Jesus, I still get so annoyed by the âtrans women have periods!â statement because honest to god, cramps and headaches are not menstruation. I donât have cramps, I donât have any headaches or moodswings, and my digestion isnât terribly more impacted by my menstruation than when I drink too much coffee. But I menstruate. My uterus sheds its lining and I bleed. Thatâs all there is to it. The discomfort a woman experiences during her menstruation varies by the individual herself. I know women who canât function on their periods without taking several doses of ibuprofen. But itâs not the pain that defines menstruation, itâs the shedding of the uterine lining. When I suffered from an eating disorder, I went several months without menstruating. And no-one would have told me âoh, youâre still having a period! You just arenât bleeding!â because the absence of your period is a common female experience. Whether through pregnancy or an underlying condition, menstruation still is the shedding of the uterine lining and when the uterine lining isnât shedding, youâre not menstruating.
No one is saying that in order to be a biological female, you âhave to menstruateâ. Pregnant women donât menstruate. Menopausal women donât menstruate. Women with PCOS might not menstruate. Breastfeeding women might not menstruate. Women with a too low body weight might not menstruate. Women who go through hormone replacement therapy might not menstruate. But menstruation is an exclusively female experience and just because youâre pissy one week of the month, doesnât mean youâre experiencing it! Stop being so godawfully misogynistic and fetishizing our biological reality.
