Blackfishing Presents: Tight Lipped's "The Trust Gap"
We are on a continuum of an increase of more and more women, and people with uteri and/or vaginas, becoming insistently expressive and descriptive about lived experience, about medical gaslighting and injustice, and about actual pain. So we’d like to recommend another podcast that’s doing similar work to ours here and one that has truly illuminated a hidden and yet so common condition that people are struggling with, not only because it’s a really difficult thing to manage, but because of shame, gaslighting, inattention, lack of research—all of the things. The podcast is called Tight Lipped. Tight Lipped is a storytelling podcast that’s creating a public conversation about vaginal and pelvic pain. In the US, up to 1 in 4 people with vaginas will have chronic pain with intercourse at some point in their lives—yet most of them will struggle to get a diagnosis, treatment, or be taken seriously. Tight Lipped wants to know: If so many women have conditions that cause pain with penetration, why are none of us talking about it? Each episode peels back another layer of shame and secrecy. The show features personal stories of pain with insight from experts about sexism in our healthcare system. Tight Lipped is hosted by Noa Fleischacker who is navigating her own healthcare journey with vaginal pain. In this episode, “The Trust Gap,” Noa, talking with journalists and experts like Maya Dusenbery and Paula Kamen, takes a look inside the exam room to try to understand why so many people with vaginas that hurt have to seek out dozens of doctors before getting a diagnosis, let alone a treatment plan. We hope you’ll take a listen!