‘Transgender And Non-Binary People Like Me Get Pregnant And Have Abortions Too’

Article originally appeared in Women’s Health Magazine on July 8th, 2021.

I got pregnant four years ago, when I was 26, and had an abortion in my first trimester. At the time, I wasn’t in a position financially or emotionally to be a parent. I was unemployed, and I knew that choosing to have a child would make it very hard to get a job in the near future. I wasn’t in a living situation where I had room for a baby. I didn’t feel ashamed about having an abortion. It was an easy decision for me. But as a non-binary transgender person, my abortion experience led to a lot of gender dysphoria. Every clinic had the word women’s in the name, all the pamphlets used gendered language and featured images of gender-conforming people, and clinicians were kind but didn’t understand trans and non-binary experiences. It felt dehumanizing. I had to emotionally disconnect from the experience entirely because of how gendered it was.