(no subject)

[hissyfit.livejournal.com]

i went to the student health facilities for my annual std screen today. i like to do it just to make sure. it's a safety precaution. i had no reason to think that i DID have an std, but i like to be safe. and clean. you know.

so i went in, and the nurse-practitioner pretty much just turned me away. i told her that, though i've had more than one partner in the last year and a half, that i haven't had sex with a person who was biologically male. she laughed and put her hand on my arm in a very warm, this-is-a-wonderful-joke-between-friends kind of way. maybe she thought that i wasn't comfortable with using the term lesbian. i don't know for sure, but she didn't use the word during our conversation. she just said "people... in your circumstance". i felt condescended to, as though she was tittering at my phase with girls and touching my arm warmly to let me know that it's all right to experiment, and that she doesn't disapprove. i don't know. maybe i was just reading into it. she said that "people... in my circumstance" aren't really at risk for stds other than herpes and hepatitis b. since i have no open sores, got all of my tattoos in sterile shops, and am in the middle of my hep b vaccination she said that i didn't need a screen. she said that there was no reason. i felt somehow cheated.

then she launched into ways that i could go about losing weight. i went in for an std screen. AN STD SCREEN. not weight-loss tips. she tried to give me weight watchers information. she tried to give me pamphlets. i almost cried there in the office. i said that i was already working on it and that i didn't want her pamphlets. she smiled as though she had done some sort of huge good for the world. she had a pointy little tongue that she kept sticking out as she wrote, and wiry salt-and-pepper hair. she gave me her card. i threw it away.

i'm not going back to that clinic.

and i think that i am officially pre-menstrual. i don't feel entirely sane.

Comments

[xviragox.livejournal.com]

Yikes. I avoid student health facilities whenever possible. A friend of mine went because her throat hurt. Their response: "Have you had a pap smear?"

Re:

[hissyfit.livejournal.com]

well.. there was this one episode of ER where this girl had gonorrhea of the throat... *laugh*

i know what you mean.

[geminigirl]

Yep. And I've seen a case of chlaymidia of the throat spread pretty quickly. It's possible to get an STD in your throat or mouth if you're having oral sex.

As for the woman trying to not to do an STD screen...I hope that you have the opportunity to tell her that you are at risk if you aren't always safer sex with your parners, and even though the risk of woman-to-woman transmission is lower, if your partners have been active with men, that does affect your risk.

Her behavior was inappropriate and made you uncomfortable. As your own health care advocate, you need to make good decisions, about where to go from here...get your care elsewhere, and let them know why and who caused a probelm.

When I was doing research on glbt students and accessing campus-based health care, I read a book by Dr. Charles Moser called Health Care Without Shame which wasn't perfect but did have some helpful information about talking to your doctor...it was written for people who are glbtq or into BDSM.

Good luck.

[almeda.livejournal.com]

I can actually see part of the point of that - most college-age women don't get the regular preventive checkups they ought to (including a yearly pap smear), and it's partly the student health service's job to bug about that. As long as they're not trying to use a pap smear to diagnose the sore-throat problem. :->

[almeda.livejournal.com]

*GROWL* on your behalf ... it's stupid putzes like that that lead to insecure women and STD epidemics. If she turned you away, god only knows who ELSE she's screwing over. :-/

I'd suggest seeking out Planned Parenthood (even though you're not a breeder - they do other women's-health issues, most especially STDs and basic gynie stuff) or perhaps a health clinic in your local Alternative Lifestyles community, if Lawrence has one. If you were in Chicago I could point you exactly where to go. :-

Re:

[hissyfit.livejournal.com]

i would like to know about the one in chicago anyway. i know of someone who needs the information. :)

[almeda.livejournal.com]

Hee. :-> Fine, then. My a-number-one choice for queerfriendly (and, in fact, no-questions-asked sexuality-related) health services in Chicago is the Howard Brown Clinic, located on north Halsted in the heart of Boys' Town. Website: http://www.howardbrown.org/

[opium.livejournal.com]

Just because she is gay doesn't mean she isn't "a breeder" :P Lots of lesbians have children!

[inanna.livejournal.com]

Hi there!

i would definitely contact the clinic manager and let her know what happened. Explain that YOU wanted the STD screen for YOUR peace of mind... and that the nurse-type person denied you that. That kind of behavior is, IMHO, unacceptable. i can understand why she would say that you were at low/no risk, but even so, if you said you felt you needed this for your security (as well as that of your partner(s)), she should have given you one.

Stand up for yourself! This may be their job, but it is YOUR life - and only you can take responsibility for your health!

Good luck and blessings....
inanna

[atomic-poppy.livejournal.com]

I agree. You should absoloutley! complain! Since I started college, that's something I'm not afraid to do, complain to managers and higher-ups about the shitty treatment they give us! She had NO RIGHT to treat you that way! I'm NOT premenstrual right now and I would have killed her!

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

[iceblink.livejournal.com]

1) If you ask for a screening, you should be able to get one. I applaud you for being to sexually responsible (STANDS UP AND SAYS HIP HIP HOORAY!)

2) She had no BUSINESS talking to you about your weight. You DID NOT go in there for that. You may be perfectly happy with your body....

[moonrose.livejournal.com]

nah, if you were premenstrual, you'd have bitchslapped her ;) Maybe you shold go back and do it anyhow ...

[ratfink.livejournal.com]

A bitchslap is definitely in order. If she's not going to be open-minded and sensitive, she's in the wrong line of work.

[the-marionette.livejournal.com]

What a bitch! When I was in college, during my very first week in my very first semester I got the flu. I had never been away from home and I was all upset about it. I made an appointment and went over to the school's clinic. I got there and said that I had an appointment. The first words out of the receptionist's mouth were, "Gynocology is upstairs." I looked at her and with my very stuffed sounding voice said, "I'm not here for a gynocological visit." She got this incredulous look in her face and said, "You're not here for birth control pills?" I shook my head. "You're not here for the morning after pill?" I shook my head again. She got this nasty tone and said, "Well then what are you here for?" I got really sick again half way through the semester. My boyfriend at the time drive me home. It was an eight hour round trip from New York to Delaware and back to New York again all for a doctor's visit just so I wouldn't have to deal with them again.