Dear Nadine Dorries

                         

As you can see here, we have a standard uterus and it’s surrounding counterparts; counterparts being the ovaries, fallopian tubes, and vagina.

Dear Ms. Dorries,

We would like to thank you very much for expressing an interest in the position of ‘general uteri manager’ but unfortunately on this occasion your application has not been successful. On reflection, we think it’s best to preserve the current devolved system, as it seems most practical for each uterus to be directly cared for by the person in which it is situated. I understand that you will be disappointed at this news, so to placate you a little, I’m willing to tell you all about my uterus on the understanding that you agree to leave it alone. Look but don’t touch and all that.

Firstly, I would you to know that becoming an acquaintance of my uterus is quite an honour. Many people are familiar with other, nearby parts of my anatomy. Anyone tasked with removing excrement from my infant nether regions, many fellow infant school pupils who were confronted by my incessant removal of underwear, a few friends armed with hot wax and numerous medical professionals are some choice examples. But only one person has knocked on the soft, doughnut-like door of my uterus. Unfortunately, these calls have never been answered, no matter how fervently this invited guest knocked. Because, even if this was more than a metaphor and female anatomy actually worked like this, there has never, and never will, been anyone there to open the door.

My uterus is 21 years young, possibly 22 by now. I apologise for my inaccuracy, I know that ideally you’d like to know my uterus in more precise detail, but I am unsure when exactly my mother began making it for me. I should have paid more attention. Anyway, for many of these years my uterus has caused me very little trouble. To be fair to it, my more recent disappointments haven’t really been its fault. It’s that persistently knocking visitor that had a few surprises up his sleeve. But I find myself resenting my uterus nevertheless.

Until I was thirteen I only knew of my uterus in a very abstract sense, but at this point it stared trying to engage somewhat more with me and began presenting me with small gifts reasonably regularly. Personally I’d have preferred something more practical, like socks, but perhaps we have different tastes. At first I didn’t know how to deal with the collection of my uterus’ offerings, but I asked my mother and she provided me with some very oversized towels. What she failed to tell me was that it was OK to dispose of these in the household bin and so I spent the first few months jamming them down the toilet until a friend enlightened me. Upon hearing about the new relationship I had forged with my uterus, my father was (quite uniquely I’m told) very happy, and presented me with flowers and chocolates. Occasionally, I found my uterus’ generosity a little overwhelming and I was caught out without adequate collection provisions. But luckily the only time it was really too much I was able to walk with my back against the wall to the car where I covered my overspill with an old jumper and waited for my family to finish admiring the botanical delights of Spain and take me back to the house to change.

But as I say, these were the good times. It steadily became apparent between the ages of 17 and 21 that one or both of my partner and I’s sexual organs was not particularly keen on doing what it is you so passionately want them to do. Despite repeatedly performing the series of actions our extensive sexual education had assured us would result in the instant formation of abundant foetuses, we were unable to achieve our (and of course your) intended aim. I was aware that I had mild endometriosis and so I assumed it was me and my uterus who had ‘the problem’. However, despite testing revealing that I also have polycystic ovaries, the fertility doctors we eventually consulted assured us that my uterus would almost certainly be conducive to the growing of a baby. Attention then turned to my partner and he began fertility investigations. I won’t bore you with the details of this because I understand that you are not at all interested in the abilities or attitudes of men to baby making. But it transpired very quickly that there is absolutely no chance of us ever conceiving a child because my partner has no gene for the production of sperm. I’m very sorry if this makes you upset, I understand that after six years together you would probably be expecting us to be banging out babies like there is no tomorrow, even if we were not emotionally or financially able to care for all of them. Please don’t mourn too much though because we have the opportunity to pay upwards of £4000 for one IVF cycle with donor sperm. The 30% success rate of this procedure however would probably necessitate more than one try. And, if my uterus failed repeatedly to fulfil the function you ascribe to it, all the money we have saved for a comfortable life for our baby would be very quickly consumed. But again don’t worry, because if we did fail at trying to ‘make baby grow in uterus’, then we can just wait the 9 years until I am thirty when we would get one cycle of treatment for free on the NHS, if indeed policy continues to be this generous.

