Every time I think that things are beginning to change for women and trans men, I see stories like the one I just posted. We need to be speaking up about these, showing just how common they are and pushing back against the medical field that believes they know better about our bodies from a 15 minute meeting than we do having lived in them our entire lives.

We're told that our problems are "minor inconveniences", we're looked at as if we're pill junkies when we say we're in pain to the point we start lying and saying we're not in pain when we are, and we have to fight tooth and nail to get the care we need. And God forbid we tell them our pain is at a 10 and we're not in full blown labor. (Seriously, I got told this while I WAS IN LABOR but not dilated all the way, so therefore I couldn't be at a 10) large size wears for formal party cost below 100

A few years ago I personally dealt with an ER trip that left me actually needing therapy. I'd been bleeding non-stop for almost half a year, and I was going through plus tampons in around two hours. I was taking iron pills like they were skittles to keep from getting anemic and even then it was to the point that I HAD to go to the ER when I started passing clots around half the size of my fist.

I get there, tell the front desk clerk what was going on, they do the whole vitals check and then I go back and wait. I'm refusing to sit down because I'm afraid I'll bleed on the seats. After around an hour I get called back.

I got put in a triage room, the nurse came in, I told her what was going on, and she left. I'm sitting there with no pants on and a cheap hospital gown. I'm watching the clock and two hours later a male doctor comes in with the nurse. The nurse looks annoyed I'm even still there and the doctor barely says anything to me before having me take out my tampon, dropping the bottom of the bed so he could do a pelvic, and then leaving.

I wasn't given a pad or a tampon.
The bed wasn't put back up so I was forced to sit cross legged on half a bed.
I was left sitting there in basically a cheap gown that didn't cover me because they said I couldn't get dressed in case they needed to do a D&C.

A tech comes in and draws some blood and leaves.

THREE MORE HOURS GO BY. Not once did the nurse check on me. Not once did anyone stop by to check on me.

I push the button for the nurse since I'm not feeling well and I'm bleeding on the bed. She comes in, looking annoyed again, and asks what I need. I say I'm needing to get cleaned up, so she hands me a box of tissue and leaves again.

TWO MORE HOURS.

A different nurse comes in and has me stand up and sit down a few times to see if my blood pressure changes any (apparently some sort of anemia test?) and then leaves again.

Remember, no pants still, no underwear, no pad or tampon, blood where I have to sit.

TWO MORE HOURS.

The doctor comes back in, tells me that since I didn't collect any of the clots he couldn't tell what was going on, but my blood work looked "normal". I AGAIN tried to tell what was going on. I told him about how long I'd been bleeding, the clots, how much I was bleeding.

He said since I wasn't anemic he wasn't so sure of that. (As in he called me a liar) I told him I was taking iron pills and whatnot to prevent anemia.

You know what he finally told me all this was? The bleeding, the clots, the bleeding THROUGH my tampons?

A MINOR INCONVENIENCE.

He told me that I can either be admitted to have a D&C done to deal with the minor inconvenience, or I can go home and make an appointment with an OBGYN. I've already been there over 10 hours, I haven't eaten since before coming in, no food was offered, not even crackers, and I'm freaking out and beside myself. My husband is trying to hide that he's broken the arm of the chair in response to the doctor's dismissal to me.

I just sit there and say I'll go home, since I NEED to eat and I need to clean myself up. I'm traumatized from my treatment, and I know that I can't miss work just so I can be admitted for a procedure they won't do (if they decide to do it) until the morning. I also can't afford to take the time off nor pay for the medical bill.

They hand me one of those big pads that doesn't even fit in your underwear and leave, a receptionist comes in to do my discharge work, and I'm sent home in the middle of the night.

When I finally got the appointment for the OBGYN I told them the story and they basically gave me the whole "You're a liar" look, and I had to fight with them to have them do my hysterectomy. It was after they did it that they were like, "Yeah, that needed to come out. Oh, and we know it was supposed to be a full hysto because of your PCOS, but we decided to leave your ovaries in so you don't have to go on hormones."

So they made a decision about my care while I was under, without my consent, that affects me in the long term. But I couldn't fight against it because they claimed that it was a decision they couldn't wake me for and they had to do it on the spot. I tried fighting it, it went nowhere.