Person with curly hair and a mustache smiling, wearing a white graphic t-shirt, standing in a forest with trees and sunlight.

Charles JAMES

transition companion & Peer support coach

honest. fiery. psychic. understanding. nature-lover.

he/him

In-Person in Pittsburgh

Remote in Pennsylvania

Specialities

(not limited to these)

  • Gender identity and transition support (including gender doula work)

  • Neurodivergent care (especially AuDHD, Mad/Crip identities)

  • Spiritual and ancestral healing (including mediumship, divination, and ritual work)

  • Liberation-focused coaching and peer support

  • Religious/spiritual trauma and identity reclamation

  • Support around mental health accessibility and reproductive freedom

  • Isolation, loss, anger

  • Intimacy

  • Somatic Abolitionism

  • ADHD

  • Grief and Loss

  • Life Transitions

  • Difficulties with Self-Esteem

  • Stress Management

  • Spirituality

  • Gender Identity Support

  • and more

Services Offered

  • Peer Support (trans identities, disability, neurodivergence)

  • Life Coaching

  • Gender Doula Care

Ages

  • Teens through Adults

Payment Options


Standard Scale: $75-125

Lower Sliding Scale: $45-75
(if client qualifies)

Hi! I’m a trans, disabled, AuDHD, tree loving guy, as well as a care practitioner, writer, activist, diviner, and nerd. I was raised on the stolen lands of the Tequesta, Taíno, Timucua, Seminole, Mascogo, and Miccosukee tribes in so-called Florida. I live life through an abolitionist lens and in communion with Nature, my Ancestors, and Spirit Guides.

What is a Transition Companion?

As a transition companion, I walk alongside others as they move through the many transitions that occur in our daily lives. This might take many forms, including but not limited to being a gender and mad/crip doula; offering support to Adult Children of Alcoholics; offering guidance through neurodivergent skill-building, transformational coaching, peer support, and spiritual exploration. I use several frameworks and approaches based on what feels most supportive to the client. These might include Internal Family Systems (IFS), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), trauma-informed somatic healing, inner child healing, attachment theory, and mindfulness.

What is my background?

I earned a BA in Anthropology and a BS in Family, Youth, and Community Sciences from the University of Florida. Though I started my Master’s degrees in Public Health and Social Work at the University of Pittsburgh, I ultimately decided to divest from the mental health industrial complex & western concepts of health by seeking alternative ways to offer mental health care outside of the oppressive academic and governmental systems. I believe these systems were designed to harm and control us, particularly those of us who are trans, queer, People of the Global Majority (PoGM), and/or MMIND (Mad, labeled with/perceived as mentally ill, neurodivergent, disabled). I seek to offer such folks decolonized care that centers each individual’s inner wisdom, while also dismantling colonial and white supremacist beliefs we have been taught living under the "cisheteronormative imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy" (bell hooks and Laverne Cox).

I have been trained as a full-spectrum doula through Birthing Advocacy Doula Training and a peer support facilitator through the Trans Advocacy Care Team. I am trained in anti-carceral approaches to mental health care and crisis support through Project LETS, and received training on trauma healing and IFS through PESI Summit.

Outside of work, you might find me curled up with my cats, reading books, writing fanfiction, or rewatching Avatar: The Last Airbender, She-Ra, or Legend of Korra for the millionth time. Say hi to your neighborhood tree for me!