For seven years, Izi a 35-year-old nonbinary person living in the Bay Area experienced chronic pain from an intrauterine device (IUD). They had resorted to the IUD to control their intense periods, the pain of which often rendered them barely able to walk. Unlike other birth control options, the device would not interfere with the testosterone they were desperate to begin taking.Izis doctor repeatedly dismissed concerns that their pain was IUD-related, but Izi knew. And although they finally demanded its removal when they had their tubes tied, their suffering didnt end. Related Transmasculine reproductive healthcare is rarely talked about. Lets change that. Transmasculine people need information and support when it comes to abortion, pregnancy, HIV, and other sexual health topics. After all that they said the pain I was experiencing was actually residual trauma from the IUD, they explained. Even now, they still rely on physical therapy techniques to manage muscle contractions caused by having the device for so long. Amidst all of this, they also sought a hysterectomy but were denied. Insights for the LGBTQ+ community Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more. Subscribe to our Newsletter today While testosterone helped reduce the severity of Izis painful periods, medical providers continued to dismiss their symptoms.[E]ven my doctors, to this day, whenever theres an issue that comes up, they like to blame it on my testosterone, and I have to always ask or talk to my endocrinologist and just make sure its not, they said.Izi has spent much of their life navigating a medical system that often fails trans people especially those who are transmasc or nonbinary.I feel like Ive just had a lot of interactions with medical professionals, and specifically around my trans identity, that have rarely been good, they said. I always have this weird feeling, or I can never tell what it is about me until much later, that its transphobia.Transmasculine people often need access to reproductive care whether contraception, IVF, hysterectomies, pregnancy support, PrEP, or treatment for conditions like Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) or vaginal atrophy. Yet for Izi, as for many others, seeking that care has often meant facing roadblocks, discrimination, and systemic barriers.Conversations around reproductive rights boil down to the right of an individual to their body and the right to decide about their body. We should all be fighting for these rights, as we are all affected by themAJ Eckert, doctor for trans youth at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles[It]s a common thing that you often experience if youre trans masc or nonbinary if you have to be in OB/GYN spaces specifically, and navigating that system, and I dont think I would have been able to get through any of that, any of these experiences, without any type of community care outside of the hospitals, they said. Doctors are not as important to me as my community is.Izis experiences demonstrate how the fight for reproductive justice cannot be separated from the fight for transgender rights. Izi, Repro Masculinity Project And transmasculine people must be at the center of both.Thats the core message of the Repro Masculinity project, a powerful collaboration between photojournalist Ale Pedraza Buenahora and the Transgender Law Center. The project, through which Izi shared their story, offers a vital platform for transmasculine people to share their experiences with embodiment, bodily autonomy, and reproductive care, not as an afterthought, but as a central part of both gender-affirming healthcare and the broader struggle forreproductive justice.Buenahora started the project while working as one of the few trans people at a nationwide reproductive health clinic. There, they faced repeated censorship when raising trans issues that related to the work they were doing.There was no nuance about it, they said. There was really a lot of silos that were happening that were being created by the people working on these spaces. From talking with their friends, Buenahora found that even within clinics and advocacy organizations ostensibly committed to reproductive rights, transmasculine patients were being denied accurate and affirming information.One participant in the project, Chiron, was told by their doctor that some people on testosterone simply experience extremely painful periods that can last up to two weeks.[I]t didnt make sense. I didnt want to know what some people experience, I wanted to know what Im experiencing and why, they explained. Theres a lot to unpack and definitely a lot of experiences with having my reproductive health ignored.Another participant, Cyd, shared that they were treated for gonorrhea multiple times before doing their own research and discovering that the symptoms were actually common among people who have been on testosterone for over a decade it was vaginal atrophy, not an STI. [I]t was atrophy and the doctors had no f**king idea, he said. In short, the reproductive health industry is failing trans masculine people, with doctors seemingly caring for them the exact same way they would for cis women, despite their different needs. There is, at baseline, a lack of information about reproductive care for trans people, and misinformation is common, AJ Eckert, Attending Doctor for the Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine Center for Trans Youth Health and Development at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, told LGBTQ Nation. There is limited data on the sexual and reproductive health needs of trans communities, and many assumptions are made based on cisnormative and heteronormative experiences.Doctors had no idea what to do with us, Buenahora told LGBTQ Nation. So, the Reproductive Masculinity project was born out of that necessity of being like, Im having these conversations [about reproductive healthcare] in private in my living room with my friends. How do we make this into more common knowledge? Because the medical system is not doing it, nor is the movement for reproductive justice. Reproductive justice is gender-affirming careThis gap in care and advocacy has only become more urgent in the aftermath of Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization (2022), which overturned the constitutional right to abortion. In the wake of that decision, it has become increasingly clear that the fight for reproductive justice is inseparable from the broader struggle for bodily autonomy, including the right to gender-affirming care, and that these legal attacks are part of a coordinated and interconnected campaign.In fact, the same far-right organizations that fought to overturn Roe including the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Heritage Foundation, and the Family Policy Alliance are now leading the charge to ban gender-affirming care and pass sweeping anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. These groups operate with coordinated legal strategies, shared political networks, and deep institutional resources. Their end goal is clear: Restrict bodily autonomy for all, beginning with the most marginalized.Chiron, Repro Masculinity Project | Ale Pedraza Buenahora Right now, were witnessing the government strip away our bodily autonomy banning abortion, attacking trans health care, and targeting our right to exist, transgender rights activist Ash Lazarus Orr told LGBTQ Nation. These fights are deeply connected and intertwined. When abortion access is under attack, so are trans people.Orr isnt alone in seeing these attacks as inexorably connected. Buenahora told LGBTQ Nation that to them, Gender affirming care and reproductive health feel a lot like one and the same, at least when it comes to me and my other trans friends and my community.This coordinated legal agenda is already reshaping constitutional law. Recently, in U.S. v. Skrmetti, the Supreme Court upheld Tennessees ban on gender-affirming care for minors by relying on Dobbs and Geduldig v. Aiello (1974) a case that held excluding pregnancy from a state insurance plan did not amount to sex discrimination. Skrmetti is a warning: The rollback of abortion rights is just the beginning. In fact, Dobbs narrow reading of the Fourteenth Amendment limiting protections to those deeply rooted in 19th-century history now threatens access to contraception, as well as the rights to same-sex intimacy and marriage. These are the next rights on the chopping block. Theyre going to go after birth control, Buenahora told LGBTQ Nation. Theyre going to go to anything that controls reproductive systems.The erosion of the right to access birth control could further complicate an already challenging process for trans men seeking care, forcing those who can afford it to travel out of state, while leaving others to rely on less reliable methods of contraception or go without it entirely. Reclaiming space This moment demands that reproductive rights organizations explicitly include trans people within their framework. As health care ethicist Emmeline Rabelais told LGBTQ Nation, reproductive justice is necessary for everyone, because it is an equity-based human rights framework that makes it clear who needs/deserves specific and focused care.Without this lens, transmasculine people have too often been excluded from conversations about reproductive health, even as they face some of the most severe consequences of reproductive injustice.Doctors had no idea what to do with us.Ale Pedraza Buenahora, creator of the Repro Masculinity Project Trans people have been historically and continue to be marginalized and experience higher rates of discrimination, stigma, violence, prejudice, poverty, and poor social support, Eckert told LGBTQ Nation. In terms of health care, we have higher rates of violence while accessing care, lower rates of health insurance, and often experience refusal of treatment. Research shows that trans people often experience misdiagnoses and denial of care, heightened risks during pregnancy, lack of access to affirming contraception, and systemic erasure, which places their health and autonomy in jeopardy.When trans men do choose to carry a pregnancy, they often face stigma, misgendering, and a lack of informed care.It was a cookie-cutter process, and I didnt feel listened to, said Repro Masculinity Project participant Kayne. I got she/her all the time, and I never corrected anybody because I just didnt want to be a bother or whatever, so I was being misgendered all the time.Kayne, Repro Masculinity Project | Ale Pedraza Buenahora There is also a frequent refusal from medical professionals to take the experiences and symptoms of trans men seriously. After undergoing an egg retrieval procedure, Rosin, another participant, experienced chest pain and developed a persistent cough. Their symptoms were dismissed. I had an allergic reaction to the drugs, but the doctors didnt believe me, Rosin explained. It was really scary and the medical doctors told me I should take a valium or some anxiety meds because it was probably just stress.In the face of this ongoing discrimination and systemic neglect, the Repro Masculinity Project offers a vital space for community care. It feels like all our rights are being stripped away from all the sides, said Buenahora. So, its just like, what can we go back to? To really organize and strategize. And I really like that spirit of just being like, heres something that I made for my community.This sense of reclaiming space and visibility is echoed