Women Are Being Denied Transvaginal Ultrasounds Because They Are Virgins

In December 2022, Vice News released a report claiming multiple U.K. women had been denied transvaginal ultrasounds (TVUS) because they were virgins.

TVUS are designed to help doctors get a better look at the female reproductive system, including the ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterus, cervix, and general pelvic area. The technician inserts a wand 2 to 3 inches into the vaginal canal during the exam. The wand sends photos of a patient’s insides to a computer using sound waves. The procedure lasts anywhere from a few minutes to 45 minutes, depending on the purpose of the exam. This imaging system can be helpful in checking on a pregnancy or diagnosing conditions like endometriosis. People sometimes require transvaginal ultrasounds to determine the cause of extreme pelvic pain.

The women interviewed for Vice’s report claim medical professionals questioned them about their sexual history during their visit. When the women said they were virgins, they were denied the procedure, a denial driven by medical misinformation and conservative values. One anonymous woman told Vice that after she sought medical treatment for heavy, painful periods, her gynecologist told her she couldn’t have a TVUS, “because it’s painful for some women and if I penetrate you with this tool, you’ll no longer be a virgin.”

Multiple experts have said that virginity shouldn’t prohibit any doctor from offering the procedure to a patient. Instead, the patient should decide whether or not they would go through with it.

According to Vice, guidance from the British Medical Ultrasound Society says “if a patient has not had penetrative sex, they are still entitled to be offered, and to accept, a TVUS [transvaginal ultrasound] in the same way that cervical screening is offered to all eligible patients.” The Society added that “the concept of virginity plays no part in the clinical decision-making for a TVUS” and that while health tests such as cervical screening and TVUS may be more uncomfortable for patients who have not had penetrative sex, this just means that the ultrasound practitioner should be “extra vigilant if they are to proceed.”

Virginity is a patriarchal social construct with no basis in biology. However, myths about virginity persist even in the medical community. Some still believe that the state of someone’s hymen determines whether or not they’ve had penetrative sex. This is based on the false idea that the hymen is a membrane that completely covers the internal vaginal opening and that only penetrative sex would disrupt this membrane. But if this were true, how could blood exit the body during menstruation? In fact, the hymen is just tissue leftover from prenatal development. There’s variety in shape and how much it covers. It can tear from non-sexual activities and stay intact during penetrative sex. Subscribing to this biological myth rests on a narrow understanding of sex that is solely penetrative, excluding members of the LGBTQ community who rely on nonpenetrative sex.

An overemphasis on virginity is present in many patriarchal cultures and used as a tool to subordinate women. Misogynistic cultural traditions often paint virgin women as “pure” and nonvirgin women, especially unmarried ones, as corrupt or evil. While this distinction may not be overtly present in these instances of denying women TVUS, these doctors are using sexual activity to strip these women of their agency and right to make their own medical decisions. The result leaves women not only feeling pressured into having sex but also with the physical pain of an undiagnosed medical issue.

One anonymous source explained to Vice, “It’s 2022, for crying out loud. Women have to lie just to get their health checked because apparently our well-being revolves around men. This is what purity culture has done to us.”

Unfortunately, this bias in the health care system isn’t limited to the U.K. A 2019 Teen Vogue article described the same phenomenon, and The Jerusalem Post followed up Vice’s report with an article on virgins being denied health care elsewhere in the world.

In a piece for The Femedic, queer Muslim writer Deenah Al-Aqsa claimed, “at least six health care professionals assumed that I was a virgin because of my hijab and denied me the scan.” She said she was “in inordinate amounts of pain already each month, and a little more wouldn’t make a huge difference.”

This denial of health care speaks to a broader problem in the health care system — namely, a pattern of doctors not trusting women’s concerns, especially women of color. If our society claims to value women’s lives, then taking their medical complaints seriously and allowing them to make their own choices is essential. To do this, the medical community has to confront its assumptions about female patients and make conscious efforts not to let outdated, misogynistic values take the place of genuine care.