Sis, It’s Not Just Stress.Why Black Women Deserve Better PCOS Care.

When Silence Fails Us

PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) is not invisible, but its effects can be, especially in Black women. When we’re ignored medically and culturally, our symptoms become normalized and experienced in silence, and then when a figure like Lori Harvey names her struggle publicly, it jolts that silence into mainstream coffee conversations.

PCOS Beyond Hormones

PCOS is defined by irregular ovulation, hormonal imbalances (including hyperandrogenism), and ovarian changes. Over time, the condition drives metabolic risk, think diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease.
But for Black women, those metabolic risks sharpen faster. Studies show that Black women with PCOS are more likely to develop insulin resistance, hypertension, and elevated cardiac risk even controlling for weight or BMI.

Fertility, Race & PCOS: The Unequal Terrain

PCOS disrupts ovulation and thereby complicates fertility. But in Black women, fertility outcomes are further impacted by systemic barriers. We have limited access to fertility treatment, bias in referral, delays in diagnosis, and fewer resources. Some U.S. studies suggest that Black women undergoing IVF (with or without PCOS) have lower live birth rates compared to white women under the same protocols.

Making Pain Believable: The Celebrity Factor 

It can be jarring and even painful to live through the chaos of your own body, to experience hormonal hell, and have every symptom minimized or brushed off. Then, one day, a celebrity shares their story and suddenly the world starts to care. The same pain that left you dismissed is now trending under a hashtag.

That contradiction is heavy.
For many Black women, being told “it’s just stress” or “you’ll be fine” has been a familiar refrain, until someone with a platform, access, and visibility names the same struggle. And while it’s validating to see your experience reflected in public, it’s also frustrating that it takes fame for our pain to be believed.

Voices matter. Especially when they bridge the gap between silence and visibility.

• Keke Palmer has been vocal about living with PCOS, helping younger Black women recognize their own symptoms and push for answers.

• Sasha Pieterse has spoken openly about motherhood after PCOS, proving that fertility is possible even when the path is difficult.

• Lori Harvey shared that for years, her symptoms, crippling pain, acne, weight shifts, and hormonal swings were dismissed as “normal.” It wasn’t until a new doctor diagnosed her with PCOS and endometriosis that her pain was finally acknowledged.

She’s said the difference between being dismissed and being believed changed everything because belief is where healing begins.

If Lori Harvey had to fight to be heard, imagine what it’s like for Black women without her visibility.

Symptoms That Speak Louder Than Silence

If you see multiple of these patterns, it’s worth deeper evaluation:

• Irregular, absent, or very heavy periods

• Acne, oily skin, and hirsutism (facial/body hair)

• Hair thinning on the scalp

• Difficulty losing weight (especially in the belly)

• Dark patches of skin (neck, underarms)

• Fatigue, hormonal mood swings

• Infertility, miscarriage, or delayed conception

Cultural & Emotional Layers

In many Black households, fertility is often woven into identity, lineage, and legacy, a reflection of womanhood, worth, and wellness. But that framing can make the realities of infertility or choosing not to parent deeply complex and isolating.

PCOS complicates that story even more. It can make conception difficult or unpredictable, leaving many caught between wanting children and grieving the loss of that choice. Others may not want to parent at all, yet still find their autonomy challenged by systems that define Black womanhood through motherhood.

Across generations, silence has made these conversations even harder. There’s often no language, no role models, and few safe spaces to talk about reproductive health, loss, or choice. The absence of open dialogue turns private pain into quiet suffering.

Layered on top of that is medical mistrust, centuries of neglect, experimentation, and bias that make it hard to trust providers or feel safe challenging dismissive care. So many Black women are left navigating the physical and emotional terrain of PCOS alone, carrying both the weight of fertility struggles and the burden of expectation.

Every person should have the right to choose how, when, and whether to parent, and to receive compassionate care that believes them regardless of that choice.

Holistic & Culturally Grounded Care Approaches

Nutrition & Movement 

• Embrace whole foods that align with your heritage like dark leafy greens, yams, legumes, beans, plantains, and lean proteins. These nutrient-rich foods help regulate insulin levels and support hormone balance.

