LGBTQ+ Struggles

Problem #2

This isn't really, uh, blatant discrimination, just the more weird insidious kind that's made me painfully self-conscious about going to the doctor. As a white cis lesbian I can only imagine it's much worse for other LGBT folks.

The first time I (aged 20) went to my doctor for a Pap smear, she asked me if I was sexually active. As a lesbian, I explained that yes I have been, with a woman. She told me, "That doesn't count," leading me to the mistaken assumption that the question was literally only asking if I'd been having penetrative sex. I also had some weird problems around penetration, to the point where I couldn't even use tampons until age 25!or 26, so that first attempt at a Pap smear didn't even get past the getting-completely-undressed point.

The second time I went in for a Pap smear, I made a little further. She was getting the speculum in and it really hurt, so I was saying things like out and stop. Loudly. Multiple times. And she didn't! She refused to stop until I physically jerked away, and then made me feel bad because she wasn't even able to get the sample after all that.

I didn't have a Pap smear successfully done until a few days before I turned 30, with a different doctor (who recommended doing Kegel exercises a good year or two before I got up the nerve to make the appointment) in a different county and a partner there to hold my hand and, to be totally honest, smoking some weed to calm down. I called my mom crying because I was so proud of myself for FINALLY doing it... but no one in my family got why it was so hard, really. I'm not even sure I do.

My current doctor is probably the best person in the world though, and she's so busy that she only takes on new trans patients - and their partners, which is how I got in

- ANONYMOUS, Lesbian