#female reproductive care

[ymustutortureme]

God, take all of the women's pain from period cramps and and give it to IOF soldiers 🙏🏼

[everybodysinvited]

All you need to know about cervical screenings!

All you need to know about your cervical screening or 'smear test' appointment. If you're like me and have recently turned 25, you may have received a letter saying it's time for your first cervical screening! But what is it for? Who needs it and what actually happens during the exam?

💗 This exam is for anyone with a cervix, this includes trans, non-binary, intersex and other GNC folks! Please note that if you are GNC and your medical records have changed, please double check with your GP that your medical records state you are applicable for this exam as sometimes you can be missed and you wont get notified for your next screening, you will need to arrange it yourself.

💗 Hopefully this little guide will answer some questions and give you some tips for how you can best prepare to make this exam less daunting. If you have any further questions about your cervical screening, please speak to your GP or sexual health clinic! 😊

Image & text description in ALT

[spiderfreedom]

not gonna effortpost about this today because I gotta get work done but real short

I notice this argument being used all the time: "you can't make a definition of 'woman' that does not exclude some people that we call women. therefore, the only good definition for 'women' that includes all people we call woman is 'people who identify as woman.'"

and the thing is, philosophically, "you can't make a definition of {thing} that does not exclude some examples we also call {thing}" is something that applies to almost every category! it's literally a whole philosophical problem of "what is the definition of a chair?" didn't we have a whole meme about how nobody can even agree on what a sandwich is?

it's not something unique to women, tables, horses, sandwiches, salads, or anything else. it is a problem of language itself.

you can apply the exact same argument to other categories: "how do you define 'blackness' without excluding some people we call 'black'?" if you're american, maybe you will use the one-drop rule, in which case halsey is black and anyone who had a single black ancestor four generations ago. but is that actually how we use the word black? does that capture something meaningful about being black in america? how about being black in the world?

let's go further: "how do you define 'transgender' without excluding some people we call 'transgender'?" within the transgender community, there is no real agreement on what it means to be transgender! beyond a vague sense of "identifying as the gender society assigned to you", but even that can be challenged. if a cis (female) woman takes testosterone, starts hanging around trans women, calling herself a trans woman, is confused for a trans woman by the people that she talks to, experiences oppression on the basis of being perceived as a trans woman... can she be considered a trans woman, despite being female?

ultimately "how do you define things" is a philosophy of language question more than anything else. perfect definitions that encapsulate sets neatly do not exist, because the terms we use are socially contingent. when people came up with the word 'table', they didn't also create a logically rigorous definition for it. they just said 'well, this thing here is a table.' and then people argue about the edge cases. because also, nobody actually agrees on the members of sets of every single word!! just like how we all have different ideas of what is and isn't a sandwich!

that's the other thing, people already disagree about what words refer to. someone who has the 5ARD intersex condition has testes but may be raised and socialized as girl because their parents think their genitals kinda look like a vulva. is this person a 'girl/woman'? people are not sure... which makes sense... because it is an edge case. is a stool a chair? is a hotdog a sandwich? is an open sandwich a sandwich? the further you get from the 'prototype', the more people are going to be disagree.

so the entire question 'what is a woman' is just an exercise in confusing philosophy of language framed as saying something very meaningful about the social category of woman. it is not! it is a problem of language that we cannot define 'woman' or 'chair' or 'salad' or 'horse' or 'gamer' in a rigorous way. it is nothing inherent to women, chairs, salads, horses, or gamers.

(but what about science?) good question, what about science? science tries to operate differently from the way laypeople talk about things. scientists take common words, like 'energy', and give them different, more rigorous definitions in order to try to figure something out about the world. for laypeople, 'energy' is something vague and diffuse. for physicists, 'energy' is the force that causes things to move, and its behavior is described by certain mathematical models.

