I’ve been saying, “I was born without a uterus”, which so far seems to answer honestly without directly outing myself as trans.
Any thoughts on how to best navigate this? Ideally without disclosing I’m trans 😅
To any cis people wandering in from c/All, please review the rules of this community and consider you may not have the same first hand experiences as trans people.
Cis people are welcome to participate here so long as they’re not disrupting the safety of our community. Spreading misinformation and maintaining ignorance is not acceptable here.
In an ideal world being transgender would be of literally no consequence. We do not live in such a world. Being trans is life or death across the vast majority of the world. The disclosure of transgender status is a massive vulnerability that is unwarranted in >90% of medical situations.
This thread was not created with this discussion in mind. If it continues to be derailed I will lock the thread.
I don’t pass so “never lol” usually works for me.
lol, if you don’t pass they don’t ask you the question, silly 😝
You’d be shocked, but it does happen sometimes (nurses, through force of habit).
I was transfered to a specialist to start a new non-trans related medication. We had a zoom meeting and went through some test results before asking “is there any chance your pregnant?”
I laughed and said that wasn’t possible. She looked confused and started reading something on her other monitor. She muttered “Progesterone…?” and looking confused before turning back to me. “Okay Ma’am, just to be clear, you do NOT have a uterus correct?”
😂
ha, I got the “born without a uterus” line from a nurse doing my intake before my vaginoplasty- one of the nurses was doing what I assume was a pregnancy test and I think the other nurse realized I might be trans, so she awkwardly asked me if I was born without a uterus, while giving the other nurse a kind of corrective, “hey, listen up” look. The other nurse did treat me differently after that, and seemed visibly disgusted when I affirmed- but I think it was the nurse’s look that keyed it as being trans, because I was in a hospital that sees a lot of trans patients they had a kind of code or way of handling that which I’m not seeing elsewhere.
So I’ve just started to use that- I was born without a uterus, it’s true and it doesn’t necessarily out me.
Müllerian agensis is another way a woman could be born without a uterus, but I don’t know what the most probable explanations for a missing uterus might be (1 in 4,000 - 5,000 is the frequency of Müllerian agenesis, a lot less than trans women which is more like 1 in 100 - 200).
Usually just say something like I wasn’t born with them because of genetics. I mean technically true. Although not sure if it would work in states that are really anti trans. But using the nurse just usually continues like it’s nothing. But fyi my medical practice isn’t really transphobic so just fyi.
Should note that transfem people can and do get periods too, if they vary with their E levels a bit. It’s just not the bloody kind, but you do get the muscle cramps ('cause those in cis people are also around the uterus as well) – and the symptoms with it.
period cramps in cis women are due to prostaglandins causing uterine tissue to contract, which obviously isn’t possible in trans women.
However, trans women on estrogen can experience cyclical PMS symptoms, so it’s not totally unfair to say there is some overlap with periods that way.
I also suspect there can be bowel discomforts during the PMS that get conflated with period cramps, so that makes sense too.
Obviously trans women don’t experience period cramps in the way cis women do, and don’t have menstruation.
