Head South Radio

Intro:

Dr. Antonette Whitehead (She/Her) is an OB/GYN at Downtown Women's Health in Lower Manhattan. She is a reproductive health provider from Detroit, Michigan, and has been practicing in NYC for 13 years. Her approach to care is focused on the importance of deep listening and validating her patients. As a queer Black woman, she understands the intersections of her identity and how her experience informs her practice and provides a safe space for all of her patients to voice their concerns. 

Today Antonette and Cat discuss Queer Family Planning and what considerations Queer People and partners need to make during this stage in their lives. While all Family building requires some planning Queer people or alternative relationship styles or people pursuing co-parenting agreements may need to make additional considerations compared to their heterosexual cis-gendered counterparts when they are planning their family. 

In this episode, we discuss the following:

• What were sex and reproductive education like for Antonette? 
• How does being a queer Black woman inform her practice? 
• Queer Family Planning and the various options available for queer individuals and couples
• What to consider when you'd like to have and raise a child with your partner(s)
• What options do Queer Folks have when it comes to having children 
• Pride and Parenting
• What is it like to raise a child when you are Queer 

You can find Antonette Whitehead here: https://downtownwomen.com/ @dtwobgyn

Please support Antonette Whitehead's foundation of choice:  

https://everymothercounts.org

Every mother counts works to achieve quality, respectful, and equitable maternity care for all by giving grants and working with partners and thought leaders to increase awareness and mobilize communities to take action.

Let's connect:

Head South Instagram - @Headsouth.World

Cat Meyer Instagram - @Kittycatmeyer

Valentin Somma (he/his) is an IFS-trained Practitioner & Intimacy Coach (Internal Family Systems, or IFS, is an evidence-based therapy approach that recognizes the multiplicity of the mind). He helps mindful humans love their Inner Parts and their partner(s) better by moving toward more self-acceptance within and more intentionality with others. 

He is also an avid dancer and meditator and — in what feels like a previous life — got his Ph.D. in Economics from Columbia University and worked in management consulting at BCG. He also supports actors in the psychedelic space with strategy and consulting work.

In this episode, we discuss the following:

• What is the Internal Family Systems approach?

• What is an intimacy coach?

• Coaching men on consent as an ongoing conversation, not just a question at the beginning of a sexual encounter

• Valentin's approach to working with his clients helps them build a loving and compassionate relationship with all parts of themselves

• Healing the parts of ourselves that are protecting our old wounds or shame

• Our inner critic can become our most supportive cheerleader or a discerning voice

• Supporting men through their journeys and understanding of masculinity, vulnerability, and intimacy

• Facing the challenging emotions from childhood that can be affecting your most intimate relationships in adulthood.

• Managing the tension between expressing what is stereotypically considered masculine – strength, decisiveness, assertiveness – and exploring their more sensitive vulnerable sides – needing care, being compassionate and empathetic

You can find Valentin here: @awakeandsexy | awakeandsexy.com

Please support Valentin's foundation of choice: ACLU defends the rights of all people nationwide. Abortion care, trans people's right to live freely, people's right to vote - our freedoms are at stake please donate today and fuel the fight back in courts, statehouses, and nationwide.

In this Quickie Episode Cat discusses the origin of Pride, and inclusive sex education. 

Pride Month has become an annual celebration of LGBTQ+ rights, culture, and identity. 

But Pride is more than a parade and love is love rainbow T-shirts.

Pride is a Protest.

As long as LGBTQ+ rights continue to come under attack Pride will continue to be a protest. Discrimination, harassment, and violence are still rampant, and many LGBTQ+ people face significant challenges in their daily lives.

Sex education is often just about the mechanics of reproduction, preventing pregnancies, and preventing STIs. But it could be so much more. Excluding the queer experience from sex education dismisses the LGBTQ+ experience and perpetuates harmful stereotypes. Sex Education could provide a safe space to discover our identities, embrace our desires, and navigate the complex landscape of human relationships including pleasure and partnerships. 

