Earlier this year, I served my uterus with eviction papers and suggested it take my fallopian tubes and cervix with it. Commonly know as performing a YEETERUS, medical professionals like to call it a hysterectomy. Well, technically a “hysterectomy with bilateral salpingectomy” when you throw the tubes in with it. Yeeterus is a lot catchier. I promised a review so here it is: 

Joking aside, I’m very lucky – I had about as easy an experience getting my issue diagnosed and treated as a person (in the US at least) can. Less than a year ago, I started having worse periods than normal. Listening to my body, I talked to my doctor about it and had an ultrasound that found an ovarian cyst. A few months, a bunch of tests, doctor’s appointments, and medicines (and side effects) later, that cyst had disappeared, but one popped up in the other ovary and was sticking around (along with some uterine fibroids) despite the meds. I’m in my forties and my uterus is a superfluous internal organ at this point. From my perspective, if it’s giving me trouble… out with it. 

I’m very lucky in other ways that made for a relatively smooth time. I have good medical insurance so I didn’t have to bankrupt myself or stay in pain. I have a day job that (in addition to providing me with that insurance) has policies that allowed me to take a paid leave while I was getting to the bottom of my issues and recovering from the surgery. I have a supportive partner who is one of the best people you could ever have looking out for you. And, surprising even myself, my recovery went very smoothly. I went home that evening and got to spend that night recovering in my own bed instead of a distracting (but very nice) hospital. After the first couple of days, pain wasn’t really an issue and while I’ve had a few ups and downs and definitely some extra tired days, I’m pretty much back at 100% before I’ve even had my six week all clear. 

It’s not all down to luck, though. I’m very aware that I am very privileged in many ways that made this easy. The job and healthcare are a form of privilege. Living in an area with access to high quality specialists to do the surgery is, too (and even with that, was two months until the first available appointment). But the biggest privilege in getting this surgery specifically is that I’m a cisgender woman in a liberal state. I asked my doctor about hysterectomy as an option and, without hesitation, she answered my questions and affirmed it was a valid option. She followed my lead on what option I wanted to choose in treating my issues. 

If I were still cisgender but in a more right leaning state, this might not have happened. Even though I’m in my 40’s, since I haven’t hit menopause yet, I’m technically of childbearing age. It doesn’t matter that I decided a while back that I have enough things going on with my brain and body that I didn’t want to put myself through pregnancy – since my body was technically capable of bearing a child, doctors in states where women’s rights are being eroded might be afraid to perform a hysterectomy since it could be construed as a form of birth control. If I found a doctor who would, they might have required my male partner’s permission before agreeing to the surgery. 

If I were still assigned female at birth but seeking the surgery to affirm a male gender identity, the procedure would be politicized. More hurdles would be put in place. If I had insurance, my insurance might not cover it. I might be fired for having it. A hospital might refuse to allow the surgery. I might have to go to another state to have the surgery.

Throughout this journey, the Hysterectomy subreddit has been one of my most frequently visited resources. It’s truly an amazing community (and one of the reasons I defend Reddit as a ‘what you make of it’ type experience). People from across the world, across the age spectrum, and across the gender spectrum, all coming together to share this experience. Some are doing it after years or decades of pain and struggles finding practitioners who will listen to them. Some are doing it as a preventative due to genetic inclinations to reproductive cancers. Some are doing it to affirm their gender. Some are conflicted, some are elated. Some have quick and easy recovery, some struggle. There is no universal experience, but there is such a variety of experience in the community that there is universal support. 

Despite having lost most of the organs that uniquely identify a person as biologically female, I don’t feel any less female — any less woman — than before. If anything I feel more so, especially in the current political climate, where possessing these organs has become an inherently political issue. The ability to make my own, informed choice about my body is empowering.

I have never borne children, but that doesn’t take anything away from my ‘womanness’ for there are so many children in my life that have and do love me as auntie. There is no mourning, no feeling of ‘lack’ in what was removed. Instead, there is relief, celebration, freedom, agency. The only sadness and mourning I feel is for the people who have not been, can not be, will not be able to make their own choices about what they want to do with their own bodies. 

Everyone should be able to make their own, informed decisions on what to do with their own bodies, especially when it comes to medical procedures. That shouldn’t seem like a radical concept. Unfortunately, the bodies of those born with uteruses have been especially politicized by a minority of voices in the US’s Republican Party — primarily evangelical Christian nationalists. The primary target for now is abortion rights, but it’s very clear that’s only the start and this group has no intention to stop there. The “Under Authority” episode of the documentary series Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets is particularly good (and terrifying) viewing if you want to learn more about this. Basically, if you are anyone other than a heterosexual, cisgender, white male, you should be TERRIFIED.

So what can we do about this? Glad you asked!