Participant Quotes
:
“I've had experiences where I have
felt uncomfortable to explain my relationships and didn't
confide in my health care practitioner.”
“The surgeon at our first meeting seemed
frozen when introduced to my life partner.”
“I had a visit with my nurse practitioner.
I had seen her before and discussed my sexual orientation
and that my partner was a woman. When I came in for a visit
about another concern, she asked me if I was on birth control
pills. I said "no" and then she immediately asked
in what I perceived to be a condescending way what I was doing
to prevent pregnancy. I again had to explain that my partner
is a woman. I was upset that she had no memory or record of
our previous conversation. We had discussed all of this at
my visit just a few months earlier.”
“I have quite honestly never had a
very good sexual health care experience. I am pretty healthy,
go in for my annual pap and that's about it. IDEALLY, a good
sexual health care experience for me would be: 1) someone
who asks me about my orientation, rather than assume it and
2) someone who then does not shy away from the topic, but
rather engage in a conversation with me about what she knows
about sexual health care for bisexual women.”
“I seems like as far as doctors go
there’s only two ways to be: gay or straight. I feel
like they are really limited by asking only one question.
I have had the same experience when I was having sex with
a man; I felt like she had no idea how to broach that subject.
I feel like with neither partner did she ask very much; and
I feel there needs to be more than just “Are you sexually
active?” but what does that include, because that can
be very different for different people.”
“I have friends who don’t get
annuals and I think the reason they don’t go is because
it’s a kind of coming out process for them each time.
If it’s a place where there is sort of a stamp that
says GLBT or something, it lets you know you’re not
going to have to go through the coming out process”.
“The problem I had was trying to explain
to nurses that I’m in a monogamous relationship and
don’t need a hepatitis shot and I was told, “Well
what if things change?” and I was really offended. You
wouldn’t say that to married person. So finally the
doctor came in and said “Oh you don’t need that.”
“When you walk in the door and fill
out forms with three boxes “are you married, divorced,
widowed” and you have to write in the margins, first
of all why is that even relevant; either get rid of them altogether
or have lots of different boxes for inclusion or a line you
can fill in. And married doesn’t mean you’re straight
but a lot of people identify that as a sexual identify.”
“I think any conversation you have
about sex stops when you say you have sex with women like
it never goes to “Do you want std testing?” and
there’s the assumption that you’re in a low-risk
category so you’re not going to be tested I have had
to ask about it.”
“I have a friend who’s a lesbian
who was having problems and they asked her if she was pregnant
and they ended up giving her a pregnancy test which she had
to fight to get taken off it was so expensive.”
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