I realise this is getting long, I tend to overanalyse (something I know you certainly don’t struggle with), but I have two final pieces of news. We aren’t going to bother with all that uterus malarkey. Again, very sorry. We feel strongly that we should prioritise giving a home to one of the many children who have already done their time in one of your beloved uteri but emerged from that warm comfortable home into one much less able to care for and protect them. I’ll be honest though, it is proving difficult. We have engaged with a number of the supposedly ‘desperate for applications’ local agencies, and they are vehemently keen for us to “go and experience our own lives more fully” before they will consider us. Sorry to digress; that wasn’t really about my uterus. In light of your passion for procreation (I’m being facetious, it really has nothing to do with you), I have decided to donate eggs so that other uteri, with accompanying fully functioning male apparatus, will be able to fulfil what you desire them to.

Many thanks,

(p.s. Could I possibly request that if you truly feel the need to concern yourself with other women’s uteri, could you focus on helping those which would like to carry a baby, rather interfering with those belonging to women who wish to invoke their very legitimate right not to.)

__

Follow @JoanKavanagh on Twitter!

Content note: this post discusses rape and child sexual abuse

Dear Nadine,

I’m sorry it has taken me so long to write to you about my uterus; I know you’re interested and I’ve been meaning to for a while, but my uterus and I can’t seem to stop arguing for long enough for one of us to write it down.

You see, my uterus and I, we have a pained relationship. I’m sure there are failings on both parts. From my childhood sexual abuse, my eating disorder as a teen, my long and interesting years of Debauchery and Gallivanting – my uterus hasn’t had it easy. And of course, my uterus’s response to this has not always been ideal – weeks or even months of non-stop bleeding interspersed with months or even years of no bleeding at all.

I guess it’s fair to say I haven’t had it particularly easy either, which is why if I’d gotten pregnant at any point between the ages of nine and nineteen, I would have needed an abortion. Not wanted; needed. For years, I was barely able to keep myself alive, never mind anyone else.

The thing is, Nadine, it would have been entirely possible for me to become pregnant at nine years old. I had my first period not long after I was first raped.

At the time, I assumed that the blood was just from the frequent raping, but it smelt different and didn’t stop. My mum took me aside and explained periods. I think she assumed the blood – all of the blood in my knickers for those years – was from periods. Can you imagine a pregnant nine year old? Can you imagine a nine year old giving birth because nameless, faceless adults won’t let her get an abortion? Because I can. I dreamt about it every night for years.

I’m older now. I turned twenty-four yesterday, actually. A year ago I would have said that I had been lucky to have never gotten pregnant – especially considering the risks I took with contraception in my mid-teens. Yesterday, I told my partner that the best birthday present I got was my period and another chance for us to make a baby.

I am lucky – so lucky – to have had so much reproductive freedom in my lifetime. To have not gotten pregnant when I didn’t want to, and to be allowed to try to get pregnant now that I do. And you have no business, none at all, in interfering with that and trying to take that freedom away from me, from the nine year old girls who are being raped today, who live in fear of getting pregnant or from anybody else.

Yours,

Rachel H. Scotland

Dear Nadine Dorries,

I’ve heard that you’re really interested in other women’s uteruses. This fundamentally confuses me. As a big ol’ queer, I find other womens vaginas fabulous, but I’d only ever go near them with enthusiastic consent.

Uteruses just don’t do it for me. It seems all they do is bleed, often painfully and eratically, which is a bit rubbish, especially as in many womens’ experience doctors are often bad at researching and prescribing the treatments that could make the whole thing less agonising and unwanted. The other thing uteruses do is make babies, which is awesome, so long as those babies are wanted by the person concerned. Babies are amazing! Tiny fingers and toes and adorable shoes, and also they’re miniature people, which is a terrifying responsibility I’m sort-of-glad I’ll never have.

You see, I don’t have a uterus. My vagina sort of stops. I don’t have a cervix, although I can’t seem to stop receiving all those doctors’ letters inviting me in for a check-up.

This is because I’m a trans woman. Seeing as you’re all up in the whole wombs thing, though, my vagina will have to make-do, and tell you what it can.
My vagina is angry with you. It’s angry for all the sister-women, all the gender-queer people and trans guys who have uteruses. It’s angry because your anti-choice bullshit is just part of a wider picture of societal misogyny and oppression and control, and it’s especially angry because you’re a woman and you’re taking part in oppressing other women.

