clitoris has legs, right. And we talk about how all of that works on a physiological level. 

(20:16): So that's your basic pleasure anatomy, right. And we talk about the physiology part, which is a lot about engorgement, and bringing a lot of breath into the pelvis so that all the tissues can engorge and, right, and then we move into pleasure, right. Because if you don't get engorged, it's not as pleasurable. The tissues don't stretch as easily and you don't get as lubricated. 

(20:43): So there's all of that, right. And so then in the context of this Blowjobs 101 class, we were talking about renaming the anatomy. We sat there and everybody was calling different parts, different names, right. Whatever was feeling good to the people that were there. And that was the basis of it. And then once we got the naming down I got to work with... 

(21:12): The thing about being a sexological body worker is that you are specializing in somatic sex education that is hands on. We are doing genital massage, right? And so Captain was my lovely volunteer and I got to show off his anatomy in a trans affirmative manner and I'm showing cis gay dudes, this is how you handle his junk, right. 

(21:42): I’m really being very graphic about, right, this would be the shaft here. You know, you're gonna lick the underside of the shaft to, you’re gonna pull back the foreskin, which is the clitoral hood, right. And just going back and forth like that, and just kind of making it up as we go along. Because that's, I think, essentially what it is. 

Josie (22:05): That's incredible. What an experience. Wow. I love what you said about breathing into the pelvis, having more breath down there. Just when you said that. I was like, I don't think that I do that or I don't even know if I know how to do that. 

Pati: Oooh, yeah, it's so important for fertility too. 

Josie: Right, totally. 

Pati (22:26): Right, because you want to oxygenate all those tissues and make that connection again. And that's what's happening, when we talk about pleasure anatomy, part of what's happening is that we are trained to divorce our genitals from the rest of our body, right. 

Josie: Oh my gosh, yeah. 

Pati (22:44): And so it's divorced, we handle it, the place where things happen, like passing stool and urine, or menses and, pleasure. And you might figure out pleasure but it's one of the things that we're lacking is making the connection with our hearts and our breath. 

You know, many times, because sex is so taboo, and most of us are getting raised in a very religious, not even very religious, but just the partially religion and partially social stigma, especially in our bodies, as, let's say women or people with uteruses, right? We are not allowed to touch it because we don't have that much external anatomy. And so we're not allowed to touch it. 

(23:35): But when we figure out how to touch it, we learn to touch it quick. Quick, quick, quick, you almost hold your breath, right. We constrict, we get our quick, quick clitoral orgasm, and then we're done. We don't learn to luxuriate in it, right. So when we learned our own pleasure in that way, when we go and have sex with others, whether it’s heterosexual or lesbian or whatever, queer sex. 

Sometimes in the beginning, we're just doing mutual masturbation, I know how to get off, I want you to help me get off in this way. And we teach each other that and that's what we repeat over and over again. And that's one way to have sex, but it's a very limited way to pursue our pleasure. That has to do with shame. 

Josie (24:27): Yeah, so how do you breathe into the pelvis? Or how do you breathe into your genital organs? 

Pati: So this is something I call bottom breathing. I used to call it anal breathing but in Trinidad, people are more open to bottom breathing. 

Josie: Okay, yeah, that makes sense. 

Pati (24:47): So what you do is you breathe in through your mouth, you let the air hit the back of your throat and you imagine that air going down your spine all the way to your bottom, right. So that’s one long inhale in. 

When the air reaches your bottom, you are going to slightly push out. Like you're letting out a little fart, and then you exhale. So most of the work is in the inhale. So you're inhaling and it's almost like you feel your pelvic floor expand by the time it reaches the end of your spine. 

Josie (25:28): And then when you push out a little fart, is that on the inhale or on the exhale? 

Pati: It's at the end of the inhale. 

Josie: At the end of the inhale, okay. And then when you do the inhale, is your mouth open or are you inhaling still through your nose? 

Pati (25:44): I say inhale through your mouth. Just to literally feel the air hit the back of your throat. And then you're imagining that going down your neck, down your spine. I think that visualization is very important. Because when we're like well how do we send air to our pelvic floor? How is it even connected? 

Josie: Exactly. 

Pati (26:09): I think that sending the air in your imagination or just if you want to imagine physically where it would go, you're breathing down your spine, you're sending it to your booty, right. 

From the top to the bottom. Once it reaches the booty and you do that little push out, you've actually oxygenated your sacrum down to your pelvic floor. And what you'll notice is your nervous system will calm down profoundly. 

Josie: Totally, I feel it right away. I just feel it right when you first do it. 

Pati: Oh, super. You see? There you go.

Josie: Yeah, that's amazing. 

Pati: So you're more connected now. 

Josie (26:51): Way more connected, because I usually teach people belly breathing. So where they’re expanding their belly when they take that inhale, but it's a completely different experience to feel breathing into your sacrum.

