HYSTERECTOMY RESOURCES
Some things that might help…
I had a hysterectomy in 2024.
Following my experience, I wanted to create some resources that could support other lesbian and queer folk going through this surgery and recovery.
Below, you’ll find links to a video on YouTube, a journal to support healing and recovery, a ‘queer hysterectomy’ zine, and some pieces of writing – spanning everything from making the decision to have surgery, to reclaiming my sex life afterwards.
If you are part of the LGBTQ+ umbrella and looking for some support and advice about having a hysterectomy, this video is for you.
My main aim with this video is to highlight that lesbians and queer people have hysterectomies too and to offer a space where our stories and experiences can be shared.
In this video, I share my personal experiences of my hysterectomy journey as a queer lesbian… (more)
The Hysterectomy Healing and Recovery Journal has been designed to support you on your hysterectomy journey.
I created this journal after my own hysterectomy, using the prompts, questions, and structure I’d found most helpful for my own healing and recovery.
The Journal consists of three main parts:
Part 1 has sections to help you prepare and plan for surgery.
Part 2 is divided into daily check-ins and weekly reflections for the first six weeks post-surgery to help you in the early days and weeks of recovery.
Part 3 provides extra pages for you to use as you wish as you continue to recover and heal after the first six weeks… (more)
Do you wish there were something that offered queer representation and spoke to queer hysterectomy experiences?
Here it is!
In this mini zine, I share my experiences of having a hysterectomy as a queer person:
*why I had a hysterectomy
*coming out to healthcare staff (again and again)
*tips for healing
*what about sex?
*the importance of queer representation
Intimate writing...
"The most bang for your buck"
It was 9am on Monday morning and my partner and I were walking into the gynaecologist’s office.
We were both dressed up: she was wearing her smart cords and a shirt under her navy-blue jumper; I had on leggings, a dress I’d bought for holidays, and my mustard-yellow coatigan.
We’d agreed that wearing our best clothes would make the consultant take us more seriously – or rather, take my pain more seriously. I’d also done my online research so I knew all the right words to use, I had printed out my list of questions, and my partner had a notepad and pen.
As our appointment drew to a close, and after hearing more about probable causes and potential treatments for my pelvic pain, I asked the gynaecologist what he would recommend. “A hysterectomy would give you the most bang for your buck,” he said… (continue reading)
Listen to your body
One foot is missing a sock and I have an ice pack stuffed inside my (elasticated-waisted) trousers. I’m day 11 post hysterectomy – it was too painful to bend and reach my left foot this morning, and the 10cm scar across my abdomen is throbbing and uncomfortable.
My insides feel like someone went at them with an ice cream scoop but, for the last week, my thoughts have been begging to be written down.
I’ve managed a couple of brief entries in my diary, and daily factual updates in my ‘hysterectomy recovery journal’ but – until now – I’ve been unable to keep my attention fully focused on the swirling mass of words that surround me.
I can see them in my peripheral vision – like flitting butterflies that tease me with their flashing colours and merging shapes before disappearing from my sight… (continue reading)
I wasn’t prepared for how ravenous my body had become
Over the last 12 weeks, since I had my hysterectomy I’ve calculated at least a dozen people have touched me.
They include nurses, doctors, physiotherapists, an osteopath, my hairdresser, a friend, and my partner of nearly 25 years.
I’ve touched myself as well:
Washing my body in the shower and, after enough weeks had passed, patting my skin dry after a short soak in the bath.
Massaging my scars with nourishing oil and learning the new landscape of my belly.
Gently, tentatively, lovingly, stroking my vulva, checking I can still orgasm and that nothing gets damaged when I do.
But there was another form of touch that I’d been both craving and avoiding… (continue reading)
"Will my sex life be lost when I no longer have a uterus?"
In just a few short weeks, a surgeon will be back inside my body; this time, my uterus is for the chop. I bargained with the gynaecologist over the fate of my cervix. Removing it, he told me, and the resulting vaginal cuff (where they sew up the top of the vagina, creating a stitched tube to nowhere) would be more of an issue if I were having heterosexual penetrative sex.
Oh, I thought, are you assuming that my wife and I don’t fuck? That my sex life is limited solely to outercourse? Or do you mean that a man can’t be trusted with his penis? That a post-operative, cervix-absent vagina is not at risk from penetration per se, but is in danger if there’s an inconsiderate dick in the picture?
Time flies when you're recovering from having your uterus removed and figuring out where your libido has gone
I didn’t have a good history of coping with general anaesthetics, and my body had already been through a lot. (I was missing my tonsils, adenoids, wisdom teeth, and gallbladder by this point.)
Even more concerning to me was whether I’d be able to access my eroticism – on the page as well as in the bedroom – after my uterus and accompanying organs were removed.
On the 23rd of September 2024, I had my uterus (plus its resident fibroid), fallopian tubes, and one ovary extracted through a ‘bikini line’ cut on my belly.
Over the following months, I watched as my ragged red wounds turned into fine white scars.
My body was healing, but it seemed my libido was not. … (continue reading)