My vagina is angry because of the heteronormative assumtions behind your anti-choice BS. That women ought to have children, must want to have children, that womens reproductive health consists largely of making sure that she can and will reproduce rather than lives a full, free, unpainful life doing exactly what she wants to do. That vaginas are, when it comes down to it, boxes for putting dicks in.

This latter one does affect me directly. You see, my surgery didn’t go exactly as planned. It didn’t leave me with an “angry inch” (Hedwig is an awesome movie and you should watch it; it might open your mind slightly). It did leave me with a vag that needs to be dilated open every morning for the rest of my life, using the same kind of dilators other women use for vaginismus. This is bloody inconvenient, but it’s far from the last of it.

You see, after surgery my clitoris was left exposed, without any clitoral hood. This meant that walking (at least while wearing knickers) was agonisingly painful. It took a year and quite a lot of fighting before the surgeon finally sorted that one. Then I made the mistake of asking the NHS to sort out my internal pain, too*. “It wouldn’t happen if you had sex with a man”, I was then told.

You see, I was then in a long-term lesbian relationship. I supposed that, therefore, my daily pain was my fault, and I internalised the misogyny and homophobia and transphobia behind this vicious statement, and I tried to get on with my life.

It was only five years after surgery when I figured out, on my own, that dilating every day relieved my pain, the awful bladder urgency, the inability to think much else beyond “sore!” that led to depression. And, still, years later again, when I went back to the NHS again, to get my Gender Recognition Certificate, I was told again in passing “I suppose you wouldn’t be sore if you had sex with men”.

At this point I was able to call “bullshit” because by that point I had had sex with men. The first time was traumatic and dubiously consensual, and the second was ridiculous and fun, and neither had any healing powers at all! I had definitely been conned on that one.

This belief by trained consultants that penises have magical healing properties that penis-shaped dilators don’t isn’t just some wacky isolated symptom, however. It’s reflective of the underlying societal misogyny that tells women that they exist to please men, that oppresses women lifelong with narratives that insist she needs a man and babies, that oppresses trans women in subtly different ways that take a painfully long time to recognise.

You see, it’s often put about that the surgical results for trans women are quite good. Thing is, this is also bullshit. Externally, they’re quite good – to look at, to feel when you put your dick in. For us, they’re not great. Often we don’t have clitorises at all, a thing which in other women would be called genital mutilation. Often we have painful complications. Often, sexual function isn’t nearly as good as we’d like to believe. It’s a painful truth that our vaginas are designed by men, and this leaves a lot to be desired.

As a marxist vagina (albeit with a less impressive beard), my vagina is angry for you for a very different reason. It’s angry with you because this anti-choice BS is also part of a system of economic oppression where forcing women to carry and care for babies is only a small part of structures of gendered labour, of domination and control that fuck almost everyone over in one way or another, or even several at once.

So. Nadine Dorries. There are so many reasons you should sod off. Get your systems of domination and control away from my vagina, away from everyone’s uterus. Let us get on with our bloody lives, and fuck right off.

My beautiful, angry femme vagina.

* – I am pretty sure this is due to post-surgical adhesions, a thing that fucks up many women inside and one that doctors are only really just recognising exists.

__

Sent in by email

Dear Nadine Dorries,

I don’t make a habit of listening to you usually (because you associate yourself with the Conservative Party, which in turn associates itself with arseholeness – and arseholeness generally angers me, and anger sorta interferes with the whole incense-stick-burning/ peaceful meditation thing I have going on at the moment), but just lately some of your comments and opinions about other women’s uteri have been trickling through onto my Twitter feed. I can’t help but feel that you are alluding to my uterus, Nadine, what with me having one and everything. And so I thought to myself: Hey! Maybe Nadine would care for a formal introduction!

This is my uterus:

Cute, isn’t it?

When my gynaecologist told me that I have “a heart-shaped uterus”, my initial reaction was, “Aww, that’s sweet.” But apparently, having a “heart-shaped” (or “bicornuate”) uterus isn’t all that sweet, as Mr Gynaecologist eventually explained to me, after I spent a solid two minutes sitting on (well, squatting over) the hospital toilet emptying my raging bladder. “No, no,” he said to me. “You iz fucked.” Well, those weren’t his exact words, but his expression was pretty grave as he told me that my chances of carrying any future bambinos to full-term were very slim and likely to be littered with complications, and my risk of miscarriage significantly higher than most women’s.