Pati (27:09): I think they're both very important, right. Belly breathing, I would say is what you do first, before you get to start to breathe down into your bottom. Right, because who the hell wants to breathe into their ass? What a wild concept. And then, I’m so glad you love it. 

We have a lot of kaka shame. I call it the kaka shame. We like exit only, use baby wipes to clean it, you never want anything in there. You know, putting the tiniest finger there is the kinkiest thing you've ever done. As I say this, that's how I feel about my own body but I've definitely explored that. 

And anal pleasure taken very, very slowly does very much help you, how do you say it, fire new synapses in your brain. Anal pleasure is quite revolutionary. If you want to cause a revolution, everyone needs to have a little anal pleasure. 

Josie (28:16): Wow, oh my gosh. Yeah, I love that. In Chinese medicine, the large intestine, which is the colon, is connected to an emotion. So all of the organ systems are related to an element in Chinese medicine and each one of those elements are related to certain emotions. 

Anyway, a whole bunch of stuff. But so the colon and the large intestine have to do with letting go. So I would imagine that this has a lot to do with letting go, doing any sort of anal anything would help let go on multiple levels. 

Pati (28:56): Yes. I mean, that anal tightness, it comes from trauma, a lot of trauma. Our first trauma annually, is when we get our diapers changed and our caregivers say, ooh, who is this stinky baby. Oh, disgusting. Who is the stinky butt, stinky butt. 

So from then we start to tense our anus, right, and then it just keeps going and going. We go to school, we sit on our butts for many hours, and it starts to numb out. We don't want to fart in front of anyone, you know. 

Josie: Oh my gosh, the shame is un-ending. 

Pati (29:40): Right, and then when we get this, childhood, and then when we get to menstruation, then we don't want a drop of blood to ever come out onto our pants and be seen at school with blood on our pants. You know, and so then we create another level of tension to try to keep that blood in. 

Josie (30:00): Yes, everything is trying to keep everything in. And I'm just thinking about kiddos are potty training, but a lot of times that's one of the issues that comes up is around pooping. And it's real common and that makes so much sense that it's trauma, yeah. 

Pati (30:18): So this breathing, this bottom breathing, it really helps undo all of that. Just the breathing and this real gentle push out at the end of the inhale. At first, I tell people push out like you're pushing out a fart. But once they make that connection, then I just say just do a little gentle push, right. And when you do that, for even just 5 to 20 breaths at night before bed, you'll get better sleep. 

Josie (30:47): Oh, no way. Okay. Oh my gosh, this is amazing because, well, I'm going to try it first of all, but so many of my patients and people that I talked to have issues sleeping and I'm always on the lookout for things for people to try falling asleep, but I've never heard of this as one. This is awesome. I'm learning so much. You are amazing. 

Pati (31:11): Awww, thanks. Yeah, I've been in this a long time and I just think differently. And so I've been able to study my different thoughts, my different way of thinking, and it all kind of adds up. And so I purposely became a sexological body worker because I was on my way to becoming a midwife. 

And I knew that because I had gone to so many home births, I knew that midwifery at birth, didn't have to be a clinical experience. And so what I wanted was information on how to do non clinical genital touch, right. And pleasure based touch, being a sexological body worker, I am hands on with the genitals with a goal of addressing numbness, exploring pleasure, and then helping people explore other types of orgasms and spiritual connections with that type of pleasure, right. 

(32:18): And all the touch, yeah, all the touch is one way. Right, I don't get touched back. It's not like that. I wear gloves. You know, it is very much about learning consent communication in the context of the body. 

And I would say those are the basics about sexological body work. And consent is at the basis of all this and we're healing all those moments where we didn't know how to speak up for ourselves when it comes to body, I just figured if I could enter midwifery with this type of knowledge, then I'm going to be a very different midwife, and that's what I wanted to. 

Josie: Absolutely, wow. 

Pati (32:56): Right, so that's why I studied sexological body work.

Josie (33:01): And it sounds to me like there’s trauma work to it. Like all of that would be undoing trauma in so many ways, not just with the anus or with the bottom, but just all sorts of trauma. Wow. And the numbness aspect too, I think that that's so common that people have numbness below the waist. 

Pati: It is very common. It's wild, because it's a physiological numbness, but it's also psychosomatic, right. But the unfortunate thing is how physiological it really is. 

Josie (33:38): It becomes it sort of like, which came first the chicken or the egg? 

Pati (33:43): Well, I think it's very intentional, that in our society, we learn, we have to go to school and sit in a chair for eight hours, that will numb you out. Why is that being done? So that we don't have access to that power. It's systematic. It's to control us, right. 

So I'm very curious, very curious, now, that we're in this pandemic and all these kids are at home doing virtual school. Yeah, maybe they're sitting, but there's no one there that's going to tell them you really have to sit for eight hours, right. So what's gonna happen with this generation? They're not going to have that numbness. 

