If you have a vagina, it’s not your job to push anything out of it
I’m home sick and unable to do much, so naturally I’ve been spending most of my time on YouTube. I have a thing for weird and rare medical conditions, and the algorithm knows it: this video showed up in my recommendations.
The video is about someone who has been diagnosed with Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome, which means they were born without a uterus and a fully-formed vagina.
I am aware that the purpose of this story is to share this person’s condition, and it must be really helpful for other people with MRKH to know they are not alone. However, it struck me how the first thing that was mention in the intro was how not having a vagina made this person feel less of a woman.
It’s interesting how genitals are such an essential part of some people’s gender identity, whereas for others it might not be such a big deal. In this video there’s no mention of gender whatsoever, which is ok since that’s probably not the main end goal of the story.
But linking having a vagina or not to feeling like a woman or not is problematic just as much as the fact that as the video carries on, everything focuses on the ability to have children.
The person in the video explains that their only options to have kids would be either IVF or adoption. The viewer must assume that this person actually wants to have kids.
Again, this is ONE specific story of this ONE specific person who probably strongly identifies with being a woman and truly desires to have children. (Although this is never confirmed at any point during the video, and it left me wondering whether, due to time restrictions, some parts had to be cut out, and how the person whose story it was felt about that.) Anyway I’m not trying to invalidate them and their life and their feelings.
Yet, the viewer is led to believe that the prospect of not being able to have kids must be the hardest part of not having a functional vagina. But this disregards something that a lot of people seem to forget: a woman’s purpose in life is not to procreate.
Of course if someone genuinely wants to have kids, then great — hopefully they live in a place where they can be fully supported in their decision and…
