El Sanchez was crying as the nurse held their hand.
“I’m sorry,” the nurse said.
“This is always really hard for women.”
Courtesy of Getty / Allure: Clara Hendler
Soon, Sanchez began bawling.
This was Sanchez’s second abortion, but their first since coming outas nonbinary.
“The first time, you know, I didn’t get emotional at all,” Sanchez tellsAllure.
The consequences of this can belife-altering.
“We have patients who travel hundreds of miles or more to come see us,” she tellsAllure.
“And we have between 250 and 300 trans patients who we see annually for all different things.”
(The program is currently on hold due to the pandemic.)
Still, Leopard says, it’s not possible to account for everything.
“And breaking those really old mental models that people have is really hard.”
Since then, Rodriguez has struggled with getting medical professionals to respect and acknowledge his gender identity.
And I wish that weren’t the case."
Sanchez has had a similarly uncomfortable experience with their reproductive health care provider.
“I know they did that to remind themselves about my pronouns but it was awkward to see.”
When they were six months pregnant, they learned their baby had something called a limb-body wall complex.
They donated the fetus to research of her condition and began the arduous recovery process.
For weeks afterward, they bled, and their chest leaked milk.
“Ibound my breastswith Ace bandages for months afterward because the milk had nowhere to go.
That’s when I learned I liked the way I lookedwith a flat chest,” Mudridge explains.
“I knew I probably should have,” they say.
