A moan about medical professionals refusing to believe lesbians exist

One thing that drives me mad is whenever I need an x-ray, including mammograms at times, or when I’ve needed ops, medical professionals, quite properly ask “is there any possibility you could be pregnant?” It’s not that which drives me mad, but their response to my emphatic “no!” If I can’t remember the date of my last period (common), my repeated responses that there’s still no way it’s possible, is met by an insistence that they’ll have to do a pregnancy test. Even after spelling it out to them, they’ve still been known to insist on a pregnancy test. Last time I had an op I refused point blank (it seems a total waste of scarce NHS resources doing pregnancy tests on patients who cannot possibly be pregnant), so on the bottom of the consent form in large capital letters (in red ink) someone scrawled “patient refused pregnancy test”. The first question the anaesthetist asked when I saw him before the op was why I’d refused a pregnancy test, meaning I had to out myself twice in one day to medical staff. The fact that it was a waste of resources to do a test seemed to be beyond their comprehension. My mum too had a similar experience, only in her case no-one had thought to check back in her records. If they had done they’d have realised she’d had a hysterectomy three years previously!

Has anyone else encountered this sort of thing?

Yes sorry to say I have - however I have also had really good experiences; one trainee doctor was very unphased about my sexuality and continued to ask pertinent questions relevant to my medical problems and not stupid ones like are you pregnant…

I am wondering , altho it does require us to always be at our best most assertive selves, if we teach the doctors / others more by just saying really clearly - look I have not had sex with a man since / ever / etc…so no i am not pregnant…

sometimes one just feels too small for that…but just putting refused pregnancy test is really unhelpful. grrr,

 

bye for now

 Maybee I’m missing the point here but surely lesbian and bi women can get pregnant - either through IVF, surrogacy or Rape : (

OK the medics need to be tactful but surely the question still needs to be asked?

Sorry if I have offended or got the wrong end of the stick - maybee I shouldn’t have strayed onto this section of the forum.

cheers

Caroline