Chloé Hayden Instagram – Since 13, my life has been taken by debilitating pain, dismissed as ‘you’re a woman, deal with it’.  So for over a decade, I did. I dealt with waking up vomiting from pain, lying in the bathroom screaming while my stomach back and legs felt like they were being stabbed, passing out, 2am visits to the emergency ward and being turned away with Panadol, with a pain on the same pain scale as heart attacks and labour pains. Every single day.  Finally, I was diagnosed with severe endometriosis and adenomyosis; both progressive disorders in the top 10 most painful conditions in the world, and found on every organ in the body. There is no cure, and our governments lack of education and care for AFAB folk means the average time to get a diagnosis is 10 years, with 2/3 being misdiagnosed first.  50% of endometriosis sufferers will suffer from infertility 1/6 will lose their jobs Excessive bleeding (even when not on your period), pain, fatigue and overall reduced quality of life are just a few things that we go through every day. AFAB folk are taught that pain is normal, to be silent. Recent studies show that women are left out of the equation all together during research, with most researchers refusing to use female rodents in their clinical pain trials as the menstrual cycles of female rats adds too much variability (ha.) 
And after surgery, women are more likely to be prescribed anti depressants and sedatives for pain, while men are more likely to be prescribed actual pain medication when they have surgery for similar things. If you’re autistic there’s a new level of ‘it’s all in their head’ when seeking an endometriosis diagnosis, and is further exacerbated when the autistic person has been societally conditioned to mask, to fear speaking up, or if their body is unable to feel pain. If you are otherwise disabled, BIPOC or living below the poverty line, accessing support statistically grows worse. If you’ve been told your pain is normal, it’s not. If cis men had periods, it would be the ultimate sign of masculinity, they would praise and boast about their cycles and pain would be eradicated. If cis men had endometriosis, there would be a cure. There is no excuse.