One day I went to the doctor for an STI check. He looked down his nose at me and asked why I needed one. I told him the truth: I’d had multiple partners, and I try to get an exam every time I change partners.

He gave me a lecture on false negatives and tried to refuse to run the test for a “nice” (38-year-old, white) woman like me. I firmly insisted.

The next time I was in, I started to tell the nurse practitioner my story of why I needed an STI check, and she just shrugged and said, “Seems to me that if you say you need it, then you need it. No skin off my back.”

I felt so redeemed in that moment. That’s how reproductive health care should be: judgment-free and patient-centered.