Although I had already seen the short film Period. The End of a Sentence, I remember watching it for the first time I was beyond baffled at the fact that the men in the village didn’t know what a period or menstration is. It really opened my eyes to the fact that men and women experience life so differently from one another and that it’s almost impossible to understand the other’s point of view. Rewatching it I was still confused as to why periods and menstruation were such taboo topics for the women living in the village, and it was really bizarre that some of them couldn’t even explain why the experience they have every month even occurs.

I’ve already been aware of obstetric racism, however I just wasn’t sure what the name for it was, nor that it was divided into seven different categories. More that anything I believe it’s ridiculous that medical ‘professionals’ can get away with treating poc differently without being held accountable or having their positions threatened. These people are in charge of our health, wellbeing and overall life. They should remain completely unbiased towards their patients so that they can receive the help they need. After reading the article I even decided to ask my mother how her experience of childbirth was when she had me because I wanted to know if she had experienced a form of obstetric racism. She told me she hadn’t thought about it at all until I asked which is crazy because that’s about twenty years ago but esssentially my mother had told the nurse the baby is coming and the nurse wasn’t really concerned, so my mom had to tell her to call the doctor. I honestly don’t think this is obstetric racism, maybe the nurse was just being lazy but also I feel like I might be glossing over it.

As for the last article, I had no idea about the Department of Health and Human Services debating about whether or not they should be able to legally deny care to transgender people. It seems like such a ridiculous clause, it almost feels like we’re going backwards in time instead of progessing forward. I don’t understand what the purpose of passing that law would do, or even why there’s being a debate about whether or not transgender people should essentially be allowed medical care. Health care is already hard enough to obtain as is. Also, reading a lot of transgender people’s experiences who had sent in their responses felt surreal because I already knew about the discrimination in the medical field but I didn’t think it was that common. If I had to put it into a ratio I would think it’s 1:6, but it appeared to be a lot more than that.