Am I not a woman and a sister?

I received an email this morning that let me know that it was my hysterversary. "What is a hysterversary?" you say. Why, it's the anniversary of the day that I had my uterus surgically removed. As of today, it's been five years since that surgery. It's been five years since I was regularly consious of an organ in my body and the way that it was behaving. Five years since I dealt with constant pain and discomfort. Five years since I planned my day around access to a bathroom or worried about how many tampoms or pads I had in my possession. Five liberating years.

Making the decision to have a hysterectomy was difficult for me. Despite the pain, bleeding, and discomfort that I had experienced in some degree for years and fairly nonstop for about six months, I was hesitant to have surgery. Even though I had never used my uterus for its intended purpose and never intended to, I felt emotional about the decision to remove it. My uterus represented the seat of my feminity. It somehow connected me to the collective feminine. It was sacred.

So, let me start my saying that I'm hardly a traditionally feminine person, but I do identify with being a woman. I'm different from a lot of women, though. I've never wanted to by a mother. I didn't play with baby dolls as a child and preferred to play "grown up" by pretending that I had a job, smoked Eve cigarettes, and had a single, adult woman lifestyle. Sometimes I was a secretary or "business woman." Sometimes I was a waitress or a stewardess. I never heard my bioligical clock ticking. Depsite what others would say to me, I never changed my mind about not wanting to have children, and I never regretted it, either.

I hate dresses and skirts. I'm forced to wear a dress once a year to attend a Mardi Gras event with a gender-specific dress code. I'm extremely uncomfortable dressed that way and always have been.

I don't wear much makeup. I tried as a teen, but I had no clue what I was doing and never could master the fine art of eyeliner or the proper application of blush. I can't tell you what shade of eyeshadow goes in the crease or on the brow bone or anywhere in between. And I honestly don't understand the point of lipstick.

So why was I so hung up on removing my uterus? Why did I think that it represented something sacred? Why did I want to keep an organ that I had never used and never intended to use? Why was the whole thing so emotional to me? I couldn't answer or explain.

I articulated my hesitation to the OBGYN surgeon that I was referred to. I will forever be grateful to him. He reframed the issue for me. He pointed out that my uterus was a diseased organ and asked if I would hesitate to remove disease in any other part of my body. He allowed me to be logical about the situation. My uterus was no more special than my appendix. It was basically a useless, purposeless organ that I hadn't really considered until it became problematic.

So, on December 18, 2017, I went to the hospital in the morning and came home around midnight without my diseased uterus. My recovery was surprisingly easy. I was up and moving around almost right away. Less than a week later, I celebrated Christmas Eve in St. James Parish enjoying the bonfires on the levee. And, I may have cheated and started practicing yoga with Adriene a few days before the surgeon officially released me. I felt great.

Five years later, my thoughts about my uterus, and about uteri and women in general, have really evolved. I realize now that organs--internal or external--have nothing to do with gender. Just like the fact that being a mother doesn't make someone more or less of a woman. Or the way that someone dresses. Or whether or not she wears makeup. Or has short hair, or long hair, or no hair. Being a woman has nothing to do with your body. And nothing to do with what we consider traditional feminity.

I fully believe that our experience of gender is extremely personal and that no one has the right to tell another person that they are not "man enough" or that they should be "more feminine." Society will always treat us in the way that they perceive us, but that doesn't change who we are or how we can see ourselves. I'm no longer young and thin. Men started treating me differently when I gained weight. Did that make me less of a woman? White women have been treated differently than Women of Color for centuries, but we have more in common than not. Why should skin color separate us? Trans women face the same discrimination (AND MORE) that cis women do. They, too, are our sisters. 

So, on my 5th hysterversary, I celebrate myself as a woman, and I celebrate all other women--cis women, trans women, people assigned female at birth, intersex individuals, demigirls, femmes, genderfluid and genderqueer folx, Two-Spirit souls, nonbinary individuals, and anyone else who wants to be my sister. Today, I declare December 18 my sisterversary!