Josie (34:24): Right, oh, that is fascinating. 

Pati: So I'm really excited what could happen with that, you know. 

Josie: Totally. Pati, you are a wealth of information. I want to just chat with you all day. 

Pati: Yeah, I love talking. I love talking about my passions. 

Josie (34:46): Will you share one more story before we wrap up? There was one that you mentioned, where you were in an environment where you were all looking at cervixes? Do you remember that story? I loved hearing about that. 

Pati (35:02): I do. I'm happy to share that. So that was something called the Shodini Institute. Shodini is Sanskrit for woman or female researcher. And it was inspired by a book called Touch Me, Touch Me Not. 

And it's written by the Shodinis in India, and they were these revolutionary feminists, Indian women from the city, who got a grant, an economic grant, to go to rural villages and work with the women there to help them gain economic independence in whatever form, right. That was the original idea. So they did that, they were going to town to town, village to village. 

(36:00) And after so much time, what ends up happening is they actually began to meet the barefoot gynecologists, which are just regular old people, women, who were using herbs and whatever they had to take care of their vaginas. 

Josie: I love it.

Pati (36:16): Right, so the city women started gathering that information, and then took it a step further and brought speculums. Because this is during the time where you had your self help movement going on, right. 

Late 70s, around the 70s and the 80s, where in the US, this is before Roe versus Wade, right. People, lay women are getting together to do self exam, and to learn what the cervix looks like. To, what is that word, demystify. What are doctors actually doing with the speculum? What are they seeing, right? 

(37:00) So they were doing that getting together looking at each other’s cervixes, and they were doing that in India also, right. So this book came out of it. Fast forward, fast forward, however many decades, 40 years later, I meet Carol Downer. 

And she's an old school feminist, she must be almost 90 at this point. And she was the one of the original people who were doing self-exam in groups back in the day. And so she really supported me in creating that environment again. And because I wanted to somehow combine my doula knowledge, my body worker knowledge, sexological bodywork, and midwifery and also just my own cultural understanding of all this, right. 

(38:00) I’m Mexican, and Peruvian first generation in the States and, of course, I have my own way, the herbs that my family used, the way we understand the body with things that are cold and damp and understanding our body in this way with wind and air. 

And these are ways that our families explained to us , don't go to bed with wet hair because whatever, you know. So I wanted to do that. I knew at some point in my life, I was going to leave Los Angeles. And I felt like there wasn't enough of this type of education readily available to People of Color. And definitely not from a queer and non-binary perspective. So I said, let me create this training. So I had all this information and I started making outlines. And I got a lot of help from my Virgo friends. 

Josie (38:57): Yes, Virgos! 

Pati (39:00): Yes. They helped me create structure around it. And so eventually, what happens is I created this training. It's a month long training, we meet every week for four hours. 

We open with an altar, a circle where we learn to value oral history. So there wasn't a lot written because I wasn't about to write no workbook. Listen, I can't. But I can talk. And so I said, I'm just gonna talk and there was so much shame. 

(39:31): When I taught these, I felt ashamed because I felt people were paying money and they expected a workbook and I was like, here's some sheets, here's what I can muster up. My strength is in oral tradition, so I’m gonna talk. 

So we talked and we shared stories, and this is how we created camaraderie, sisterhood, trust. Then I will do all the nerdy stuff like teach anatomy, physiology from feminist perspective. A Chicana feminist perspective, right, because we’re definitely going to talk about being raised Catholic and that’s damaging. And how are we going to undo that damage, right. 

(40:14): And then at the end of the class, we would do self exam. So we would all look at each other cervixes, whoever wanted to do it would do it, whoever didn't want to do it didn't do it. We practice consent, communication, and we would write what we see in each cervix every week. 

So for most of us, we would see a cervix that is open because of ovulation. A cervix that is open because of menstruation. A cervix with IUD strings hanging out. A cervix that had one abortion. A cervix that had five abortions. You know, we just demystified everything we had been told, right. 

(41:00): And so I did that. I think we had maybe about 10 to 13 cohorts, and each group was anywhere between five and seven, maybe 10 students. And so yeah, I think it was about 70 different, between 60 and 70 different people, most of them were Chicanas. Some of them were immigrants, it was mixed. 

At that time, there wasn't much language around... How do I say? Let's just say that sometimes we maybe had one white person join, and they felt not so comfortable to speak, right. But it's very clear, they didn't feel comfortable because it didn't revolve around them. 

(41:51): And at that point, that's kind of how I dealt with that, I said the reason you feel uncomfortable is because this is led by a Latina, and everyone in your class is a woman of color. And so we are definitely coming from a different perspective. And I did not apologize. 