Including queer perspectives in sex education is not an option; it is a moral imperative, an act of compassion, and a step towards building a society that values every individual, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

In this episode, we discuss the following:

• The origin of Pride

• The importance of queer inclusion in sex education

• How you can support LGBTQ+ young people

Please support Cat's foundation of choice: The Trevor Project provides 24/7 crisis support services to young LGBTQ+ people. Text, chat, or call anytime to reach a trained counselor. Make a life-saving donation here.

Carine Carmy (She/Her) is Co-Founder and CEO at Origin, the leading U.S. provider of women's health and pelvic floor physical therapy.She has focused her career on increasing access to products and services that improve quality of life, from healthcare to 3D printing. 

Carine's passion for women's health started in her twenties, when she struggled with painful sex for nearly a decade. Following years of misdiagnoses, ineffective treatment options, and hearing "that's just the way it is," Carine discovered the power of pelvic floor physical therapy to treat, not only pelvic pain, but dozens of conditions and symptoms that impact some 40 million U.S. women and individuals with vaginal anatomy, every year.

Origin is a female-based startup that offers in-person and digital Pelvic Floor Therapy. Only recently has Pelvic Floor PT been recognized and utilized in the health care systems. Origin hopes to be the disrupter that pioneers a change to provide more accessible PT to those across the county. The conversation with Carine dives into her personal experience with painful sex due to pelvic dysfunction and her own journey with pelvic floor pt which then in part inspired her to launch a business dedicated to supporting humans with pelvic floor issues. 

In this episode, we discuss the following:

• Pelvic Floor Dysfuntion 

• Pelvic Floor Therapy that feels safe and inclusive

• Normalizing pain and skewed tolerance

• Lack of communication around pelvic health concerns 

• Clarity and plan of care through Pelvic Floor Therapy

• Tension, sexual function, and pain cycle in the pelvic floor 

You can find Carine here: @theoriginway | theoriginway.com

Please support Carine's foundation of choice: Global Women's Health Initiative, whose mission is to transform the lives of women around the world by educating and engaging physical therapists and other healthcare providers.

Emily (She/Her) is an entrepreneur who has always been passionate about creating catalysts that spark human connection. While developing Ohnut — a set of buffer rings created to reduce pain and increase pleasure during penetrative sex — she also co-founded the Lady Bits League, the Pain Perception Project, and Pelvic Gym to connect people from all over the pelvic health world through education and story.  

Emily has redefined her life as a proud entrepreneur, maker, community leader, and patient advocate.

In this episode, we discuss the following:

• Emily's personal experience with painful sex and her decade long journey to finding a solution (creating her own)
• What is the pelvic floor?
• What is painful penetrative sex?
• The lack of data and understanding of female pelvic anatomy 
• Tension or overactivity of the pelvic floor 
• Creating a wearable for penis-owners that controlled depth of penetration
• Giving herself and others permission to speak about painful sex 
• Her journey to learn as much as possible about female sexual health and sexual medicine 

You can find Emily here: @OhnutCo on IG and TikTok | ohnut.co

Please support Emily's foundation of choice: The School Nurse Initiative EndoWhat? provides an endometriosis toolkit to every school nurse, pediatrician and primary care provider in the U.S. to help diagnose endometriosis earlier and provide appropriate care, dramatically changing millions of girls' lives.

On this episode of Head South Radio we chat to the founder of The Floss, Bon Crotzer. With an extensive and professional background in dance, bodywork, yoga, pilates, and biomechanical flexibility and strength, Bon developed her movement method and platform The Floss to educate people on the often overlooked source of health—our fascia network.

Bon's Fascia Flossing classes and private sessions resculpt the body's foundational structure through a personalized combination of physical manipulation, guided resistance movement, and engaged muscle elongation techniques. 

The Floss is all about remapping your network of fascia. At the Floss people find space and comfort in their bodies that they didn't know they could have. Classes are curated to alleviate scar tissue, densified fascia, and systemic stagnation for an immediate sense of improved mobility, tension relief and symmetrical posture.

In this episode, we discuss the following:

• What is Fascia? 

