Owing much to activism in the past decade, the topic of menstruation and menstrual hygiene has come to occupy the public stage; however, rarely the political discourse. This dialogue has included a disproportionately high number of upper caste/class cis-women, and thus, has been dealt with within a structure-guided by social privileges and capitalist disparities.
Despite the strides in queer rights, we, as a society, haven’t come to terms with the lived realities of trans men and non-binary menstruators. It is reflected in the recent usage of the word ‘menstruators’ and ‘people who menstruate’ instead of women to include trans men, non-binary folx, trans women, agender people and more. It made many netizens outraged, which was followed by floods of transphobic replies and tweets (you may remember the controversial tweet by JK Rowling on the topic).
What’s also worrying is that these bouts of intolerance are only more amplified and alarming, outside the echo chambers of Twitter. What starts as a sarcastic joke translates into normalized conversion therapy, risen hate crimes against genderqueer people, reduced chances of getting medical treatment, and more. We must understand that the polemics we use to “play the devil’s advocate” have tangible impacts on the invalidation of the very existence of people.
Despite constituting a significant portion of the society, queer menstruators are relegated as either medical statistics or social anomalies. The lack of fruitful discussion around the subject prohibits any normalization of scientific and medical developments around the topic.
There is a distinction between gender identity, gender expression, and the anatomical sex which a person is assigned at birth. The past decade has seen growth in trans-rights and acceptance from the medical community. The American Psychiatric Association declared support for gender variant patients and genderqueer people with medical associations in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and India issuing similar stances; we are yet to see these attitudes translate into practice. Even now, it is common to see psychiatrists and medical professionals treat their queer patients with disdain or even refuse treatment altogether.
Menstruation And Body Dysphoria
Gender dysphoria is unease with one’s gender and a firm conviction and desire of being another gender (or no gender at all), a strong incongruence with your assigned sex. In the cis-normative society, we inhabit the idea of menstruation being inherently linked to womanhood. The average image of a menstruator is a smiling cis-woman frolicking in white clothes; period products labelled as ‘women’s products’ and marketed in ‘pretty and pink’.
This association of menstruation with femininity causes, or worsens dysphoria in a lot of queer and questioning individuals. Adam, an AFAB genderfluid person, who I interviewed for this article, responded to my question about menstruation and dysphoria as, “Well, menstruation makes dysphoria worse because it’s like a constant reminder that I’m not in the right body. And it makes me have to think about the fact that I have the wrong genitals even more than I already do.”
Adding to this, they also mentioned that if we didn’t actively associate menstruation with cis-women, it would help with their dysphoria. However little it may. “It would help with the fact that it wouldn’t remind me I’m female and that because of this, society will only see me as female. Instead, it’ll only leave the reminder that I have the wrong genitals.” This cis-normative narrative around periods is exceptionally harmful towards Genderqueer individuals.
When asked about if there are enough medical resources available for them, and if doctors are sensitive towards their needs, Adam replied, “There are not enough resources, the wait times are insane, and it’s also hella expensive. And while doctors are becoming more open to queer patients, there are still horrible ones that will look down on you.”
I had the privilege of getting in touch with another trans man who prefers to remain anonymous. He responded to a question about the societal reaction to them having periods as, “It’s so frustrating and repetitive, yes, I’m a man, and yes, I menstruate, what is so hard to understand?” Their accounts weren’t unique to them either; the same sentiment has been echoed by trans and non-binary menstruators all over the world.
Dysphoria is a very nuanced and multi-faceted issue and hoping that changes in marketing strategies of period products would magically do away with it, is little more than wishful thinking, but it is a place to start. In a world with electrical cars, buildings that scrape the sky, and devices that let us interact with other people’s ideas from more than a continent away.
Women’s menstruation is still not only a taboo but it even causes men to squeeze and squirm in their seats. So how do we expect to initiate a fruitful discussion about inclusivity among menstruators? It is evident that we have very far to go in regards to queer rights, but the change has already begun, and I can only pray, that it be soon that all humans be treated with dignity and have medical resources at their disposal.