From dismay to acceptance
she finished her school days ‘trying to ignore MRKH and focussing instead on ‘passing exams and falling in love with the best boy ever’ who she told about her condition ‘after a year of panicking’ so she could undergo treatment that would enable them to have sex.
‘He couldn’t have been more supportive if he tried,’ says Tasha (she’s still with the same partner). ‘I was utterly broken by my treatment, depressed about my body and was far away from anything close to what womanly feels like.’
That was years ago, but even now, 24-year-old Tasha – who describes herself as an activist, feminist and founder of The Pants Project (see box) admits she has not fully come to terms with her MRKH. ‘It’s a journey I am still on,’ she says. ‘I was so incredibly shocked by the diagnosis, I ignored it for a long time. So many people had told me there was nothing wrong and that I was overthinking it, so to suddenly be told that everything you thought your life was is absolutely not what your life is going to be...’ She trails off but one can fill in the blanks.
‘All my friends were exploring their bodies in a sexual way and I was just so far from that,’ she says. ‘There were times when I was confused about my gender. I used to ask: “Am I really a woman? Can I call myself a woman?” I was so angry at my body and hated it. I was angry that my friends talked about periods all the time and
I couldn’t be part of that conversation. All I wanted was for someone to sit with me in the whole grief of it and say ‘It’s really s***”.’
A Fertility Fest at The Barbican in May was the first time Tasha had spoken in front of people with MRKH, and she cried onstage. ‘I had been covering up how I felt,’ she says. ‘I’d been trying to seem powerful and perhaps not truthful about how difficult it was.’
She describes her feelings as a ‘kind of imposter syndrome’ and adds, ‘People would message me and say I was a leader or spokesperson for MRKH and I’d think “I’m not” because most of the time I cry about it. I felt like a fraud because I was giving off this image of power… but inside I was crumbling.’
It was these feelings that led to her decision to produce the podcast Body Language, which launched in September and focuses less on what a body looks like and more how it functions.
The podcast features a different guest each week, each of whom explore what it’s like to have a body that doesn’t fit society’s standards of ‘normal’. These include Freddy McConnell, the trans man who gave birth to his own child and Anna Whitehouse (Mother Pukka) who talks about her experience of infertility. ‘I wanted to create a space where lots of people with different conditions and body types could seek solace,’ Tasha says.
Her future guest list is ambitious – she has her heart set on Jameela Jamil and Lena Dunham. The latter’s battle with endometriosis Tasha finds particularly meaningful. ‘Doctors telling women to ignore pain and symptoms really resonated with me,’ she says.
And her reach is global – Tasha receives messages from women from all over the world including those whose lives are threatened by the fact they can’t have children. ‘A woman contacted me from the United Arab Emirates and said that her husband was going to lock her away if she couldn’t have children,’ she says.
So what advice does Tasha have for anyone struggling to accept their body? ‘I find I accept my body more the less I use social media and the more I use [my body],’ she says. ‘Exercise made me realise the potential of my body and made me fall in love with it again. ‘Body acceptance in terms of what it can do is more important than what it looks like or how it fits society’s expectations. I’d just say get out and use it a lot more.’
I was utterly broken by my treatment, depressed about my body