It's Not Hysteria: Everything You Need to Know About Your Reproductive Health (But Were Never Told)

by Karen Tang

This word, hysteria, contains all the judgments and assumptions about female bodies that have existed for thousands of years. It suggests that women’s distressing physical symptoms stem from a combination of anxiety, mental or neurologic weakness, and broken uteri, rather than from not-yet-understood medical conditions.

Several recent studies have demonstrated that unconscious biases still exist in the treatment of Black patients, particularly Black women. Black patients are consistently undertreated for pain; they receive less pain medication than white patients do for objectively painful conditions such as broken bones and appendicitis. Black patients are less likely to be offered minimally invasive surgery for the treatment of fibroids and they experience higher rates of complications from surgery. A 2016 study showed that half of the medical students and residents polled believed that Black people had less sensitive nerve endings, thicker skin, and lower perception of pain than white people, which has no basis in scientific fact.

The word miscarriage refers to a spontaneous loss before the twentieth week of pregnancy. A loss after twenty weeks is called a stillbirth.

Similar to laws banning abortion, laws that criminalize gender-affirming care directly contradict evidence-based standards of medical care. Studies have shown that access to gender-affirming care drastically decreases rates of depression, suicidal thoughts, and self-harm, with up to 70 percent reduction in suicidality in transgender youths. It is truly lifesaving care.

Only a small percentage of teenagers will need surgery because of severe dysphoria that cannot be managed with medications alone, and most doctors will recommend deferring genital surgeries, such as phalloplasty, until after age eighteen.

Most gender-affirming care for minors centers on psychosocial support and reversible medical options when possible because children and teens may have different feelings about their identity or goals for medical treatment as they get older.

Gender-diverse children do not usually start to feel dysphoria until they go through puberty.

If you experience significant anxiety with pelvic exams, you can ask your provider if they can prescribe a short-acting oral antianxiety medication like alprazolam (Xanax) to be taken before appointments.