• Bonnie's journey from dance, to yoga, to fascia

• Each body's unique fascial signature and how it represents the lived experience

• Pelvic floor health

• Fascia flossing: reconfiguring the fascia fibers

You can find Bon here: @bonzsi | @fasciadepartment | thefloss.com

Please support Bon's foundation of choice:  Yellowhammer Fund. The Yellowhammer Fund is an abortion advocacy and reproductive justice organization serving Alabama, Mississippi, and the Deep South.

This week's episode is a quickie: Our host Cat talks about Pelvic Health Month and Masturbation Month. 

In this episode, we discuss the following:

• Pelvic Health Month

• Free the Pelvis with The Floss

• May is also Masturbation Month

• Things you should know about Masturbation

You can find Cat here: @kittycatmeyer

Please support Cat's foundation of choice:  Huru International. Huru's mission is to support Africa's most vulnerable girls and young women who don't have access to menstrual pads and health education. They lack access to essentials such as menstrual products, and reproductive health and wellness education, and often endure shame and stigmas. Not only does this put their health at risk, but it can also disrupt their education, diminish their well-being, self-esteem and impact their lives.

• Fascia Movement Method The Floss- Use the discount code "HEADSOUTH" at checkout

• The New Way to Wash Hair - Hairstory- 1st-time customers use the link for discount 

• Non-Hormonal Birth Control- Natural Cycles- Use the link for

On Episode 11 we are joined by Savannah Sly (she/they), the founder & co-director of New Moon Fund — a capacity-building non-profit dedicated to advancing the welfare of people in the sex trade, specifically sex workers.

Sly's work spans two decades of advocacy, education, and movement building, and is informed by their personal experiences of autonomy, criminalization, prosperity, and coercion as a sex worker in the United States. 

As a sex worker, Sly specializes as a Dominatrix and is passionate about exploring archetypal kink identity through role play and sex magic. Sly serves on the boards of Woodhull Freedom Foundation and Global Lab for Research in Action at UCLA Luskin, as well as on the steering committee of the globally networked Sex Worker Donor Collaborative. 

Savannah's commentary on issues relating to the sex trade is published in Brookings, New York Times Magazine, Teen Vogue, and Psychology Today among others.

In this episode, we discuss the following:

• Savannah's career as a sex worker

• Fundamental comprehensive sex education 

• Safe sex, bodily autonomy, and boundaries

• Empowering and advocating for sex workers

• Sex work and public perception 

• Shame and anxiety projected onto sexuality 

• Decriminalization of sex work

• The negative aspects of sex work — is it really the work itself, or the way that society treats sex workers?

• The theatrical and therapeutic nature of some sex work

• The archetypes of BDSM and role-playing

You can find Savannah here: Twitter: @savannahsly | Instagram: @savannahsly_ | savannahsly.com

Please support Savannah's foundation of choice:

Lysistrata is a network of POC sex workers in the USA who are pooling financial and other resources to help each other survive. Donations made to Lysistrata are shared to those in need through the philosophy of mutual aid.

In this week's podcast we are joined by Kumi Sawyers, a yoga teacher, massage therapist, nutritionist, and holistic health expert based in California.  

Our conversation covers a number of topics from understanding pleasure and exploring sexuality to trauma and shame around sex, communicating boundaries, and then we move into birth, new motherhood, the body and sexuality postpartum, and intimacy with your partner while parenting. So whether you're pregnant, a new parent, a partner, a friend, or have friends or family members with young children this episode may be of interest to you.

In this episode, we discuss the following:

• Pleasure is personal
• Exploring Sexuality
• Sex is a collaboration
• Shame around sex
• Trauma in the body
• Kumi's Birthing Story
• Navigating new parenthood and pleasure with your partner 

You can find Kumi here: @shadylawn | kumarawellness.com

Please support Kumara's foundation of choice:  Every Mother Counts

In today's quickie episode, Cat shares her thoughts on romantic love and some of the best advice she's received about partnership. 

You can find Cat Meyer here: @kittycatmeyer

Please support Cat's foundation of choice: The Effing Foundation's mission is to reduce sexual shame and normalize conversations around human sexuality by fostering sex-positive art and education.