Reproductive rights are intersectional
Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court on June 24. Six conservative justices chose to remove a person’s right to an abortion. The decision uprooted much of America and caused women to feel like their bodies were an unsafe place to live in. Regulation of women’s bodies by a conservative cohort of mostly white men is wrong.
Recently, the Biden administration issued an executive order that will reverse the fateful Supreme Court decision so that women may still have access to abortion services. I hope these efforts succeed.
Despite the potential reversal, it needs to be made clear that abortion, and all reproductive rights, are an intersectional issue. Countless Instagram posts, memes, captions, and news articles are talking about how women will suffer. Women will most definitely suffer from a reversal of Roe v. Wade, but transgender men and other nonbinary people will suffer too.
Transgender men are fully capable of having pregnancies. It is imperative that people remember our right to an abortion as well. Many transgender men either forego going on testosterone therapy for a while to have a baby or choose to become pregnant before starting hormone therapy. This is fine and a perfectly normal process to opt into.
Transgender men also deserve legal and affordable access to Plan B pills, just like all women should. Much of our body still works in the same way that a biological female’s would, despite doses of testosterone.
Tangentially, trans men also partake in the medical conversation about contraceptives and other medicines that prevent STI infection. Trans men who choose to have sex with men need affordable access to condoms and birth control.
They also need safe and affordable access to PrEP, which prevents HIV transmission. Recent federal guidance will make PrEP free, or borderline free, which is a step in the right direction. Gender nonconforming patients should also ask doctors about any differences in PrEP’s effects on bodies assigned female at birth versus those assigned male at birth.
All sorts of people — women and others — are threatened by the Supreme Court right now. The conservative cohort of justices sitting in D.C. is simply ruining America’s future.
The treatment for ectopic pregnancies and septic uteruses is an abortion. People have already been dying because they can’t access these safe and legal abortions. The cruelty being inflicted on these bodies is unrivaled.
But it’s time we include all sorts of genders in the conversation on abortion.
Isaac Amend (he/him/his) is a transgender man and young professional in the D.C. area. He was featured on National Geographic’s ‘Gender Revolution’ in 2017 as a student at Yale University. Amend is also on the board of the LGBT Democrats of Virginia. Find him on Instagram @isaacamend.