Bodies Unfiltered

By Kat K.

This is the second installment of “Things We Don’t Talk About (But Should). Today we will discuss the importance of sharing our experiences and the importance of speaking out about our struggles relating to reproductive health, gender identity, and sexuality. 

Sharing Our Struggles: Why Reproductive Health Can Be So Hard to Talk About

Reproductive Health can be a hard thing to talk about. It involves miscarriage, abortion, struggling to get pregnant, and so much more that has brought immeasurable pain to so many people. However, these topics need to be talked about — openly and honestly. It can be difficult to share our sensitive and traumatic experiences, many would rather keep them private, but I think by sharing these moments we can better understand ourselves and others’. 

I wrote my story, “Not My Body,” for others to read, rather than just journaling to myself about it. (Read on our website if you are interested!) I had spent too many years writing and thinking about the abortion I had a few years prior, so I decided maybe writing for someone else might help me process it. I submitted it to a few literary journals at my university and didn’t think anyone would like it, or connect with it. Once I found out it would be published, I realized I would have to face a crowd of people who had read my story when I attended the literary journals’ annual launch parties. Many of which were peers in my classes and my professors. 

At the first launch party, I had to give a speech because I was the treasurer of the organization. I stood up in front of the biggest crowd I had spoken to (about 30 people) and thanked them for letting me be vulnerable and for allowing my story to be heard by other people that might understand. I was shaking, I could barely look up, and I started sweating immediately, but when I stopped talking the whole room filled with applause and I looked up to see smiling faces everywhere. I took my seat and another author who was featured in the journal said to me, “That was really cool.” He read my story and told me that he loved it, regardless of the graphic and raw details. 

I attended the second launch party and a woman came up to me and said her friend read my story and cried. She felt so moved by it that she went to tell her roommates about it after she finished reading. I had no idea that my story could help others feel seen as much as it had for me. Sharing my story felt like validating it, and I was so happy that it was validating for other people too. 

Since then, I find myself amazed at how easily I can talk about my experience having an abortion. The emotions are still there, but there is now a prominent feeling of courage and strength. Silencing my thoughts and emotions while trying to heal from such a raw experience was not helpful for me. Speaking openly about it, even when I felt embarrassed, guilty, or hurt, was the best thing for me to heal.

This being said, writing a story about one’s trauma is not always the answer and doesn’t always help, but it could. I was so scared that after I spoke out about what I went through that I would be met with hate, misunderstanding, and disgust. When I wasn’t, I realized that even though there will be some people that read my story and feel those things, there will be so many other people that read it and gain understanding for those that have experienced something similar, or feel heard themselves. Upsetting a few close-minded people seemed worth it to validate a traumatic, but common experience. 

Gender Identity and Sexuality: Figuring Out Who You Are Should be Encouraged (Not Silenced)

There are too many oppressors of self-discovery that have held back the minds and lives of countless people that just want to be their true selves. Societal pressures, parental pressures, and individual expectations can add up to be a significant deterrent for living confidently as the gender or sexuality you are. Adults and children are hardly given the chance to figure out who they are before outside factors try to mold them into what is expected, or what hateful, close-minded people are comfortable with. Talking about our individual journeys to figure out who we are and the hardships we face can further dismantle hurtful stigmas about gender identity and sexuality that persist. 

Figuring out who you are should be exciting, not terrifying. Although it might be scary at times on an individual level, there shouldn’t be outside pressures that make living as yourself unbearable. Individuality is one of the most beautiful parts of life and gender identity and sexuality are part of this beauty. Figuring out who you love or who you identify as needs to be encouraged. This encouragement comes from empathy, understanding, and open-mindedness, which are built from sharing our experiences with each other. It can also come from minding your own business if you have nothing nice to say. Learning what someone else has gone through can help shift your perspective and empathize with an experience or person you previously wouldn’t have. 

It is also important to note, you are allowed to change. If you come out as gay and down the road figure out you might actually be straight, or bisexual, or asexual, you are allowed to be that. Labels have created pressure to fit into a box that has already been created, even if humans are constantly changing. These labels and boxes are not built for change, so it can feel scary to “change,” even if you are just discovering who you are as you live through more. We need to talk about how we don’t always know who we are, and how we rarely stay the same throughout our lives. This normalizes the life-long journey of figuring out our identities, instead of continuing the expectation of knowing exactly who you are as soon as you graduate high school. 

Talking about labels, our sexuality, and our gender identity helps people who are not a part of the LGBTQ+ understand, and potentially empathize, with the hardships that come with self-discovery in an oppressive society. It can also help those that have gone through similar struggles heal and feel validated. Silencing discussion regarding identity only perpetuates existing stigmas and stereotypes that have deterred countless people from living freely and happily. 

Just talking is not always enough to spark societal change, but it can help tremendously. Our experiences, our identities, and our feelings are all valid and deserve to be heard, regardless of whether they go against what other people want to hear.