I remember feeling like I was doing something very mean, and she definitely treated me like I was doing something mean. But I was like, there's nothing I could do because everyone else is like I love this class, it was the best, I've never been in a space like this, right. So I just said, this is how it is girl. Find your own group. Start your own group. It's all good. Like right now, I have to keep it moving. 

(42:40): We got to go to New York and do it. We had one cohort in Oakland. I think that's about... Oh, one time we got to go to Philly trans health, a big conference for trans folks. And I held a mini workshop in a hotel room where folks with cervixes got to come and see their penis head, because a cervix literally looks like a penis head, right. And so it was so cool. 

Oh, my God, I really loved when we did all that. It was wild. It was intense. Most of the students have become midwives, doulas, body workers. A lot of acupuncture, yoga instructors, all of that kind of thing, but from a Person of Color. And a lot of them were queer, or eventually became queer. I almost feel like queer equals empowered. You know, they might like, straight up be straight but they're super queer. You know what I'm saying? 

Josie (43:51): Yes, I know exactly what you’re saying.

Pati: I love these folks, man. I did that, I did that for two years. And then I went to midwifery school, and then I came to Trinidad. 

Josie (44:02): Incredible. I wish I could have been a part of those cohorts so badly. I mean, just how empowering that is to just be able to see what the doctor sees. And you're like, it's basically taking your power back because I feel like so many people just blindly hand it over, especially to doctors. 

Pati (44:26): We're trained to do that. We're trained to hand our bodies over to Jesus, our husband, and the doctor. And that's it. And I just, I can't live a life like that. 

And I think being queer, from young, that's one of the first ways we take our bodies back. We don't play that game, and then it's our responsibility to teach all the people who aren't getting that message. And that's a lot of straight people, you know. 

Josie (45:04): I love that, I love that message and I want to spread that message too. 

Pati (45:08): Yes, it's so important, and especially in the context of fertility, because even me, with all that I'm telling you, I do encounter so much crap in accessing fertility services. 

And I'm just like, if I'm having a hard time, I can't even imagine people who don't have this information, don't have this body of knowledge. How they're getting treated? Nah, man, things have to change. And I'm ready. I'm ready to teach my little workshop. Everything virtual, you know. 

Josie (45:41): Yes, good. Well on that note, will you tell us how people can reach you, how we can find you online and support you and sign up for all your stuff? 

Pati (45:53): Sure. So right now, the easiest way to get ahold of me would be through Instagram. And my handle is @PatiLaPartera. La Partera means the midwife. 

Josie: Oh, I love that.

Pati (46:16): Yeah, and you can message me there. And then I think email Garcia.Pati@gmail.com. You know, I'm old school, I have a hard time updating my website. It's chuladoula.com and I think 2015 was the last time I updated. 

But I'm trying to get it together because I realized there's such a need for what I have to say, everything. Right, everything is virtual. So let me teach my little online classes. 

(46:49): And I do have plans to go back to the States, to go back to LA specifically. Hopefully, in the fall, I can get that going. And then once COVID calms down and whatnot, we can start doing the groups again. If I could figure out how to do that online, then we would do it online.

Josie: Yeah, cervixes on Zoom. 

Pati (47:10): Right, just put your little camera down there. See, I have my little microphone, this little microphone I bought. There’s got to be little cameras. 

Josie (47:19): Exactly, I love it. So cool. Thank you so much, Pati, for joining us. This was an amazing conversation. 

Pati: Oh, you're welcome. 

Josie: Thank you for sharing your wealth of knowledge with us. I'm so grateful. 

Pati (47:37): My pleasure. And I'm so happy for you that you're doing this podcast and reaching out specifically to us, queer People of Color, it means the world to me. And it just so affirming that we are trying to make our families and we do have a supportive community out there. Let's use it, let's spread the message. Let's make our babies. 

Josie: Yes, let's all find each other and stick together. 

Pati: Yes, let's do that. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate you. 

Josie: Thanks, Pati. 

(48:15): I am so excited to let you know that Fertile registration is open. Fertile is a queer, trans, and non-binary centered five week online program for folks with wombs to reclaim power over their fertility journey and conceive using the Whole Self Fertility Method. Health practitioners, you are welcome to join us as well.

Head over to intersectionalfertility.com/fertile. To read the program details and join us. The program starts November 1st.

(48:51): Thanks for listening to the Intersectional Fertility podcast. To get customized fertility recommendations based on your Whole Self Fertility Method element, join my mailing list at intersectionalfertility.com and get immediate access to my two minute quiz. If you like the show and want to hear more, tap subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, and please leave us a review.

It really truly helps. The Intersectional Fertility podcast is hosted by me, Josie Rodriguez-Bouchier, and produced by For the Love Media with original music by Jen Korte.

All content offered through The Intersectional Fertility Podcast is created for informational purposes only, it is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.