**Lesbians! Talk about your sexual health issues**

Hello Gays, Lesbians, and NBs,

Welcome to today's "ISHRAI SAYS" episode. It was on a day like this that masculine-presenting (Masc presenting for future purses) A sat beside me at a viewing centre where we sat and endured Tunisia winning us, that in my sad mood, I took out my phone and mistakenly, I should say mistakenly because it was a mistake in all sincerity and in the eyes of my ancestors who barely know me. A in all their (they use that pronoun) beauty was very busy doing scratch and win promo down there with no worry in the world, or perhaps they only worried about the pleasure that came from the scratching. Our eyes jammed while I was viewing them, as my Naija people would say.

Long story short, A and I hung out later and they told them that they were really ashamed to talk about talking about their sexual issues. Who, for the love of rainbow will be shy to talk about their sexual health problems? Don't answer that yet, cos it's not just A. I know most of us, what am I even saying, majority of us are not out to even our best friends so when you go to the hospital and the nurse say you have an STI, you know the conclusion is always a "Ceshit" man must have pumped STI into this one, as much as some of you don't care, many lesbians are shy and do not know how to deal with judgmental looks.

How do I tell these nurses that it wasn't a straight man or any man at that, except you have a nurse friend who's working in a pharmacy close to you, you wouldn't care if she thinks it's a man. The notion of your friends or nurses or doctors thinking you had sex with a man to get a sexually transmitted disease is always a reason for lesbians to not talk about their sexual issues.

Well dear sister, bruhs, and dudes, ISHRAI SAYS you should talk about your sexual health issues regardless of the wrong notion. The bottom line is that you get the help you need right?. I remember a nurse carrying out a pregnancy test on me, meanwhile, I was dying of malaria, only for aunty nurse to say, "oh, I thought you were pregnant cos you never the". Who gets pregnant without knowing? The conclusion is that people choose to be ignorant.

Go to a doctor and boldly say with your shy voice if you have one, " Doctor I feel itchy down there, and yes I had sex, my partner is getting help and I need help". Abeg, who doesn't have sex, besides, you didn’t kill anyone, you simply did what normal people do. Have sex. We no longer live in that era where sex talk is whispered, remember that. If this doesn't give you the morale you need to get help, think about how destroyed your awesome sexual life would be destroyed in the future. I know some lesbians don't give two slices of bread about childbirth so let's not touch the infertility aspect. I also know this is mean but yes, your sexual life will be in grave jeopardy if you don't talk about the issues plaguing you so you can get the necessary help you need.

I know this was inspiring, of cos it is. Stay safe and stay connected to us as we bring you "Queering 101" NEXT WEEK. You're about to get busted!

ISHRAI SAYS (LESBIANS) BY CYNTHIA NWAONYIRI

![](/uploads/woman-with-water.jpg)

Consider a community with unclean water and at the same time bedeviled by man-made and natural disasters that disrupt agricultural activities and make living difficult. In such communities, by default of gender roles and societal standards, women bear the burdens for food and water collection. When agricultural activities are disrupted by climate change, women will have to travel farther to get food and water, thereby increasing their vulnerability to gender-based violence as rape, increasing the chances for unintended pregnancies, inadvertently increasing the need for abortions. In such communities as this one, abortions are often illegal, only backed up by law when it is carried out to save the life of the pregnant woman. It is also important to mention that in communities like this, getting access to obstetric care is difficult, a factor responsible for the high rate of maternal mortality. Further, when food and water are scarce, women are more likely to engage in sex work in exchange for food in crisis settings. Women are more willing to give up food and water so their children can have them.

When we think of climate change, it’s easy to think of its general effect on human beings, however, it will be inadequate of us to see it that way. For every disaster, there are women and girls who are more vulnerable to gender-based violence, an erosion of human rights, and the bereft of emergency health or protection services. There is an urgent need to identify how these women and girls are subjects to all of these, and the experience is not just the sum of its parts. Kimberly Crenshaw (2020), explained intersectionality as a lens, a prism, for seeing the way in which various forms of inequality often operate together and exacerbate each other. Without an intersectional lens, our efforts to tackle climate injustice are likely to just end up perpetuating systems of inequalities. Providing clean water in a community might just be the catalyst for sexual assault and rape. Climate change policies need to be reformed to highlight the struggles of multiple identities to provide inclusive actions.

Oxfam (2019), published a report **_Forced from Home: Climate-Fueled Displacement_** and an estimated 20 million people are forced from their homes in a year by climate-fueled disasters. For women and girls of reproductive age, displacement—the loss of their homes, their livelihoods, and their normal social structure—very often means access to reproductive and contraceptive services is disrupted or non-existent. Countries in the developing world least responsible for the growing emissions are likely to experience the heaviest impact of climate change, with women bearing the greatest toll.

As the dialogues around climate change intensify, it is important that women’s voices be at the center of the conversation and not just for appearance’s sake, but to ensure experiences are not overlooked. In her Nature article, **_“Considering Climate in Studies of Fertility and Reproductive Health in Poor Countries,”_** Kathryn Grace (2017) looks at how studies of contemporary fertility transitions are better served when they include the impacts of climate change. Grace points out that climate and reproductive health intersect to influence nutrition, food security, resource scarcity, and income, as well as patterns of time use and physical labor.

The International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) in 2019 stated that 214 million women and girls who want contraception currently do not have access to it, and there are 99.1 million unplanned pregnancies a year globally. These figures can be undeniably linked to the effect of climate change most especially in countries with high vulnerability to climate change and low access to modern contraceptives and comprehensive sex education. It is imperative for women and girls to have children by choice and be educated to be equipped at handling environmental shocks such as floods, droughts, etc. when they strike.

Progress in climate change cannot be complete if climate change policies are no developed through the lens of reproductive justice and women must be empowered by education to become key players in climate change adaptation and mitigation. Polices and strategies for climate justice must always support women and girls in exercising their sexual and reproductive health and rights and in making safe, voluntary, informed reproductive decisions with dignity.

Time. 2021. _She Coined The Term ‘Intersectionality’ Over 30 Years Ago. Here’s What It Means To Her Today_. \[online\] Available at: <[https://time.com/5786710/kimberle-crenshaw-intersectionality/](https://time.com/5786710/kimberle-crenshaw-intersectionality/ "https://time.com/5786710/kimberle-crenshaw-intersectionality/")> \[Accessed 23 January 2021\].

Oxfam International. 2021. _Forced From Home: Climate-Fueled Displacement | Oxfam International_. \[online\] Available at: <[https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/forced-home-climate-fuelled-displacement](https://time.com/5786710/kimberle-crenshaw-intersectionality/ "https://time.com/5786710/kimberle-crenshaw-intersectionality/")> \[Accessed 23 January 2021\].

Grace, K., 2017. Considering climate in studies of fertility and reproductive health in poor countries. _Nature Climate Change_, 7(7), pp.479-485.

IPPF. 2021. _Think Sexual Health Isn’t Linked To Climate Change? Think Again | IPPF_. \[online\] Available at: <[https://www.ippf.org/sexual-health-climate-change](https://time.com/5786710/kimberle-crenshaw-intersectionality/ "https://time.com/5786710/kimberle-crenshaw-intersectionality/")> \[Accessed 23 January 2021\].

ISHRAI

News/Blog

ISHRAI SAYS (LESBIANS) BY CYNTHIA NWAONYIRI3rd Mar, 2022

Intersecting issues obstructing climate and reproductive justice (Tobi Ayodele)12th Apr, 2021