Celebrating Pride Month with the Truth About Sex!

June marks the celebration of many important things, the biggest celebration being pride month! For context, pride month is an entire month (June) dedicated to the uplifting of LGBTQ voices, celebration of LGBTQ culture, and the support of LGBTQ rights. Throughout the month of June nationwide, there have traditionally been parades, protests, drag performances, live theater and memorials or celebrations of life for members of the community who lost their lives to HIV/AIDS. It is part political activism, part celebration of all the LGBTQ community. We celebrate in June to coincide with the catalyst of the Gay Liberation Movement, which was the Stonewall Uprising. In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, police raided a popular gay bar in N.Y.C.'s West Village, The Stonewall Inn. This was commonplace for the time, but on this particular evening, the patrons of the bar fought back, starting the Stonewall Riots, which went on for days. The Stonewall Inn was declared a historic landmark by the city of New York in 2015 and later named a national monument by President Barack Obama in 2016. This June is the 52nd anniversary of the first Pride parade, which happened in 1970, one year after the uprising. The rainbow flag, which was created by artist Gilbert Baker in 1978, is used as a symbol of LGBTQ pride, but what you might not have known, is that each color on the flag has its own meaning. In the widely known six-color flag, red is symbolic of life, orange is symbolic of spirit, yellow is sunshine, green is nature, blue represents harmony, and purple is spirit. In the original eight-color flag, hot pink was included to represent sex and turquoise to represent magic/art.

Here at Arancia PT, we want to celebrate pride month by talking about sexual health which is a subject typically dismissed and disregarded by society, especially when it comes to non-sexual health.

Let’s start with the facts. First things, first, there is a huge difference between sex and gender. Sex is the biological characteristics that make up our DNA and make us male, female, or intersex. The term “intersex” describes a wide range of people that don’t meet 100% of the criteria for male or female sex. An intersex person is born with or naturally develops characteristics that aren’t considered exclusively male or female. These include variations in: 

• Sex chromosomes
• External genitalia
• Reproductive system (gonads)

Because of the possibility for variations, "intersex" has become an umbrella term for a wide variety of people. This makes it clear that sex isn’t black and white. This is different from gender, which is is how someone expresses themselves. Gender is a societal and cultural construct that is NOT determined by sex. Gender is more of a practice that we do by how we dress, how we identify, how we act, and the roles we play in societal structures. This differentiation is scientific and is important to know since we discuss a lot of men’s health and women’s health, in which we are typically referring to the sex of the person rather than however they choose to express. This is also separate from sexual orientation, which describes who you are attracted to or who you love! That being said, there’s more than one way to express gender, there are more than two sexes, and there’s more than one way to love. As pelvic health specialists, we work with people who identify all along the spectrum of gender and sexual orientation and want to open the conversation up to make everyone feel welcome and included in this space. It's true that 33% of individuals who saw a health care provider had at least one negative experience related to being transgender (National Center for Transgender Equality, 2015) and 23% of respondents did not see a doctor when they needed to because of fear of being mistreated as a transgender person (National Center for Transgender Equality, 2015). This is something we want to take part in changing to make everyone feel comfortable to seek help from medical professionals, especially professionals who deal with pelvic and sexual health.

We would like anyone who needs pelvic floor physical therapy to feel comfortable enough to seek it out anywhere, but especially here at Arancia PT where we strive to make our environment one that is inclusive and accepting of all people. Here are some reasons why people would make an appointment with a pelvic floor specialist:

• Prep and recovery from gender reassignment surgery
• Vulvar, testicular, pelvic, and penile pain
• Pain with insertion or penetration
• Trauma
• Erectile dysfunction
• Incontinence of bowels or bladder
• Infertility

& Many more!

Overall, we want to celebrate PRIDE by giving everyone the facts on what sex and gender really mean and why everyone's sexual health matters. If you are someone who is struggling with your sexual and or pelvic health, feel free to reach out to us or share this with a friend who could use a nudge in the right direction. We are an LGBTQIA+ friendly business and we are excited to meet you :)