Abortion Explained!
Queer & Trans Justice
Abortion is a medical procedure that anyone who can become pregnant can have—including queer, trans, and intersex people. Despite the heteronormative narrative that abortion is specifically a “women’s health” issue, trans men, nonbinary, bisexual, pansexual, lesbian, and queer people have abortions, too. When we advocate for abortion solely as “women’s rights” or a “women’s issue,” we’re erasing the experiences and identities of many queer and trans people who have abortions, and the additional barriers we face when accessing care.
“When I talk about my abortion, people assume I’m straight. When I talk about being queer, people don’t imagine that I’ve had an abortion before. It’s been hard to live with both identities in a way that I feel other people can understand. I’m not disqualified from being queer because I’ve had an abortion.”
— Sam Romero, We Testify storyteller
Contrary to misinformation, queer, trans, nonbinary, and intersex people can become pregnant because sexuality and gender are fluid and people love and have sex with people of varying gender identities. Like straight cisgender people who end up pregnant for one reason or another and have abortions, queer, trans, and intersex people do too. Studies have found that lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth are twice as likely to experience an unintended pregnancy or get someone else pregnant, and bisexual young women are more likely to experience a pregnancy than their straight and lesbian counterparts. Additionally, queer and trans people experience high rates of sexual assault and rape, leading to a need for queer trauma-informed reproductive healthcare and abortion access.
“There’s a lot of language in the pro-choice movement that calls for more inclusive framing, but we also need to focus on making abortion care gender-affirming.”
— Nick Lloyd, We Testify storyteller
Queer, trans, nonbinary, and intersex people who have abortions are further marginalized by medically unnecessary abortion restrictions and limited access to abortion clinics. Queer, trans, nonbinary, and intersex people are less likely to have higher incomes, health insurance coverage, and access to transportation, all things that are essential to accessing an abortion in the United States. Because our medical system is systemically racist, transphobic, and homophobic, queer, trans, nonbinary, and intersex people face discrimination and marginalization when seeking medical and reproductive health care—including something as simple as providers assuming they aren’t the patient or not understanding how to care for their bodies. In fact, 70% of trans patients experience serious discrimination when seeking medical care, and abortion restrictions like medically unnecessary mandatory internal ultrasound laws can be especially triggering for trans people who may experience gender dysphoria related to having a vagina or being pregnant in general.
“I’m proud to be a Black, Southern, queer, trans man who uses “he” and “him” pronouns, has had an abortion, and is currently preparing my body to get pregnant. That might sound like a lot to some people, but it’s me. I’m a unique mix of many identities that are often misunderstood, misrepresented, or even completely erased. After multiple decades fighting for self-determination and dignity, I’ve finally reached a point where I’m comfortable and proud of the way I carry those identities.”
— Cazembe Murphy Jackson, We Testify storyteller
Queer, trans, nonbinary, and intersex people seeking abortions can experience stigma and marginalization within the reproductive health spaces as well. Assumptions that everyone is straight or cisgender, means that we might not be offered the understanding gender-affirming and queer-positive medical care we need, and we have to teach our medical provider how to treat us. And queerphobia means we may have to hide our gender identity or sexual orientation as a result of non-inclusive healthcare.
Some of us have chosen to self-manage our abortions to have the flexibility and control over our experiences while others of us have chosen to self-manage because we wanted to avoid the possibility of discrimination at the clinic. A study published in 2021 found that of 1,694 trans and gender-expansive people surveyed, 36% of those who were ever pregnant said they’d considered trying to end their pregnancy on their own without a provider, and of them nearly 20% reported trying to do so for a variety of reasons including wanting privacy, not having health insurance coverage, facing legal restrictions, being mistreated by medical providers, and the cost of the procedure. No matter what, we deserve affirming care from competent providers who understand our bodies, needs, and lives.
Gender-affirming abortion care.
There are simple ways we can feel supported by clinic staff and providers when having our abortions. Providers shouldn’t assume our gender identity or sexuality and ask open-ended questions so we can tell you about our life and body parts on our own terms and in our own words. It’s wonderful when providers ask us if we have any particular ways we would like our body parts referred to, ask how much communication we prefer from our provider, and ask for consent before and throughout examinations. Healthcare providers who don’t ask our pronouns on patient forms or who use gendered language like “ma’am” or “miss,” misgender trans and nonbinary patients and leave us feeling like they’re not qualified to care for us or even trying to make sure we feel supported during our abortions. Providers should avoid asking medically unnecessary and invasive questions that have nothing to with the care they’re providing and continue their education on how to care for trans, nonbinary, queer, and intersex patients. And quite simply, providers should pay attention to their patients’ pronouns to avoid misgendering us and apologize if they do misgender us. A single interaction can make or break an abortion experience.
Abortion is an issue that people of all genders and sexualities need access to. In order to protect our rights to abortions for all of us, we must ensure our experiences and the barriers we face are accurately represented and included when it comes to policymaking, storytelling, and messaging. When it’s not, it perpetuates the discrimination and invalidation trans, nonbinary, and intersex people already experiencing not only when making their decision, but also when visiting abortion clinics where supportive gender-affirming care hasn’t been implemented. To achieve reproductive justice, we believe that everyone—including queer, trans, nonbinary, and intersex people—must have the abilities and resources to decide if, when, and how to grow their families, have unfettered access to medically accurate and affirming reproductive healthcare, and are represented and centered throughout our movement.
“I’ve been told by those in reproductive justice organizations that, ‘We’ll get to you eventually, we’ll get to your people eventually. Let’s get abortion access for women first, just women, and then we’ll include transgender and non-conforming people. But no, that’s not how that works. Because it isn’t liberation unless everyone is free.”
— Jack Qu’emi Gutiérrez, We Testify storyteller
Glossary.
Bisexual: a person who is attracted to people of the same and different gender identity
Cisgender: a person who identifies with the sex they were assigned at birth
Gay: an umbrella term for people who are attracted to people of the same sex, but also a term for men who are attracted to men
Gender: expressions or behaviors, often formed by social and cultural norms along a spectrum comprising femininity, masculinity, neither, and both
Gender binary: the idea that there are two main ways that people can identify their gender as either a man or a woman
Gender identity: the internal, and sometimes external, feelings of a person’s gender, not necessarily based on the sex assigned at birth
Gender-inclusive: the act of using language and taking actions to disrupt the male-female gender binary enforcing the two sexes as opposite and unequal, and ensuring trans and nonbinary people are included and affirmed
Genderqueer: a person who does not solely identify with one particular gender, or identifies with multiple genders
Heteronormative: the overt idea that being straight and cisgender is the preferred sexuality and gender identity and everything is created under that assumption
Homophobia, Queerphobia, Transphobia: the hatred of, discrimination towards, and erasure of people who identify as queer, nonbinary and/or trans
Intersex: a person who is born with any number of sex characteristics or genitalia that are more expansive than the limited sex binaries—male or female—assigned at birth
Lesbian: a woman who is attracted to women
Nonbinary/Gender Non-Conforming: a person or group of people who do not identify with the sex they were assigned at birth nor with a particular binary gender
Pansexual: a person who is attracted to people who identify across the gender spectrum
Queer: a reclaimed slur now serving as an umbrella term for some people in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community; sometimes applied as a political identity or lens
Sexuality: how a person defines who they are attracted to romantically and/or sexually, if anyone at all
Transgender: a person who does not identify with the sex they were assigned at birth