similarly, laypeople may take 'woman' to mean 'a person with breasts and vulva/vagina', but a biologist may have a more rigorous definition of 'female': 'producing large gametes.' this is useful because it helps us see commonalities between creatures that may look really different, like flowers, bedbugs, asparaguses, cats, and humans - all very different creatures where sex looks different, but still have a distinction between 'producing large gametes' and 'producing small gametes' - there's no intermediate gamete. biologists have a different word for what people/animals look like, and that is 'phenotype.' when a parent looks at a child with 5ARD condition, they see the child has no visible penis and thus 'looks 'looks female.' a biologist would say that the child's sex is male (because they have the reproductive equipment to produce sperm, and none of the reproductive equipment to produce ova) but that their phenotype is ambiguous. sex is a binary variable, but human development is a long process where are a lot can happen, and so sexual phenotypes are not variable.

so already we're pretty far from the lay definition, because laypeople don't have the same idea of what sex is as scientists do, and don't distinguish between someone's sex and their appearance - for them, the sex is the appearance. who is right? it depends on what you want to do. scientists want to discover meaningful things about nature, and their definitions are far more useful than the layperson's for that purpose. which definitions are useful is also socially determined - we may feel sympathy for the child with 5ARD, told they were a girl their whole life, but who learns that they have testes. should we continue to treat this child as a girl/woman, or should we encourage them to view themselves as a boy/man? that is a social, cultural, legal argument, not a scientific one. the biological truth is the same regardless of the social, cultural, legal arguments, but there may be a compelling case to act differently. that's on us as humans to decide!

so yeah I'm just tired of hearing the same damn arguments over and over again. "what is a woman? is someone with CAIS a woman? is someone with 5ARD? what if we take a young non-intersex male and give them female hormones?" like this will never take us to where we want to go because it's a philosophy of language question disguised as a scientific one. the real question is, what are we talking about and which definitions will help us in that? if you believe that female people are exploited on the basis of their female bodily functions, then obviously you want to bring attention to that by using the word 'female'! if you want to focus on feminine socialization, then it may be useful to bring up cases of people who may not technically be female but were still raised as them, like Erika/Erik Schinegger, a male (possibly with 5ARD) who was raised as a girl and believed he was a girl for most of his youth.

trying to make a single catchy response to a question of what is 'x' is never going to satisfy everyone, because it cannot, because language is imperfect and real life is messy. scientists try to cut nature at the joints, but their cuts may not look like laypeople's! (and don't get me started on scientists disagreeing on what is a joint and what is not, metaphorically.)

and at its worst, when chasing an ironclad definition, you get bizarre answers that seem detached from reality, like saying 'people with CAIS condition are genotypically male and have underdeveloped testes, so we should treat them as males'. they may be reproductive males, but they have a female phenotype, and are raised as girls, and are literally unreceptive to testosterone - to treat them as 'men' on the basis of developmental or reproductive sex certainly seems to be missing something very important from the picture! see below: a person with Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (CAIS):

does it really make sense to say this person is a man due to her having testes, which technically makes her reproductively male? is that capturing reality? or are you trying to force reality to fit into your definition because you're afraid that if you cannot create a perfect definition of 'woman', that we will never be able to talk about biology and female oppression?

tl;dr: questions like 'what is a woman' are designed to be time-wasters because they are not actually answerable because language sucks. argue for your operative definition, your context, and move on. and don't be afraid to change definitions based on the context... sometimes reproductive sex is relevant, sometimes phenotype is more important, sometimes socialization is more relevant. this is not weakness, it's recognizing that reality is not so rigid and sometimes you must use a different model to get the understanding you want.

[uncanny-tranny]

I think part of what helped my dysphoria in the short-term was to remember that human bodies are varied, but wow, they're also so similar, and that my body doesn't really differ from many men.

When I'm dysphoric about my chest? Well, other men are, too, and that means I'm not the only person like me. I've also done some research into human anatomy and biology, and it's taught me so much. The idea that male and female bodies are, like, separate species is patently false. The structure of the "average" male and female are actually more similar than you'd think, and that makes sense. When I'm dysphoric, I remember that little fact. Does it help every time? No, but it reminds me to slow down and remember that I'm not a species separate from everybody else.

This isn't to say this cures dysphoria. I'm still dysphoric, but at least reframing how I view myself and my body allows me to help myself. This is just one of my personal ways I help myself, and I hope it might perhaps give other people ideas or inspiration if they are in a similar place.

