Fertility has no gender.
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Fertility has no gender.
Written by Rae P. Jimenez, MSM LM CPM
Fertility has no gender.
Reproduction, gestation and pregnancy, labor and birth are not inherently binary or gendered.
Decolonizing how we practice medicine, midwifery, and fertility care can often feel like an insurmountable feat; and unfortunately, there is little support or open conversation among healthcare providers to promote change in this area.
As a queer provider seeking to unlearn much of the cis-normative and heteronormative paradigms of medicine and healthcare, I often find myself feeling discouraged and isolated. I have been met with confusion on the one hand, indifference on the other, and even hostility at times.
“You can’t be a midwife and an LGBTQ+-centered clinician at the same time.” I’ve been told once or twice before.
But de-gendering the medical experience has become a vital phase of my journey as a provider; especially as the United States is shifting to an increasingly hostile and violent place for the queer and trans community.
Put simply, I want to live in a country where accessing (and providing) reproductive healthcare is not a gendered experience. It truly doesn’t have to be. Scientists and many cultures around the world have long recognized and understood that reproduction, gene expression, and animal biology is a complex web; not a binary. Animal and plant reproduction has no gender.
This doesn’t mean we can’t offer gender-affirming care. On the contrary—by de-gendering medicine, we open the doors to meeting our patients and clients exactly as they come to us. We no longer need to struggle to squeeze them in or out of the binary our clinical protocols have defined for us.
On the other hand, I am grateful that a lot of my clients are doing their own inner work to un-learn and de-gender their fertility and pregnancy journeys.
Having safe conversations about how we can support fertility awareness without it feeling gendered has been a more recent joy-filled experience for me as a provider. And it’s exciting to see more trans men feeling empowered and affirmed in their gestating bodies! Childbirth as a non-binary experience is also becoming more common even as government legislation is being written to eradicate affirming healthcare.
I write this to share that while it may seem it doesn’t exist, de-gendered healthcare IS a growing work. Gender-expansive healthcare providers and professionals are rising and resisting to fight the violent forces against us. Advocacy work isn’t excluded from the hospital, the fertility clinic, the birth center. Advocacy work isn’t limited to pronouns and colorful flags; let me share with you…it has advanced to phlebotomy, PAP smears, assisted insemination, prenatal care, and birth.
We’re here. We’re un-learning and re-shaping. We’re de-gendering healthcare; and we’re not going anywhere.
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