• Consider adding inositol, a naturally occurring vitamin-like compound that’s been shown to improve insulin sensitivity, support ovulation, and regulate menstrual cycles in people with PCOS. Many use myo-inositol or a myo-/D-chiro-inositol blend, often referred to as “natural insulin sensitizers.” Talk with your provider before starting supplements to ensure the right dosage and form for you.

• Use movement you enjoy.  Dance, walking, yoga, strength training, or neighborhood walks with friends. 

Medical & Fertility Strategy

• Ask for a full panel that includes hormones, insulin/glucose markers, thyroid labs, and ovarian reserve testing.
  If conception is your goal, discuss first-line ovulation medications (like letrozole) or supplements that complement fertility efforts, including inositol.

• For more advanced fertility needs, explore IUI or IVF options. Demand transparency and accountability from clinics, especially around how race-based differences and bias can influence diagnostic thresholds and treatment outcomes.

• Track your cycles, symptoms, and conversations with providers. Knowledge is your leverage in care.

Emotional & Community Support

• Seek therapy, support groups, or healing circles that validate your experience.
  Share your story.
  Advocate for research, funding, and systems that center Black women in PCOS, fertility, and reproductive health studies.

What Must Shift?

If we’re serious about changing outcomes for Black women with PCOS, we have to move beyond awareness. That can look like research that centers us. Studies funded, led, and shaped by Black women whose bodies have too often been excluded from the data.

It means pushing for insurance policies that recognize fertility, metabolic health, and hormone balance as essential care, not luxury services. Every woman deserves access to reproductive endocrinology, fertility support, and preventive metabolic screening, without fighting for coverage or paying out of pocket for basic labs.

 It also means transforming how clinicians are trained. We need providers who don’t just memorize symptoms, but understand stories, who recognize that bias in the exam room can be as harmful as imbalance in the body. 

And finally, we must amplify Black women’s voices. We need to stop being side notes in medical journals and become authors of our own healing.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Reproductive justice means every person has the power and resources to decide if, when, and how to parent, and to live in safe, healthy environments.

For Black women with PCOS, that means being believed, having access to care without bias, and the freedom to choose what healing looks like, whether that includes fertility, prevention, or rest.

This Ain’t Just About Diddy. Our Pain isn’t A Punchline

Cassie. Megan Thee Stallion. Halle Bailey.

In recent months, the public has witnessed three women step forward with painful truths. From Cassie detailing years of abuse at the hands of Diddy, to Megan Thee Stallion surviving a shooting only to be mocked and doubted, and lastly Halle Bailey seeking legal protection and full custody of her child amid allegations of abuse by DDG.

The public response? Mixed at best.
Support was scattered.
Criticism was loud.
And far too many stayed silent.

The Silent Undercurrent

If we can’t believe or protect high-profile Black women with access to legal teams and media attention, how do we treat the women right next to us?

What about our coworkers? Our sisters? Our friends?
What does our silence cost them?

The numbers paint a stark picture:

• Black women experience domestic violence at a rate 35% higher than white women.

• Nearly 40% of Black women endure physical violence from an intimate partner in their lifetime.

• Homicide is a leading cause of death for Black women aged 15 to 34, often tied to intimate partner violence.

Misogynoir Makes It Easier to Dismiss Our Pain

Black women exist at the intersection of racism and misogyny, where our pain is often normalized, minimized, or outright ignored.

Misogynoir, the term coined by Moya Bailey, captures this exact reality: a specific form of hatred directed at Black women that makes our experiences easier to dismiss and harder to validate. Megan was mocked. Cassie was accused of chasing money. Halle's safety was overshadowed by commentary on her body and motherhood.

The responses aren’t new. However, in the time of social media I’d argue they’re even more detrimental. The harmful narratives don’t just exist in echo chambers. They amplify, and our pain becomes a punchline. 

Fame Doesn’t Equal Safety

It’s about all of us, not just celebrities. Black girls navigating bullying and sexual harassment on social media platforms. Black mothers being policed for how they parent. Black femmes being doxxed, harassed, and dragged for daring to take up digital space unapologetically.

The impact is not abstract. We see the harm in a multitude of manifestations. Not just psychically, emotionally, but psychologically as well. 

