His fame came at the cost of repeatedly conducting painful experimental surgeries on enslaved black women without anesthesia. Yikes. Fucking terrifying. One woman was experimented on over 30 times. Slave owners would lend him their enslaved women, or he would acquire some himself which he kept in a shack in his backyard. Often when a fresh idea popped into his head, he would go out into the backyard and pick one of the women to test his theories on, rousing them at any hour of the day or night. 

Sims operated under the racist belief that blacks could not feel pain. This racist belief still plays out in today's medical system with doctors not giving black people the same amount of pain medication or anesthesia for the same procedures as whites. Black women were considered property to patch up and put back to work to continue to reproduce for economic gain. In fact, the motivation to further womens’ health was hardly a thought during that time. Examining and treating female organs was widely considered offensive and unsavory-hello misogyny . Sims’ himself stated in his autobiography, “If there was anything I hated, it was investigating the organs of the female pelvis.” So why did he get into the profession? It was in Montgomery Alabama that Sims built his reputation among rich, white plantation owners by treating their human property. He saw a way to build his reputation and fortune in the medical profession through the slave trade. 

The practice of operating on enslaved women was not unusual and he openly describes his experiences in his autobiography The Story of My Life. He states “There was never a time that I could not, at any day, have had a subject for operation.” The easy access to enslaved women's bodies, as well as poor Irish women in New York state later on in his career, were what allowed the medical profession to advance and become legitimate. It's important to remember that the American institutions that we have now, were born out of bondage. We have typically written the history of medicine as praising “great men”. However, the forgotten patients, the true heroes and heroines, were often left out. These women are the ones to whom we owe a great deal of debt for our “progress”, and at the very least they deserve remembrance and for us to know the truth.

Today, we know three of the names of the female fistula patients from Sims’s own records—Lucy, Anarcha, and Betsey. All of which should be honored and remembered. 

Even prominent celebrities have spoken out about gynecological violation today, such as Simon Biles and the women’s USA gymnastics team. It doesn’t have to be this extreme though. It can feel violating if someone doesn’t explain why they are inserting a speculum or why they are poking around. We haven’t talked much about birthing trauma, but this overlaps significantly into this conversation. Birthing trauma can occur form lack of medical attention during a birth, from the physical trauma of having a C-section, or physically tearing, as well as many others factors.

These experiencing live in our bodies and in our nervous systems until they are allowed the space to complete, be released, and renegotiated. These are things are often overlook when we talk about overcoming trauma. Necessary medical procedures, check-ups, and surgeries can all register in the nervous system as traumatic even if we know they are necessary.

These things can be healed. I highly recommend seeing a Somatic Experiencing trauma resolution practitioner. Also, there are people trained in pelvic floor work who can help with address physical injuries and internal trauma. Doing this together with trauma work can REALLY help. Resolving birth or gynecological trauma is at the root of healing many symptoms. Your body won’t knows the way, but we often do need support.

It is important that we “normal”ize the range of women’s gynecological and birth experiences, everything from enjoyable and healing ones, to traumatic and overwhelming ones, so that as women we can heal from these experiences together.