Wednesday, December 11, 2019 // The Statement
6B

“I knew that birth control was a thing, but I thought it
was kind of frowned upon. It wasn’t something my mom
encouraged.”
After some research and consultation with her
stepmom, she went to the Planned Parenthood on campus.
She’s gone there ever since.
“The only person who knows is my stepmom,”
Hernandez said. “I would assume my mom knows that,
obviously, I’m sexually active. It’s just not talked about,
like, ‘Oh, what are you using for protection?’ And my
stepmom is white.”
Students
will
approach
getting
contraception
prescriptions differently based on how openly talked
about it is in their community, McAndrew said.
“Our identities can shape the norms we experience
related to health, sexuality and how open or taboo a topic
sexual health is in your community,” McAndrew said. “So,
navigating those nuances can be challenging.”
Student 1, too, came from a background where sex was
considered taboo. She is from a small-town community
where she said her sex education was “crap to begin with.”
Her experience involved graphic images of STIs and being
told that teenagers are incapable of love.
“They concluded it with teenagers aren’t capable of
knowing what love is,” Student 1 said. “You’re only allowed
to have sex with people you love therefore you just can’t
have sex. That’s what they ended it with. And I was like,
‘What do you mean I can’t feel love?’”
She managed to get a birth control prescription to treat
hormonal acne, but her doctor would not have prescribed
it to her if it was for contraceptive purposes. Friends who
were sexually active were unable to get birth control pills,
she said.
Her lack of knowledge in this area, Student 1 said, shows
how crucial it is for University programs like Relationship
Remix.
“Having the University have the basic beginning steps
to get everyone caught up so everyone is accountable at the
same level of, you did learn this because you had to go,”
Student 1 said.
Relationship
Remix
includes
information
the
effectiveness and availability of IUDs and implants at
UHS, McAndrew said. But the mention of birth control is
brief in order to make it relevant for the most students.
“I was worried as a queer woman who
wasn’t fully out to myself”
S

tudent 1 was initially hesitant to approach UHS for
birth control because of her queer identity.
“I was worried as a queer woman who wasn’t
fully out to myself even when I came here as a freshman,
and I didn’t want to accept that part of me,” Student 1 said.
“I was afraid that people at this University also wouldn’t be
accepting, because I had never been in a good relationship
with health care providers that were very out there with
supporting the LGBTQ+ community.”
Fortunately, she had a positive experience with UHS,
who she said have a background in treating members of
the LGBTQ community.
“Thankfully, the people at UHS had a good education
on interacting with folks who don’t fit in the straight,
(cisgender) narrative that a lot of new students here have,”
Student 1 said.
Student 1’s concerns are common in a healthcare
system excluding LGBTQ patients, according to OB/GYN

clinical lecturer Daphna Stroumsa, who specializes in
reproductive justice and queer health.
“The health care system is not structured appropriately
even when there isn’t inherent transphobia,” Stroumsa
said. “The health care system is not structured to address
the needs of trans people because it’s structured a priori
around cisgender heterosexual people.”
Stroumsa said LGBTQ people face barriers of stigma
and assumption in trying to access birth control, which
can have harmful consequences.
“There’s often assumptions on everybody’s part about
like, ‘Oh, if you’re gay, you’re never going to have sex with
anyone who might get pregnant. We don’t even need to
talk about this,’” Stroumsa said.
In the New England Journal of Medicine, Stroumsa
led a study examining the case of a transgender man who
came into the emergency room of a hospital with lower
abdominal pain. The hospital attributed the pain to him
not taking blood pressure medication. Several hours later,
they learned he was pregnant, but no fetal heartbeat was
detected.
Ernst mentioned this study as a catalyst that led UHS
to improve care offered to trans and non-binary students.
UHS has a Trans Care Team specifically devoted to these
students with clinicians who have undergone extensive
training.
Ernst also said UHS focuses on making language during
consultations as inclusive as possible. One way of doing
this is asking students to describe the ways in which they
have sex rather than assuming penetrative, vaginal sex.
“It’s really like what parts go where when people are

having sexual activity,” Ernst said. “We don’t judge who’s
doing what but just what activities are happening, so that
we can make sure that they’re safe and protected in any
way that they’re having sex.”
Stroumsa said their experience with the intersection of
gender identity and health care was completely different
as a student.
“I came of age in a world in which talking about gender
identity and sexuality with health care providers in an
open way was unthinkable,” Stroumsa said. “I’m glad to
see the world slowly moving to a different place, and I
want to keep the momentum of that change going.”
“If this were a different medical condition,
if it didn’t have to do with my reproductive
system, would they believe me more?”
S

tudent 2, an LSA sophomore who requested
anonymity for medical privacy, decided to go to
UHS for birth control her freshman year. For the
next year, she suffered mental health issues she felt that
UHS did not take into account.
When she went in for her consultation, she mentioned
her history of severe menstrual symptoms. Since she’d had
these issues throughout high school, she had normalized
them, she said.
The UHS nurse practitioner told her birth control would
likely help with her symptoms, lessening her cramps
and flow. The practitioner gave Student 2 Tri Sprintec, a
widely prescribed birth control pill. Immediately, Student
2 started feeling worse.
“I didn’t sleep for weeks, like I was getting two or three

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