It’s easy to assume that wealth, visibility, or status offer some sort of protection. But abuse doesn’t care about your Instagram following or red carpet access. If anything, fame can become another tool of control, used to manipulate public perception and silence survivors.

If We Don’t Believe Them, Who Will We Believe?

If we struggle to believe Black women with platforms, legal teams, and media attention, what happens when it’s our cousin? Our homegirl? The woman from church? The young mother next door?

Complicity isn’t always loud.
Sometimes it’s silence.
Sometimes it’s doubt disguised as neutrality.
Sometimes it’s the  “He’s a good man, Savannah.”

We Know How to Heal. We Just Need to be Believed.

In spite of all of this, Black women continue to lead. We build peer support networks. We create spaces that see us and center our experiences. We design community-based alternatives that center safety and healing over shame and judgment.

We deserve systems that see us and hold us, and not ones that make us prove we’re worthy of protection.

Every time Black women share their stories, they are seeking something beyond justice. They are reclaiming their power, their voice, and their right to live free from violence.

But we shouldn’t have to do it alone. It’s on all of us to listen deeply, respond with care, and take action.

At BGHC believe Black women the first time, and we’ll keep showing up until the world does too.

Resources for Support

If you or someone you love is experiencing domestic violence, you are not alone. Below is a list of national resources for support. 

1. Sistas Rising
   www.sistasrising.org
   A survivor-centered organization focused on healing, empowerment, and advocacy for Black women affected by domestic and sexual violence.

2. Women of Color Network, Inc. (WOCN)
   www.wocninc.org
   Provides national leadership, training, and resources for women of color, including Black women, who are survivors of violence.

3. The National Domestic Violence Hotline – Culturally Specific Services
   www.thehotline.org
   While national in scope, they offer culturally responsive advocates trained to support Black survivors. Call 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or text "START" to 88788.

4. Ujima: The National Center on Violence Against Women in the Black Community
   www.ujimacommunity.org
   Specifically focused on addressing domestic, sexual, and community violence in the Black community through research, policy, and survivor support.

#BelieveBlackWomen
#ProtectBlackWomen
#DomesticViolenceAwareness
#HealthJustice
#BlackFeministThought
#Misogynoir

“Marsha, Audre, bell and Us: Pride Through the Lens of Softness, Survival, and Sisterhood”

Pride Month is more than rainbow flags and brand campaigns. For Black queer women, femmes, and gender-expansive folks, Pride is a sacred reminder: our survival is revolutionary—and our healing is political.

Long before "equity" and “DEI,” became buzzwords, Black queer feminists were building the frameworks that now guide community wellness, care justice, and bodily autonomy. Their brilliance continues to shape the foundation of what The Black Girl Health Collective stands for today.

🌺 Marsha P. Johnson: “No Pride for Some of Us Without Liberation for All of Us”
Marsha wasn’t just a face at the frontlines of Stonewall. She was a radical organizer, sex worker, and trans woman who understood that liberation had to include the most vulnerable—Black trans folks, poor folks, and those living with HIV/AIDS. Her advocacy was rooted in care, mutual aid, and unapologetic joy.

Marsha didn’t wait for systems to make space—she built her own. That blueprint still guides how we at BGHC create culturally responsive care spaces by and for those often excluded.

📚 Audre Lorde: “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation”
A poet, activist, and cancer warrior, Audre Lorde called out the violence of invisibility and insisted that healing was a feminist act. She challenged medical racism and rejected the idea that survival had to mean silence.

At BGHC, Audre’s words are sacred. Her teachings fuel our workshops on bodily autonomy, reproductive justice, and collective care. She reminds us that our health is not separate from our liberation—it is central to it.

🖤 bell hooks: “Love is an action, never simply a feeling.”
bell hooks gave us the language to understand love as a radical ethic of care—especially in how we show up for each other across gender, sexuality, and difference. She interrogated the power dynamics within intimacy, systems of domination, and even within feminist spaces. Her work reminds us that solidarity must be active, accountable, and rooted in dismantling the very systems that make some feel disposable.