I wasn’t too fussed at the time. Y’see Nadine, I was 15, my biggest worry was if I would survive my GCSEs and whether my new set of hair straighteners were any good, and the only reason I was there having my uterus scanned in the first place was to ascertain why it always hurt so sodding much, and why it insisted on bleeding profusely for four months straight without any kind of interval, eventually resulting in a kitchen floor covered in blood, me almost passing out from the pain and my mama having to call for an ambulance. My uterus hasn’t given me an easy time of it over the years, and I don’t expect it to let up any time soon! As I near the grand old age of 24, with my uterus persisting in being a pain in the arse (sometimes literally – do you ever get period cramps in your backside, Nadine? Hurts like a bitch!), and with kindly doctors urging me to consider “starting a family” earlier than I may have otherwise planned (y’know, in case the first few handfuls of pregnancies don’t work out so well), the reality of my possible predicament becomes ever-increasingly frightening. I don’t know if I want children, truth be told. Yes, I want them, but I don’t know if I want to endure a whole bunch of miscarriages in the later stages of pregnancy before I might, just might, finally get one. I’ve never coped so well with disappointment. I mean yeah, sure I’ll think about it and see if I can get my vagina on any decent sperm before I make my decision, but at this moment in time, I’m pretty protective of what goes in my uterus. It’s bad enough not having any say in the presence of big juicy clots.

And so, Nadine, I ask you kindly to please reconsider your views on my uterus. Y’know the uterus you just met, like two minutes ago, and will probably forget all about in about half as much time? My uterus and I would be very grateful.

Laterz!

Martha

__

Original here

Click to read Sarah’s illustrated guide

Dear Nadine Dorries,

I am writing to you about my uterus, as I hear you are really very interested in uteri. I know a lot of people have been writing to you about their uteri, and I’m afraid my story is not as interesting as some of the others you have read. However, I am sure you will still be interested, as it is about a uterus.

My periods started when I was twelve, and they were very heavy and painful from the start. They were also really regular from the start too, which was handy. They synced up with my mum’s really quickly too. When my periods started, my mum was away, so I had to tell my dad. It was a bit awkward. He said “well done”, which wasn’t really the best response. Most girls in my class at school hadn’t yet started their periods. I was quite embarrassed to have started early. Once, some boys opened my rucksack while it was on my back and my pads fell out. I was mortified.

As I mentioned, my periods were really, really painful. I couldn’t sleep from the pain and would sometimes cry out in my sleep. My mum also had really painful periods, though she’s now had the menopause so she’s free of that now. I also had really heavy periods and was constantly staining sheets, pyjamas and clothes. I lived in constant fear of leaving marks on chairs. When I was doing my A-levels, the stress interfered with my cycle and I was no longer able to accurate predict when I would start bleeding. I started my period twice during A-level exams – both French. One of them was a written exam and it started about halfway through the 2.5 hours. We weren’t allowed to go out to the loo during the exam, and I was too embarrassed to tell the invigilators so I just sat there, trying to write an essay in French about nuclear power while I had horrific cramps and knew blood was seeping through my knickers and marking the inside of my jeans. The other time my period started, I was in the prep room for an oral exam. I didn’t have time to do anything about it, so I just had to go and talk French with the same knowledge. At least that one was only 20 minutes. Oh, I also once started my period on a long-haul flight to San Francisco. Thankfully, I had supplies. Imagine if I hadn’t?

My mum was always really against the idea of the pill, because she didn’t think it was a good idea to mess about with hormones and she worried about the side effects. I therefore was not allowed to go on the pill, despite the pain I was in. Once I left home and went to university, though, I just went and got put on the pill anyway. I was exercising my bodily autonomy, Nadine. Bodily autonomy is important. Unfortunately, the doctor I saw wasn’t interested in what I had to say, ignored what I told him about my family history of heart problems (my granddad died of a heart attack when I was 4, and my dad had a serious attack of angina followed by heart attacks when he was still in his late 40s. He very nearly died.) and put me on a pill with a much higher risk of increased blood pressure, purely because it was good for clearing up acne. I had told the doctor several times that I didn’t really care that much about my acne as it was rarely painful. I am really disappointed that the doctor didn’t listen to me – I knew what I wanted, but he thought he knew better. A bit like how you think you know better than the women who want late-term abortions.