by the participants themselves, who emphasize the importance of being included in conversations too often shaped without them.I wanted to participate in this project because I feel like trans masculine people are kept out of the conversation when were discussing reproductive healthcare and reproductive justice, Jo E said in an interview with Buenahora. Theres something about this kind of intersectionality that isnt easily digestible or easily condensed into storylines or soundbites. So often, trans health care and reproductive health care get siloed, but its important for all people to share their stories in ways that are intentional, nuanced, and where they feel empowered.Buenahora told LGBTQ Nation that the far-right not only sees these issues as connected, but also benefits from siloing trans rights and reproductive rights to weaken both movements. As such, it is imperative that these movements fight back by working together. Thats the tactics that have been used forever, right? By the far right to create silos, to separate us in order to be able to attack us more easily, even though the same exact language is being used to attack trans people and people who could get pregnant or people with reproductive bodies.This strategy of division not only makes it easier to target marginalized communities; it also fosters harmful silences within our own movements, Buenahora explained.Too many trans organizations stay silent on reproductive justice. That silence is harmful, Orr said. Abortion is a trans issue. Reproductive care is gender-affirming care. When our own advocacy spaces fail to acknowledge that, we fail the most vulnerable in our community especially rural, low-income, and BIPOC transmasc people who already face enormous barriers to care.Orr emphasized the need for trans-led organizations to boldly name abortion access as a trans issue. Our survival depends on it, he said. Empathy from unexpected placesOrr himself had an abortion he called lifesaving. Pregnancy was deeply dysphoric and traumatic. Choosing abortion allowed me to reclaim my body and protect my health; it was gender-affirming care in every sense.Abortion is a trans issue. Reproductive care is gender-affirming care. When our own advocacy spaces fail to acknowledge that, we fail the most vulnerable in our communityAsh Lazarus Orr, trans rights activist Many of the people featured in the Repro Masculinity project also described abortion care as a form of gender-affirming care.Just like with my abortion, I didnt think it was going to be gender-affirming, but what I realized immediately after is that my body felt less woman and I love it, said Jo E.Cyd, Repro Masculinity Project | Ale Pedraza BuenahoraOf course, every trans person is unique, and other participants, like Sus, absolutely loved being pregnant. For them, the care they needed was also gender-affirming. It was the first time I was in my body in a real waythese parts of me are functioning. I felt like I had superpowers, they said. I loved being pregnant. I loved labor and birth, and I loved nursing too.The piece of all this that often gets lost is that cisgender people also rely on healthcare as a form of gender-affirming care. This includes hormone replacement therapy (HRT), which was originally developed for cisgender people, as well as a wide range of reproductive health technologies like birth control, abortion, and IVF, that help them feel more at home in their bodies and empower them to make decisions about whether or not to have children.Conversations around reproductive rights boil down to the right of an individual to their body and the right to decide about their body. We should all be fighting for these rights, as we are all affected by them, especially trans folk, Eckert agreed. Many of us have spent years or even decades asserting our rights to our bodies and the right to be ourselves, and we are acutely aware of the institutions and bad actors working overtime to usurp our control over ourselves. Therefore, while the Repro Masculinity Project serves as a storytelling and information hub created by trans people for trans people, Buenahora also hopes that it makes the world safer by encouraging empathy from unexpected places.In my wildest dream, a trans-exclusionary radical feminist (TERF) whos been through like 17 rounds of In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) comes and reads this, and shes just like, Maybe, I shouldnt hate trans people so much. Maybe I should stop being a hater because I have so many things in common with these folks.'After all, many of the project participants invested considerable effort into family planning and actively sought to have children. Rosin, for example, has undergone multiple rounds of IVF. Both Rosin and other participants, like Kayne, have also experienced miscarriages. The rest of that year, in the winter, I was working through the grief and just wanting to try to get pregnant as soon as possible, Kayne explained. That whole year, I was really taken up with two things: the anxiety of trying to conceive, and the grief.Rosin, Repro Masculinity Project | Ale Pedraza BuenahoraAs far-right legal strategies continue to target bodily autonomy from multiple angles, the Repro Masculinity project offers not just resistance, but vision. By listening to transmasculine people and centering their experiences, we can build a reproductive justice movement thats truly liberatory for all.Regardless of what some may claim, including [trans people] in the larger fight for reproductive rights does not diminish cisgender womens experiences, Eckert explained. We are stronger together and [can] help build a more inclusive movement, challenging obstacles to care for all people.Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.