[the-crazymedicinelady]

[burningtheroots]

Personally, I think that vasectomies should be the preferred option of (long-term) birth control for couples because it‘s the most effective and least invasive method (after condoms). Especially compared to hormonal treatment, female sterilization and IUDs (of course these methods are also used for other medical reasons, which is valid).

Birth control for women is always much more invasive and if a man wants to be with a woman, he should be willing to protect her from an unwanted pregnancy at all costs without potentially having her cycle and body interrupted in a way his body wouldn’t be interrupted.

[globalstemcellcare]

Understanding Female Infertility: Causes and Solutions | Female Infertility |

https://www.globalstemcellcare.com/ferility/stem-cell-treatment-for-ferility-female-infertility/

[petpetisy]

Can Spaying a Dog Calm Them Down in 2024? Shocking Truth!

Many pet owners think spaying a dog makes them calmer. But, it’s not that simple. Spaying removes a female dog’s reproductive organs to stop heat-related behaviors. Yet, it doesn’t always solve issues like aggression or separation anxiety. Spaying affects a dog’s behavior in many ways. Things like genetics, how they were raised, training, and their living environment play a big role. Every dog…

[dgspeaks]

The Power of Manuka Honey: A Natural Approach to Female Reproductive Health

In recent years, the spotlight on natural remedies for various health concerns has intensified, and one particularly intriguing option is Manuka honey. Renowned for its unique properties and numerous health benefits, it has emerged as a promising aid for female reproductive health, especially during menopause. In this article, we delve into the potential of this golden elixir and its role as a…

[shubhragoyal]

Empowering women's health with insights from leading obstetricians and gynecologists. Stay informed about women's well-being and medical advances.

Do Read: https://www.drshubhragoyal.com/welcome/blogs/empowering-womens-health-insights-from-leading-obstetricians-and-gynecologists

[nicky-olives]

Today I was peeing in a public restroom and overhead a bunch of women with babies st the basins talking about how much they wished genderless toilets existed because it would make caring for children all that much easier.

Their arguments was that caring for children is easier when you can have two parents nearby, especially when you need to manage multiple children. Not only that, another one added, but sometimes single fathers need to help little daughters go to the toilet and are faced with the choice of 1) occupying the disabled people toilet or 2) risking taking their little girls into men's restrooms and having her see someone at a urinal because that's the only way they can keep a proper eye on them. And another one complained that sometimes she needs to change her crying baby's diaper while her little girl needs to go to - and all of this would be easier if only mums and dads were allowed in the same spaces at the same time.

And all I could think about while I finished peeing and heard this was that genderless public restrooms are a female need and would probably be an unanimously held feminist demand (similarly to reproductive rights) if it wasn't for radfems who are so gassed by their hatred towards men and trans people that they refuse to move forward with what should be a very simple and reasonable demand.

[icehaus]

you’d think me using the term “fear-mongering” would be enough to let you know i don’t take the topic of “low birth rates” seriously but this is the piss on the poor website after all… anyway all i’m saying is if ppl actually cared about the matter they’d put their money where their mouth is and started pouring it into research into fertility affecting disorders but it’s obvious all they actually care about is using it as an argument to further their political agendas

with all the fear-mongering surrounding low birth rates you’d think scientists would be scrambling to find a cure for endometriosis pcos and other such disorders. and yet

[anamcaramia]

Obstetricians are so pointless like. Finish the whole field or go be a chiropractor, coward. ~Oh I'm guna study urology but only the piss, kidneys are someone elses problem~ Thats you thats what you fucking sound like. Idiot.

[daraoakwise]

150 years ago, a boy was born to my great-great grandmother. And that was the last time that happened anywhere on my maternal line until my son was born in 2016. This is a story about intersex people.

For 150 years, the women of my family kept having daughters, who either also had daughters, or they were oddly unable to have children. Strange quirk, we assumed. No boys.

In the late 1970s, my mother’s sister had a daughter with Down Syndrome. Genetic testing was done, and it was discovered that although she looked female, she actually possessed the male XY chromosome combination. Her sister was born three years later. And because of that genetic concern, her genes were checked. And she possessed … the XY chromosomes. A third daughter, born a few years later, possessed the usual XX.