I was on the pill for about 4 years in total. I kept switching which pill I was on because they all made me fucking crazy sooner or later. In fact, I would have come off earlier, but my abusive ex-boyfriend wouldn’t let me because he didn’t want to use condoms. Again, looking back, I’m so angry that he took control of that and wouldn’t allow me bodily autonomy. My abusive ex-boyfriend was very controlling and always felt he knew better than I did what was best for me. I’m so glad I didn’t fall pregnant by him – I’m sure he wouldn’t have wanted me to have an abortion, but if I had fallen pregnant, I could have had one without telling him. If I’d been forced to have his child, it would have been so much harder to leave him. In fact, I did have a pregnancy scare while I was with him. I was terrified. I was still at university, and I was scared of how he would react and how he would treat me. I was really relieved that I wasn’t pregnant. If I had been, an abortion would have been my only safe option.

My preferred sanitary product is tampons with applicators – I swim regularly, and they allow me to carry on uninterrupted by my own crimson waves. When I lived in Germany, I was unable to find applicator tampons in the shops, so my mum used to post them to me. I can’t use the ones without applicators.

I eventually came off the pill, which had been keeping my periods lighter and less painful. As soon as I came off, they reverted to being horrific. I had to take codeine to get through them. I wanted to try the mirena coil, but my doctor was really restrictive about inserting them, and would only do it on the first day of my period. I had to ring up to get an appointment on that day – but unsurprisingly, there were never any left if you rang up on the day. I eventually gave up and went to the sexual health clinic nearby. They were great. The doctor I spoke to really listened and discussed my options with me properly. She suggested I try the implant instead, and it sounded like it might work well for my needs. Also, they would insert it at any time. I decided to give it a go. When it came to the procedure, the doctor asked if I would mind a trainee nurse inserting it. She’d never inserted one before, though she had observed the process several times. I was happy to let her do it – I was just disappointed that I couldn’t really see what was going on clearly! Both the nurse and the supervising doctor were really friendly. That was in June 2010, so in a few months my implant will need to be removed. I am planning to get it replaced with a new one. I do think I would like children, but now is not the right time for me. The implant puts me in control – I can go back and have it removed whenever I want and my fertility should return to normal almost straight away.

The best thing for me about the implant is that it has stopped my periods almost completely. I feel so much freer and my quality of life has improved loads. I occasionally get a bit of light spotting, which is a bit annoying, but it’s not very often. I’ve had maybe 4 or 5 periods since June 2010 and they’ve all been much lighter and easier than they used to be. Once I had an unexpected period while I was staying at a friend’s house. He was lovely and went to the shop to buy me tampons and pain relief. Also, this Christmas, I had a very light but persistent period which lasted for almost 2 weeks. I was not impressed.

The implant is really very effective as a method of contraception, but I think it’s really important that I could access abortion services if I needed to. I’ve not been at my job long enough to qualify for maternity leave and my partner is a mature student. He works part time, but if I got pregnant and couldn’t have an abortion, I’d lose my job and he’d have to quit university and try to find a job in this terrible jobs markets without a lot in the way of qualifications and experience. We’d be in a really rubbish situation. It is also particularly important for me to be in control of my reproductive system because of my mental health. I have anxiety and depression. I suffer from fairly severe SAD (seasonal affective disorder), which means that my chance of getting post-natal depression is much higher at certain times of the year, so it’s really important to me that if I do decide to have children I am able to plan my pregnancies as much as possible. Obviously, I cannot determine exactly when I will conceive, but it’s good to know I can try to minimise the very real and serious threats to my mental health which any pregnancy brings.

There are all sorts of women who choose that abortion is best for them, for all sorts of reasons. Neither you nor I have the right to judge them, or tell them what to do, or try to prevent them from accessing abortion care. Abortion on demand with no time limits or restrictions is a really important and basic part of bodily autonomy. It is essential to all women that they know that that option is there if they ever find themselves needing it.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my adventures with my uterus. Right now, we have a good understanding. I’m excited to know what the future holds for us, and maybe one day, I will want to grow people in my uterus. If I do though, it will be my choice, no one else’s, and certainly not yours.

Kind regards,