🌈 Tending to Complex Realities
Within our communities, there are still tensions and misunderstandings—particularly between Black cisgender women and Black trans and nonbinary folks. These tensions often stem from internalized messaging about who “belongs” in womanhood, who can lay claim to particular experiences, and who is granted protection or visibility. At BGHC, we believe that true sisterhood requires truth-telling, repair, and radical inclusion—not perfection, but practice.

We also reject outdated narratives that reduce womanhood and femininity to menstruation, childbearing, and cramps.  Not only is exclusionary to our trans siblings, but harmful to cis women whose bodies don’t follow these scripts due to infertility, hysterectomies, or medical trauma or just the desire not to parent or carry a child. We must be willing to grow through discomfort—and that begins with unlearning old beliefs and having open, honest conversations.

🔥 Today’s Torchbearers: We Carry Their Fire
We also honor the living legacy of today’s leaders—Ericka Hart, Dominique Morgan, Raquel Willis, Tourmaline, and so many others—who are actively reshaping healthcare, media, and policy while holding space for healing in queer Black bodies.

Their work reaffirms what BGHC believes deeply: Our entire community deserves care that affirms, listens, and liberates.

✊🏾 The Work of BGHC: Healing at the Intersections
At The Black Girl Health Collective, we know that Black queer feminist principles are more than history—they are how we move through the present. That’s why our programs are intentionally:

• Intergenerational and inclusive

• Culturally affirming and trauma-informed

• Centered on autonomy, pleasure, and wholeness

From workshops and wellness events to access to care and story-sharing circles, we are building what Lorde, hooks, and Marsha imagined: a future where our wellness isn’t optional—it’s a right.

💬 Final Word: We Are the Legacy
We are not just honoring the past—we are living it.
We are Marsha’s radical love.
We are Audre’s fierce truth.
We are bell’s liberatory care.
We are the continuation of a movement that sees healing not as a luxury, but as a birthright.

This Pride Month—and every month—we are remembering and reclaiming. 

Let’s Shake the Table….

Sending our love and comfort to the family of Jessica Pettway. 

Jessica was a mother, sister, and friend.

This story hits home for so many reasons—our work, our community, and even the BGHC team’s own personal experiences. 

Jessica is US. She was a mother, sister, and friend. Her life meant something to our community, and she deserved to be here. She deserved to be the, “Girl mom,” that ushered her daughters into womanhood, who held the names of secret crushes and gave the best hugs, while wiping away the tears of first heartbreak

I have not had one conversation, in any space, with Black women, without hearing how they have directly experienced harm, or have witnessed the harm of someone they know or love at the hands of a healthcare system.  It is hard enough to simply get access to care,

Why, when we accomplish getting to a provider,
are we still dying?

Jessica’s experience isn’t uncommon. Often, our pain and our concerns are not taken seriously or addressed. When we press for more clarity or answers, we are patronized and dismissed then sent back to our homes to juggle our families, our work, and all the many hats we wear. Often without resolve and self managing symptoms. 

“Ample evidence suggests that Black and Latino people receive lower-quality care compared with White people, even after insurance coverage and income are adjusted for.”--R.Yearby, B. Clark, J.Figueroa. Structural Racism In Historical And Modern US Health Care Policy. February 2022.

We can do everything, “right,” and we still experience poor outcomes. This is larger than our maternal mortality rate, this is segregated care. This is a systemic issue, and systems cannot fix themselves, no more than a surgeon can be expected to operate on oneself. 

The call for the Black Girl Health Collective is for a change and impact and our response is centering community, OUR voices and OUR experiences. 

Our goal is to educate and create pathways to care.

To curate spaces for community and providers to meet in fellowship and promote cultural humility, ensuring we are centered in our care. 

Impact looks like lower chronic illness rates, lower maternal mortality rates, and lower rates of mental health crises. Impact looks like every person in our community knowing when they enter a room with a provider to discuss their health, that there are two experts in that space working in partnership, not in isolation.

Our work isn’t complete until ALL of us are safe.  Let’s shake the table and create impact for any woman that has ever been dismissed or pushed aside, for Jessica, ourselves, and those yet to come. 

-Brittany Taylor-Williams
Founder, The Black Girl Health Collective

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