ABOUT ME
Max Mowitz has been a practicing gender and transition doula since 2019. Based in Des Moines, Iowa, Max provides safe support and aid to Trans, Nonbinary, and Gender Diverse individuals exploring their gender identities and pursuing gender-affirming care. They also specialize in LGBTQ-inclusive healthcare, including mental health, transition-related care and LGBTQ birthwork.
Max has been active in LGBTQ and community advocacy for more than decade, focusing on providing comprehensive LGBTQ education to the broader community as a component of queer liberation. In 2021, Max founded the Iowa Trans Mutual Aid Fund, a community-funded resource that offers financial assistance to Trans, Nonbinary, and Gender Diverse Iowans to access gender-affirming care. They are a certified Community Health Worker, an LGBTQ wedding officiant, and the Program Director for One Iowa, a statewide LGBTQ advocacy organization. Previously, they’ve served the Iowa Abortion Access Fund, Planned Parenthood, and the Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault. Max is unequivocally committed to creating and supporting initiatives that center justice and the liberation of all marginalized peoples.
“I think Trans people are fucking cool! We deserve safety, community, and support. As a doula, I love that I get to work with people that I love and share space with them as they explore their identities. I want nothing more than to meet you where you’re at and provide care in whatever ways feel meaningful. Let’s hang out!”
Doula work is predicated on a safe and comfortable relationship between a doula and their client. As a doula, I am committed to an anti-oppression framework of doula support and wedding officiant services. This statement includes information on this framework and approach to doula work. This document is not finite and is ever-evolving. If you have questions or concerns, please reach out to me at maxthedouladsm@gmail.com.
I recognize the myriad ways that I have benefited from unearned privileges. Our culture and nation is built on systems of white supremacy, classism, ableism, transphobia, homophobia, xenophobia, and fatphobia. My goal within my doula work and beyond is to not only understand these systems but to intentionally dismantle them through community organizing and resistance, ongoing mutual aid, and other forms of disruption. I understand and acknowledge the ways that these very systems disenfranchise my clients and Trans, Nonbinary, and Gender Diverse people everywhere. These systems and complicity in them are antithetical to doula work itself. My doula support is often focused on questioning and navigating these systems. As a doula, I will do whatever I can to honor the intersecting identities my clients hold and to reckon with the ways that oppressive institutions make the transition and gender exploration process nearly impossible.
Trans, Nonbinary, and Gender Diverse people deserve safety, support, and liberation, and those are my values as a doula. In addition to the individual ways that I support these values in my work, I will also dismantle the systems that infringe upon them.