Today was a milestone day in my recovery. After 10 days of sponge baths and washing my hair bent over the tub, I was cleared to take a proper shower.

But that also meant getting completely naked and taking a good long look at my post-surgery breasts. I felt nervous—I had butterflies in my stomach. I removed my bra and all the surface bandages that my surgeon had applied during the operation.

"Actually, that's not bad," I said to myself. I was prepared for worse. Granted my skin is loose because the expandable implants are not at their final size. But even this early after surgery, things look OK. And by OK, I mean healthy tissue that appears to be healing after yet another operation.

Why share this information when I could choose to remain silent? The short answer is stigma, something I had already been thinking about before writing this post.

I realized today that I had missed World Gynecologic Oncology Awareness Day (or World GO Day, for short) last Friday. This is the sixth year for the awareness campaign, which was launched in 2019 by ENGAGe (the European Network of Gynaecological Cancer Advocacy Groups), part of ESGO (European Society of Gynaecological Oncology). World GO Day is marked each year around the world on September 20. This year's theme is erasing stigma in women’s cancers and its hashtag is #GOAgainstStigma. The 2024 press release for World GO Day states:

Each year, more than 1 million women globally are diagnosed with a gynecologic cancer, a set of cancers originating in the reproductive organs that includes ovarian cancer, uterine / endometrial / womb cancer, cervical cancer, vaginal cancer, and vulvar cancer as well as rare cancer types. However, due to the tumor location and nature of the symptoms and treatments of these cancers, gynecologic cancer patients can run up against societal stigmas.

Those stigmas can take many forms. According to the World GO Day website, stigma in gynecologic cancer can stem from false beliefs that such cancers are caused by promiscuity or that women’s reproductive cycles are always painful or should be unpleasant. Stigma can also arise out of cultural or societal opinions about womanhood, femininity, beauty, ageing and worth.

So just as I think it's important for me to continue talking about gynecologic cancers, I see value in my continuing to talk about having had a bilateral mastectomy to avoid breast cancer. Using words such as "ovarian cancer" and "hysterectomy" as well as "mastectomy" and "breast reconstruction" helps to normalize such terminology and to counter stigma.

For more information on gynecological cancers, visit the Types of GO Cancers page on the World GO Day website.