T.I. Goes To Gynecologist With Daughter Every Year To ‘Check Her Hymen’
- Funny
- Offensive
Heyman, chill
November 7th, 2019 – Rapper T.I. recently shared in a podcast interview that he joins his daughter for her gynecologist appointments to “check her hymen.” While the Internet may have broken for a few hours, he reported that his 18-year-old daughter is “still intact.” The backlash was swift and labeled T.I.’s behavior, and attitude toward his daughter, as disgusting, harmful, and overwhelmingly weird and toxic.
The 39-year-old, whose real name is Clifford Joseph Harris Jr., joined Nazanin Mandi and Nadia Moham on their podcast Ladies Like Us to talk about a variety of subjects but it was “the sex talk” that gained the most traction. When the hosts asked him if he had given the talk to his two daughters, he confirmed he had with his oldest, and then went into great detail about his relationship with her gynecologist.
“Not only have we had the conversation — we have yearly trips to the gynecologist to check her hymen,” T.I. said. “So we’ll go and sit down and the doctor comes and talk, and the doctor’s maintaining a high level of professionalism. He’s like, ‘You know, sir, I have to, in order to share information — I’m like, ‘Deyjah, they want you to sign this so we can share information. Is there anything you would not want me to know? See, Doc? Ain’t no problem.'”
Deyjah is now in her first year of college, but T.I. went on to reference her birthday when she turned 16. He said he put a sticky note on her door after the party that read “Gyno. Tomorrow. 9:30.” Over the years, he has continued to tag along but hasn’t soaked in all the information from the doctor. After hearing that the hymen could be broken through several activities aside from sex, T.I. dismissed that and then asked for his results.
“And so then they come and say, ‘Well, I just want you to know that there are other ways besides sex that the hymen can be broken like bike riding, athletics, horseback riding, and just other forms of athletic physical activity,'” he said. “So I say, ‘Look, Doc, she don’t ride no horses, she don’t ride no bike, she don’t play no sports. Just check the hymen, please, and give me back my results expeditiously.'”
Several health professionals, and those who understand female autonomy, took to Twitter to respond to the rapper’s story. Jennifer Gunter, a gynecologist and New York Times contributor, corrected his correlation between an intact hymen and virginity.
This is horrible on so many levels. Let me educate you all about the hymen 1/12 https://t.co/fJHWIOg7sz
— Jennifer Gunter (@DrJenGunter) November 6, 2019
The hymen is no virginity indicator, 50% of sexually active teens do not have a disrupted hymen. The hymen is often very flexible. 6/12
— Jennifer Gunter (@DrJenGunter) November 6, 2019
So instead of celebrating the fact that his child lived another year, TI spends his time hyper-fixating on whether or not her hymen is intact? This is so overwhelmingly weird and toxic and he needs to be stopped
— 𝑺𝒁𝑨’𝒔 𝑪𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒓𝒆𝒅 𝑾𝒊𝒈 (@sammyhammy727) November 6, 2019
Some of y’all trying with the whole “T.I. came from a different time” nonsense.
— Ijeoma Oluo (@IjeomaOluo) November 7, 2019
Dude is the same damn age as me.
Hymen policing was abusive bullshit when I was a kid and it’s abusive bullshit now and if we were to go back 100 years it would still be abusive bullshit.
And then comedian Conan O’Brien chimed in with his research.
I saw “T.I.” and “hymen” trending and had to google them both.
— Conan O’Brien (@ConanOBrien) November 7, 2019
Neither T.I. or his daughter have directly responded to the backlash, but Deyjah did like several tweets criticizing the rapper.
For their part, Mandi and Moham apologized for their reaction while taping the podcast and reiterated their support for women having control over their own bodies.