I am a woman who was born without a womb and a vagina. A trans woman compared herself to me.
Hey I am new here and first of all, it is nice to see some group that allows me to speak out on things I could never say out loud. Honestly I just wanted to rant about this thing that happened in the past.
I am also writing this because I think my condition might be interesting to read about! With all the discussions on what defines womanhood, I think it's important that I'm very open about this. It's a very rare disorder and girls who have this often feel misunderstood by everyone including medical professionals, who usually don't even know about this yet.
In short: I am an MRK woman. MRK is a very rare physical disorder that caused my vagina (as in only the inside only as you probably know, the outside looks normal) and womb to not develop. I also have one underdeveloped ovary, and another one that is fine. A lot of the women also suffer from kidney problems and bad posture/other skeletal issues. As a result I have no periods and I am unable to get pregnant. I was also unable to have sex for most of my teen years.
This caused me and other MRK women serious mental issues. I never cared much for pregnancy and I have already decided on adoption, but it really left a strain on me being left by every guy I dated after 2 weeks because I didn't want to or couldn't have sex. It really hurt my self-worth.
Other MRK women who had a child wish for years suddenly hear they are unable to ever bear a child at a young age. Some are left by their husbands due to religious family expecting a kid from them. You don't feel like a women sometimes. Your mom might feel guilty for somehow creating you incomplete, wondering if it was something she did wrong during pregnancy. It sucks.
Now, in my country we have a big support group for this disorder and we even have a yearly national day where Dutch and Belgian women can come together to share experiences and feelings. It is so rare that only 10 women my age showed up when I was there! It was amazing to talk to teen girls going through this too.
After a few national MRK days, we got a news letter from the foundation. One of the articles was a request from a trans woman: They were asking us if it would be okay for her to attend our meeting, because she felt sad about not having a womb and not being able to fulfill her wish to be pregnant.
First of all, how is that even remotely close to what we go through? You have always known you couldn't get pregnant. The girl who sat next to me, had always thought she could bear a child, until she wenr to the docter. She just thought her hymen or labia were closed, since she felt nothing down there, but hears that she doesn't even have the womb to carry her child, ever.
How do you have the audacity to ask us to include you.
Besides I don't understand the NEED to be pregnant that trans women have sometimes. As if that's another thing that you NEED in order to feel like you're a "true women"...
There is already barely any of us, can you imagine them bringing 9 trans friends in the future and 20 percent of the support group being trans people sobbing about not feeling like real women??
Anyways I didn't reply to the request because I didn't know how to form my words in a way that wouldn't be offensive, since she asked nicely, but honestly: no, you're insensitive go find a trans support group.
Edit: i wanted to say thanks for all the nice comments I finally feel like I'm not alone or attacked for some feelings I have. Thanks for the suggestions on how to nicely inform this person as well. As I said It happened quite a while ago but I will make sure to adress the issue in a nice matter if it ever comes up again in my community. We deserve a safe place too.