All Queer & Trans people deserve affirming providers who can meet their needs as they grow their families. Let’s work together to create meaningful change for your patients and healthcare system.

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Professional Consultation with Ray Rachlin

Ray Rachlin (she/they) LM, CPM, is a midwife, author, queer fertility expert and educator based in Philadelphia who has provided inclusive care through their practice at Refuge since 2017.

Co-author of the groundbreaking book, Babymaking For Everybody: Family Building and Fertility for LBGTQ+ and Solo Parents, Ray’s work has been featured in Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and Evidenced Based Birth.

Committed to bringing high quality and well informed Queer & Trans fertility care to mainstream healthcare systems, Ray educates health professionals through online courses and in person at institutions including UC Davis, Mainline Health, Vanderbilt, and Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

Speaking Engagements

Ray Rachlin is an informed and charismatic speaker whose passion for queer and trans birthing people resonates with audiences of healthcare providers, birthworkers, activists, and hopeful queer parents-to-be. Ray’s expertise in LGBTQ family building and perinatal care provides insightful perspectives and evidence-based information to their audiences.

Ray is available to speak at lunch-and-learns, keynotes, on podcasts and panel discussions, both live and virtually.

She has educated health professionals in person at institutions including UC Davis, Mainline Health, Vanderbilt, and Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

Ray has presented at Gold Learning Conference, PRO-LC, Birth Justice Philly, Take Root Reproductive Justice Conference, Philly Trans Wellness Conference, Reproductive Futurism, and Philadelphia Family Pride. Ray has also taught for Maternity Care Coalition, Manhattan Birth, Ancient Song Doula Services, and Birth Advocacy Doula Training.

If you’re interested in inviting Ray to speak, teach, or collaborate, please fill out our contact form.

Professional Education

Prepare your health system, office, and practice to understand the unique experiences of conception, pregnancy, birth and postpartum for LGBTQ people who chose to build family through pregnancy. Build a team of well-informed care providers, educators, and administrators who have the confidence to offer insightful and culturally sensitive care. We create and deliver professional training that is best suited to meet the needs of your workplace.

Forms & Records

Let’s update your forms to be inclusive. We can help you rethink and redesign your record-keeping practices to be affirming to transgender, gender non-conforming, and polyamorous families.

Provider Consultations

If you have a specific set of consulting needs and would like to explore options for working with us one-on-one or directly with your leadership team or board, please reach out to explore our consulting options.

Connect With Ray

Queer Fertility Masterclasses:
Online Continuing Education Series

Join us quarterly for new topics, guest speakers, and opportunities to ask questions in community. Comprehensive, queer centered continuing education for midwives, nurses, doctors, and birth workers on topics relevant to Queer and Trans fertility and family building. Queer Fertility Masterclass is hosted by Ray Rachlin @ Refuge | Midwifery • Fertility • Education.

Save Your Seat

IUI for Midwives

Learn how to provide Queer & Trans centered fertility care services. This comprehensive, self-paced online course will teach you everything you need to know to offer Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) in a Primary Care, Midwifery or GYN practice.

Approved for 20 CEUs through ACNM and 9 CMEs through Pinnacle.

Enrollment Open Now

Beyond the Baster

Join us for an informative session on all things alternative insemination for Queer & Trans and solo prospective parents. Explore topics like insemination methods, tracking ovulation, fertility support, and care provider options.

Save Your Seat (Online)

Save Your Seat (In Person)

Connect

Ray Rachlin, LM, CPM, Author & Queer Fertility Expert

Student Feedback

Ray’s IUI course was AWESOME!

Thorough and approachable, this course is well organized and extensive. Ray covers the basics but also goes into detail, even covering IUI business logistics and advice. I really enjoyed the affirming and encouraging space that Ray holds as an instructor and would recommend this course to anyone interested in providing IUI to their community.

I was really pleased with the quality of this course.

Everything was very thoughtfully planned out. The content was presented in an organized, holistic, and contextualized way, and all of the resources were well curated. There were engaging opportunities for discussion, and feedback and exchange of ideas was encouraged. I’ve already recommended the course to other midwives and students!

So grateful for this course.

It was very well rounded, realistic, frank and thorough in how to provide this care and what that will look like as we initially start to integrate this into our practice as well as the ways we may evolve over time. I especially appreciated the strong emphasis on appropriate expectations for ourselves and for our clients.

This class is top-notch!

All of the information is presented in a comprehensive and thorough manner. Ray does a fantastic job of explaining when and how, contraindications, when to refer and more. They even include help for the business side of providing this care in your community. Such a well-structured class! You’ll be glad you took it.

This was an amazing resource.

The information was presented in a comprehensive way and I feel prepared and confident to use these tools to serve my community. Thank you!

I really looked forward to each session!

I absolutely LOVED the book Baby Making for Everybody, and the course was well-designed and very user-friendly. Ray was both relaxed and engaged as the instructor.

The presentation was EXCELLENT!

I appreciated the emphasis on the LGBTQIA+ Family Building portion of content. It allowed everyone to walk away with actual actions to implement and was applicable to multiple people, not just advance practice nurses and midwives.

Queer & Trans Centered Fertility Education

Providers require additional education as they adapt their fertility and perinatal practices to meet the needs of their Queer & Trans patients. We bring equity-informed expert consulting and continuing education to professionals through online courses and in person at universities, health systems, and conferences.

9.3% of the US identifies as LGBTQ according to Gallup and the Pride study found that 63% of Queer people desire to parent. Despite these numbers, most providers don’t have any training on how to serve the unique needs of Queer & Trans families. Medical schools average 10 hours of training on all LGBTQ related health care studies, with 17% of medical students receiving no training.

Hopeful parents should not have to seek infertility care that is designed to treat heterosexual infertility. Refuge Midwifery & Fertility services were founded to fill this gap, and now we are providing Refuge Education services to train providers as 1 in 10 Americans require Queer informed care.