On today’s episode, we’ll be talking about bias. Bias penetrates all aspects of our lives, from workplace bias to bias in mainstream media to bias in education. TKS has focused on maternal mortality in a previous episode this season, but today we’ll be looking at one of the many factors that impact the high rates seen in the US: bias, specifically bias in birth. This encompasses racial biases, biases based on sexual orientation, and beyond, all impacting marginalized communities already at risk for negative birth outcomes. Our guest today is Jennifer Sarduy, mama, activist, and founder of Re+Birth Equity Alliance. 

Jen is a community organizer with several organizations, working to hold space and encourage accountability with issues that affect her community.

Primarily, she works with Re+Birth Equity Alliance, an organization she co-founded to address disconnection within birth justice. Within Re+Birth Equity she helps to organize mobile mental health clinics and community based adult sex ed conversations. She travels regularly for Re+Birth Equity to train birth and family workers on implicit bias management and systemic racism in birth. She also is involved with a local harm reduction non-profit, working to ensure that people who use drugs are safer and better understood in Fort Worth.  In her free time she enjoys making fish faces at the fish in her aquarium in order to seem more relatable, and making up elaborate excuses to avoid school fundraisers. 

Resources:

• Re+Birth Equity Alliance