Between Our Legs: Silence-Breaking Personal Narratives on Gynecological Health

In a world where even saying the word "vagina" can feel taboo, Between Our Legs breaks the silence surrounding gynecological health. Featuring essays by award-winning authors Nina de Gramont, Nafissa Thompson-Spires, and Jessica Hendry Nelson, as well as by practicing medical experts, this collection explores topics ranging from childbirth, menopause, abortion, endometriosis, and PMOS to yeast and urinary tract infections, while contending with the shame, frustrations, and stigmas that women, nonbinary, and trans individuals navigate when searching for basic care.

Between Our Legs serves as a catalyst for difficult conversations. It illustrates the necessity of not just having access to basic gynecological care, but good, equitable, patient-centered care. Care that sees the patient as a whole person, not solely as someone capable of making a baby. As reproductive rights and maternal healthcare are stripped away in state after state, it's urgent that our voices be heard, elevated, and addressed. The consequences for not doing so can be fatal.

Justine Payton's writing has appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, Isele Magazine, The Masters Review, and Terrain.org, among others. She lives in Michigan.

Caroline Beuley's writing has appeared in Chestnut Review, Cleaver, Fractured, and F(r)iction, among others. On Substack, she runs a writing club and writes a bestselling newsletter, Fairy Tales by Caroline. She lives in Washington, D.C.

Mikki Kendall is a writer, diversity consultant, and occasional feminist; she has appeared on the BBC, NPR, The Daily Show, PBS, Good Morning America, MSNBC, Al Jazeera, WBEZ, and Showtime, and discusses race, feminism, police violence, tech, and pop culture at institutions and universities across the country. She is the author of TheNew York Times-bestselling book Hood Feminism (recipient of the Chicago Review of Books Award and named a best book of the year by the BBC, Bustle, and TIME). She is also the author of Amazons, Abolitionists, and Activists, a graphic novel illustrated by A. D'Amico. Her essays can be found in TIME, The New York Times, The Guardian, TheWashington Post, Essence, Vogue, The Boston Globe, NBC, and a host of other publications.