#transhub

NZ — . AWWA, is a New Zealand firm selling period-proof underwear that “can hold and absorb up to five regular pads or tampons worth of blood”. It recently shared “Four Period Stories”, profiling the menstruation experiences of three adult human females, and one adult human male. The three females – two of whom do not identity as women – detail their anguish at having painful cramping and heavy bleeding, causing them to miss work or school. They each recount how AWWA’s period-proof underwear have made their period ordeals much more bearable.

Inexplicably, the article also profiles Jay, a male who identifies as a woman, who claims to menstruate “due to medications I’m on to affirm my gender identity”. Presumably in an attempt to lend credibility to Jay’s claim, the article references TransHub, a website for “all trans and gender diverse people” in New South Wales, Australia. TransHub does not provide any evidence for this biological impossibility, but simply states that some males who take cross-sex hormones report that “they experience a regular and varying hormonal cycle”.

Despite noting that there is little research to back these claims, TransHub declares that this kind of “hormonal cycle” in males “can still exist and affect people’s lives.” It is unclear if TransHub is alleging that the “hormonal cycle” these males claim to experience is an actual menstrual cycle (in which an egg develops and is released from the ovaries, the lining of the uterus thickens and then sheds if no pregnancy occurs). In the article, Jay is paired with Yessenia, the only female profiled who acknowledges her sex. Jay wears period-proof underwear “to be more comfortable while I’m on my period”. The article does not address what discharge, if any, Jay is secreting.

When women use menstrual products to protest how women are treated or to fight period shaming like this