Canadian women finally received some reproductive autonomy when birth control and abortion became legal1 in 1969. That’s the same year a man went to the moon.
Let that sink in.
It’s time for us to start holding people with penises2 more accountable for pregnancy prevention. It’s time hormonal birth control for penises makes its moon landing.
*Record scratch*
Actually, let’s do two things at once. Let’s talk about (1) expanding the birth control market and (2) using gender inclusive terms. It’s vital healthcare workers and activists use gender inclusive language to talk about reproductive justice. This helps support the health and safety of trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming folks.
“Abortion is an issue of bodily autonomy. Being trans is an issue of bodily autonomy. Abortion is a trans issue,” says journalist and trans woman Parker Molloy in an article for Rewire News Group.
The right to bodily autonomy extends to all reproductive and sexual healthcare issues. Birth control is about bodily autonomy. Trans and gender diverse folks have just as much right to it as cis folks.
Okay, time to continue.
There are two kinds of birth control currently available for people with penises: condoms and vasectomies. The market is flooded with different products for people with uteruses which range from non-hormonal, hormonal, non-invasive, and invasive.
Birth control helps give people who can get pregnant agency over their bodies and sexual health, which is huge considering birth control has only been legal for about 50 years. It’s an essential part of healthcare and used for more than just pregnancy protection.
But contraception comes with challenges.
Financial accessibility, social stigma, biased doctors, and birth control’s physical effects are added stressors for people with uteruses.
A disinterested Supreme Court enforced the Texas abortion ban, which shocked pro-choicers and activists across borders on September 1, 2021. The right to legal abortion is constantly being threatened, but awareness is on the rise. Now’s the perfect time to usher in extra supports.
There would be less pressure on the physical and emotional health of people who can get pregnant if more birth control options existed on the market for people with penises. More birth control options could help reduce unintended pregnancies, which make up almost half of all pregnancies in Canada.
Canada hasn’t had a law regulating abortion since 1988, leaving it to each province and territory to make their own restrictions. Trudeau’s Liberal party held back health funding from New Brunswick in 2017 and 2021 as punishment because the province refused to fund abortions.
*1 Although Canada legalized abortion in 1969, doctors acted as its gatekeepers and women could only access abortion if their pregnancy caused them serious medical risk. The fight for true reproductive autonomy continues today.
*2 An important note: not all men have penises and not all people with penises have sex with people with uteruses. People with penises include cis men, trans women, non-binary folks, and other gender diverse folks.
Trudeau’s recent campaigns mention reducing these provincial restrictions, but the action the Liberals plan to take is unclear. Anti-abortion clinics — a.k.a. “fake clinics” — still run across Canada and make abortion tough to access. In an URBANIA article, writer Mali Navia says “a bogus clinic (or anti-choice center) is a place that advises pregnant people about their options […] these centers share bad information about abortion and seek to arouse guilt on the subject.”
Navia’s article followed a Facebook post from the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada sending a warning to folks across Canada about fake clinics spreading misinformation on abortion.
Accessible and inclusive sexual education and birth control help lower the need for abortion. More importantly it lowers the need for women, trans, and non-binary folks to navigate our judgemental healthcare system3.
So, let’s talk about birth control for people with penises!
Hormonal birth control for people with penises has been in trial for years. It’s more effective at preventing pregnancy than using condoms alone. If used properly, condoms prevent pregnancy 87-97 per cent of the time, but birth control pills, patches, rings, and shots are around 97-99 per cent effective.
Three types of hormonal contraceptives are in the works: a pill, a gel, and a shot.
A jam in the pharmaceutical industry is clearly putting a stand-still on birth control for people with penises. An NPR article discusses the mixed results from a birth control shot trial given to 320 men, which was commissioned by the World Health Organization. The shot itself was highly effective in preventing pregnancy (96%), but its side effects made a lot of the men drop out of the study. The shot caused them to have severe mood swings and depression which led some to attempting suicide.
“There’s a little bit of a different risk-benefit analysis when it comes to men using a contraceptive,” says the article.
People with uteruses have more at stake when they don’t use contraception. Becoming pregnant, dealing with the pregnancy, and the stigma they may face if they become pregnant make them willing to deal with more — including harsh side effects like nausea, breast discomfort, irregular vaginal bleeding, less interest in sex, mood change, skin (acne) change, heart attacks, stroke, and blood clots. But people with uteruses don’t always have the option to drop out of the birth control game.
Dr. Stephanie Page is a professor at the UW Medicine and part of an American network trying to develop new approaches to birth control for folks with penises. Page spoke with Piya Chattopadhyay about these birth control approaches on an episode of CBC’s The Current back in March 2019. She hoped these new contraceptives would be on the market in a decade…ish.
Unlike ovaries which produce one, maybe two eggs per menstrual cycle, testicles make millions of sperm every day. Page says trying to find the right amount of hormone to halt these sperm while keeping side effects low to zero is the big challenge.
Page also says the pharmaceutical industry stopped showing interest in birth control for people with penises almost ten years ago because it’s new and hasn’t gone through long-term testing. In other words, this type of birth control has never been done before…so why do it?
“The pharmaceutical industry had been slow to get behind the idea of a new male contraceptive despite good evidence that both men and their female partners would welcome the additional choice,”4 said University of Edinburgh professor Richard Anderson in a 2019 article for BBC.
The fight for abortion and birth control rights back in the 1960s, as the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada says, was to “enable ciswomen to enjoy equal opportunity and respect as autonomous human beings in their own right, instead of being held primarily to a childbearing and/or sexual role in which they are generally subordinated to men.” We now know ciswomen are not the only oppressed gender.
Having more gender-inclusive birth control options (and language) available in the reproductive healthcare system would help women, trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming folks gain more bodily autonomy — something everyone has a right to.
…So, what do you think will happen first?
1) Jeff Bezos will fly to the moon.
2) Birth control for people with penises will hit the market.
*3 The Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada published a paper in April 2021 talking about the stigma trans and gender non-conforming folks face, specifically in health care. A 2019 survey showed 45% of trans and non-binary folks reported having one or more unmet healthcare needs over that past year.
*4 This is an example of why using inclusive language surrounding contraception is important. Pregnancy isn’t exclusive, or a guarantee, for “men and their female partners.” Push that cis-heteronormativity aside, folks! It’s 2022!