on policing women's bodies

[harborshore]

I debated filtering or friendslocking this, because it involves a conversation about body hair, but fuck it, it's important.

Today I was told I may have hormonal issues--or rather, that I may have more male hormones than is usual. Note the 'may have'.



So I went to a doctor because of breast and lymph node pain. He checked on that. The good news is that I don't appear to have cancer. But then he proceeded to tell me that since I have some unusual hair growth (read: some hair under my chin I haven't gotten around to plucking and a few stray hairs on my boobs--and I don't shave my armpits) he thinks I may have some extra testosterone floating around which may be causing the pain problems as well. This doctor isn't an endocrinologist or a gynecologist, but he THINKS it may all go away if I go on birth control. I mean. Dude. He didn't even base this on blood tests that showed unusual levels of testosterone or anything.

And I just. What. My mother has hairs on her chin. My sister does as well, and she has hairs on her boobs, same as I do. (She, by the way, also happens to be one of the most conventionally attractive women I know, and none of her string of boyfriends have minded that she has them.) But it's a sign of hormonal problems? I mean, first of all, HOW do we define a problem? I don't think that's a fucking problem, I think my breast pain and my period cramps and my other kinds of pain are a problem. I now have a referral for hair growth. I mean what. I took it because he said he'd put in a note that they hurry it up (it's to a place I already have a referral to, for the other kinds of pain), but I still can't believe it happened.

So, this is what happened: a few stray hairs on my boobs were startling enough that this dude thought I should be referred to a doctor. I came to him for pain. I'm so angry I could--women have hair too. WOMEN HAVE BODY HAIR.

Comments

[x_dark_siren_x]

DUDE. >:( I mean, I'm "lucky", most of my body hair is blonde, except where it isn't or where I do shave. I have blonde hair on my boobs and what people would probably call a "fuzz" around my mouth (though I do get some dark hairs there, occasionally, but not enough that I notice them unless I'm up close at a mirror to do my eyebrows), and what's dark is very, very dark, and no one has ever suggested it was a "problem", or an indication of one. Not even when I was being tested for PCOS! >:( Guy needs some cognitive recalibration, if you ask me. Maybe you could write to the surgery, or even to him, and say how unhappy you were with such a diagnosis being made, when he made it on such little, stupid evidence, and - as you say - it wasn't even his field!

I'll be over here, raging on your behalf. *fumes*

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

I may do that when I've gotten my actual diagnosis, yeah. Fuck.