Having PCOS is great because you'll find medical articles that are "People with PCOS are gross fat yucky hairy freaks who can't even properly have babies ://" and then continue with "they also have much higher rates of depression, for unknown reasons"
Surely it isn't due to the fact every time people with PCOS try to get help for their symptoms they instead get recommended hair laser removal over it?? Or get told weight is the problem when PCOS is specifically making any weight loss much harder??
I've straight out been called a hermaphrodite by a medical professional because I mentioned I'm not bothered by my body hair, for fucks sake
Okay, lemme elaborate on what happened in todays doc visit. For the record, I have PCOS. My main trouble about it is that I can at times bleed for 30 days straight. I'm used to it, but I'd like to either reduce bleeding or have ways to handle the effects of blood loss (mostly bc it results in anemia). I don't want to take birth control, partially because of major risk factors, partially because of dysphoria. With that in mind, I stepped on the gynecologist today expecting a bad time, but he truly broke some records. Here's a list:
- I prefaced the visit mentioning that the blood test I had made was probably not done in the correct day. It was meant to be made on the third day of my period. Since I bleed intermitently, I went during what I thought to be my third day of period, but it turned out to not be actually that. He completely ignored me and the fact the results were wrong since the test hadn't been made on the specific day, giving very different results
- He was set even before checking the results on just getting me birth control. He offered me two options of birth control, a brand name and a non brand name. I had made it clear to him that I did not wish to go on birth control.
- I asked him specifically for negative side effects of birth control. He refused to answer and only told me "positive" ones, such as "handling that hair situation of yours" (I did not ever mention I'm bothered about being hairy. I'm not.)
- I asked him for risk factors, he just didn't answer. The meds he recommended have very clear guidelines to NOT take them if you have a family history of blood clots or heart problems (I have, my mother almost died from one in her 30s, my dad passed away from a heart attack in his 50s)
- The meds are also NOT to be used by people with migraines. I have them.
- The meds are also NOT to be used by people with depression since it very commonly causes suicidal ideation. I'm going through depression right now. I literally specified this.
- The meds are ALSO NOT to be used by people with high risk of breast cancer. I've had three breast surgeries due to lumps. I've been at high risk of it since I was 15.
- He made a remark about "That acne is great, isn't it?" when I insisted I didn't wish for birth control
- He gave me a visit for 4 months in, to keep up with how birth control is going for me, after I specified I wasn't going to take it. Taking it could literally kill me.
- I asked him for details on the blood test and the ecography I got made with another doctor regarding my uterus, he literally only mentioned "Your T is really high, and that's bad". Nothing about the cysts or anything else. Only the T.
- He was literally just. Disgusted. About the fact I had high T.
- He actually put in the report that I have male pattern baldness. I can't stress enough that I really do not have anything that could imply I have male pattern baldness.
- He also added comments about the acne and hirsutism on the report. I did actually pluck my goddamn facial hair out prior to this visit, so I'm not sure where was the hirsutism bit coming from
- He added a lot of details about a physical exploration that.... He didn't do. He did not, at any point, get out of his chair. He made information up to fill the fucking report.
- I can't stress enough how much I insisted for no birth control, knowing there's few more options to handle PCOS, and he was treating me like I was hysterical for refusing to take birth control (because frankly I'd rather deal with the periods than all the major risk factors)
- He actually didn't even mention PCOS in person, only mentioned it in the report. He refused to explain what it meant, other than his despective remarks about acne, baldness (which I don't have) and hirsutism (which I don't mind). No mention on things like potential insulin resistance or actually major worries and complications that come with PCOS. I explicitly asked him what to expect.
So, well. I feel at times like I'm being just kind of endlessly punished for the grand crime of being born with a badly functioning uterus, but at this point I'm just tired of the constant. I literally only got confirmation about PCOS two months ago and it feels like every gynecologist is trying to do a fucking medical malpractice completionist run on me. I wish they stopped treating me like a freak for having higher T than expected for my fucking ASAB. I want to get off this train.
I wish I had any conclusion to this that felt satisfactory but... Nope, I just don't. Just. Fuck this entire thing ig. I'm filing a report, but I'm back to square zero and feeling frankly like shit about the entire ordeal.
Okay, here's some ice cold takes for today, because I'm so immensely fed up of seeing queer discourse/people trying to find out which identity is now okay to exclude
- Queer people of all identities and sexualities experience oppression for their identities. No queer person is really gaining privilege from being queer in any way. This oppression can change a lot based on many factors. Location is important. Intersectionality is very much relevant here.
- The oppression that queer people face will vary a lot based on their identity and on who is committing the oppression, and sometimes it manifests in completely opposing ways. Ace people are often belittled or dehumanized for their overall lack of sexual interest, homosexual people are often seen as predatory instead. Transfems are often hyper-visible, transmascs and nonbinary folk are often invisibilized instead.
- The main oppressors of queer people are not other queer people. We're in a cisheteronormative society, and that's the main force against us. Lateral violence can happen, but it's far from being the main form of oppression
- Oppression can vary A LOT based on one's country. I know this site is very US-centric, but please be aware that one's experiences can be very different based on a country's laws and society AND language. For example, a few countries that are otherwise safer to be a binary trans person in, don't recognize the existence of nonbinary people because their language does not have neutral pronouns or gender to work with.
- Exclusionism has never helped anyone, and has often been used as a gateway to entering hateful movements. TERFs have often mentioned they started out as ace exclusionists, for example.
- Exclusionism is often temporary. There's been rises in trying to exclude specific identities from the LGBTQ+ collective for ages, and while they CAN be harmful, they have fizzled over time, again and again. I know it can look dire at the moment for some identities, but trust me: It will pass.
- No queer identity makes anyone morally superior or inferior.
- People from different collectives are allowed to coin terms to better explain their specific circumstances, and it is ultimately up to people within these collectives to decide which ones are appropriate to use or not, as long as they're not directly using them against others. If you find yourself coining a derogatory term against another queer collective, that's where you need to stop and revise your own bias.
- Trying to measure who has it better or worse is really not worth the time. This ain't the Blizzard diversity chart bullshit where you assign numbers based on 30 different factors. Stand with other people in the collective and help each other as much as possible.
- Stop with the micro-labelling policing. Really. It's a waste of time.
- Give intersex people the space to talk about their own experiences and use the labels and terms they are more comfortable with. Intersex people tend to have a very different experience compared to perisex people, as it is often (but not always!) present since literal birth. Defend them, but do not speak over them.
- And maybe the most ice cold take here: Trying to guess what is in someone's pants to determine whether their identity is valid or not or if you care for their opinion or not is literally transphobia 101. I can't believe we've got trans people transvestigating other trans people just to determine whether their opinions are okay or not, holy shit.