Keeping in the tradition, my mother had two daughters. Because of our cousins’ genetic conditions, my sister and I were both checked. Both of us appeared typically XX. And so for more than thirty years, it was dismissed as a quirk, and no one said the word intersex because that wasn’t a thing in 1980.

In 2014 I had a son, breaking the chain of girls. It was an interesting story! I then had two daughters, and didn’t bother to do any genetic checking.

And then in 2020 my sister became pregnant. Early genetic testing said boy, XY. Twenty week anatomy scan said girl. Definitely 100% girl. Uhhh?! As expected, she*** was born genetically male, possessing only male gonads in the form of undescended testes, but female external genitalia.

It was Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, a genetic mutation carried on the X chromosome. See, all bodies start female. Then, when the hormonal influence of the Y chromosome kicks in, instructions on the X are supposed to detect the testosterone and create male genitalia. Except a person with AIS is non-reactive to testosterone, and the body stays, at least superficially, female. Genetic check would say boy. Presence of testes says boy. Pants check says girl. Making the question of sex (sex. Gender is something else, ok?) distinctly complicated.

If someone has a mother who is a carrier of AIS, there are 4 possibilities. Unaffected XY, and so genetically and structurally male. Affected XY, and so intersex. Affected XX, and so a female carrier. Unaffected XX female and entirely unaffected.

My grandmother was a carrier. My aunt and mother are carriers. My sister is a carrier. When my niece was born, my single non-intersex cousin and I did genetic testing. And we are both carriers as well. My son is an unaffected XY male. My niece is affected XY intersex. Both my cousin and I also have 2 daughters each. And, because it is medically and psychologically relevant, we had them tested. All XX.****

And I was ready to check one more thing: are my daughters carriers? There is a 50/50 chance. And then I stopped, because they are preschoolers, and that is their reproductive decision. They know three intersex people. And if they care, someday they can check their genes and the odds that my grandchildren will be intersex. The intersex people they know will, I hope, be able to talk to them about the beauty of their lives as one of the wonderful variations of humanity.

[infertilityspecialist1]

IVF Centre in Indore - Dr. Heena Agrawal

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[sharklovingaquarist]

Sooooo as someone going into fields that contain biology I think it's time we talk about how we see it from a fully male perspective. It's gotten to the point for me that I cannot listen to men talk biology, specifically reproduction. When we talk about male competition, we talk about it as "the right to mate". However this sees reproduction as a sentient, default specimen (male) doing to the secondary, inanimate vessel (female). In reality males fight for the CHANCE to win female attention. Females will forever be more selective sexually in the majority of animals. This is because females expend more energy in reproduction (the simple fact eggs are the larger gamete). Even in most fish, where care is commonly paternal, you will find heavy selection on the female side. Females are not fought over like an object to earn or "inseminate" the pure attention we give is what's fought over. Females almost always control their species. Look at tiger endlers. It may seem like the males harass females, but females actually CHOOSE exactly which sperm they concieve with and retain sperm for up to a year (trust me I have SEEN it myself). There's also this notion that males are all about genetics while female is about love or is about being a vessel. That's laughable. Females want their genetics to succeed just as much as males. They just dont have to fight as much because they have the limited gamete, its not a competition to be chosen when the other sex is unlimited. And the way we talk about paternal vs maternal. Paternal animals are all about "self preservation" but maternal animals are robots to their love. Dont get me started on how people act when I tell them my betta males do the incubating. We like to see it as a male competing to spread his genes and not a female choosing to complete her genes with the perfect individual. Every time someone tries to symbolize sex this shit comes into play. Male is the default that uses female as his tool. Be it describing it as penetration, fertilization, and much more. On the topic of "fertilization" did you know that the egg chooses the sperm? Did you know eggs are more complex than sperm? Did you know that eggs are not infertile without a sperm they just arent a embryo? We see female as defined by male, made valueable by male. A vessel filled by male. I think it's time for females to realize that nature is actually quite female centered. Hopefully as we get more women in this field, that will change. Because right now I'm starting to learn that a lot of science is worded in a way so males can cope with actually being quite lesser than females and at our disposal.

Edit: thanks for all the attention everyone! I've always wanted a space I could talk about this sort of thing. Glad to know I'm not alone on this. Trying to be in this field as a feminist can be insufferable