EDITOR’S NOTE: This article is part of a Bedsider series highlighting the lived experiences of women of color in getting reproductive health care. Bedsider is committed to helping people get on top of their sex lives through information and access to quality care. That commitment includes celebrating all that birth control has to offer, but it also includes shining a light on some of the harsher realities, like inequities in health care.

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I’ve been having hot flashes since my early twenties.

I know every polite euphemism for sweating obscenely: “having my own personal summer,”…