Women in the UK report that healthcare professionals told them they couldn't receive internal examinations because they weren't sexually active. Sophia Smith Galer of Vice News:
"A 30-year-old woman who was told she couldn't receive the test because she was a "virgin" at Croydon University Hospital last week, and whose identity is being protected for privacy reasons, told VICE World News, "It's 2022, for crying out loud. Women have to lie just to get their health checked, because apparently our well-being revolves around men. This is what purity culture has done to us."
This refusal to provide care goes against ultrasound guidelines in Britain which clearly state that transvaginal examinations must be provided irrespective of whether patients have had penetrative sex.
"The concept of virginity plays no part in the clinical decision making for a TVUS, and the examination should be offered by the ultrasound practitioner, when clinically indicated. It is, however, acknowledged that health tests such as cervical screening and TVUS may be more uncomfortable for patients who have not had penetrative sex, and therefore the ultrasound practitioner must be extra vigilant if they are to proceed."
Deenah Al-Aqsa wrote that "at least six healthcare professionals assumed that I was a virgin because of my hijab and denied me the scan"' in a piece for The Femedic:
"Our patriarchal culture glorifies virginity, and this trickles down into clinical attitudes – allowing an ancient and harmful ideal to be seen as more important than a patient's bodily autonomy."
