menstrualblog

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Anon used to always get their period the day after the full moon, but after using Plan B a few years ago their period has been consistently three days before the new moon.

This poll is, of course, trans inclusive.

(Fun fact: your period cannot be influenced by someone else's period or hormones. "Period syncing" has been thoroughly debunked. Medication, however, can absolutely affect the timing and characteristics of your period.)

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We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

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by june bates

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Menstrual products are a human right, not a luxury. 

No one should be forced to choose between food and period products, yet so many in our communities have or will.  No one should have to miss school or work, or be forced to use toilet paper, or overuse old period products because of their income. Everyone deserves to menstruate with comfort and dignity.

This Period Action Day, I’ve partnered with Flo Period Tracker App who are working to help women and people who menstruate prioritize their health, and experience wellbeing throughout their cycle. Nearly 1 in 4 students in the U.S. still can’t regularly access period products, and globally many more. To drive change, we’re hosting a joint fundraiser in aid of Period. Inc., a global youth-fueled nonprofit that strives to eradicate period poverty over on my Instagram. 

Art by Liberal Jane

[Digital illustration of a Latina woman with long dark hair with a shopping cart in front of a shelf of period products. The woman is wearing a pink mesh top, two-toned pink pants with an insulin pump clipped to the waist, and pink shoes. The shelves have pads, tampons, period underwear and menstrual cups. The text reads, ‘no one should have to choose between food and period products.’]

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No shame in menstruating! 🩸

Digital Illustration of a heart with a butt. There is blood and text reads, ‘No shame in menstruatin’

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even more than my blog being an unsafe place for terfs, this is a place of love and support for trans people and especially the trans women who single-handedly keep this website funny

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A Poem

             touch yourself early and often learn your body before you share your body use mirrors to learn how beautiful you are let yes come from every part of you before you      share you when your eggs drop, you are in heat the risk is greater than the heat-use protection if your pussy gets sick, feed yourself plain      yogurt, garlic drink primrose tea, rub her with coconut oil when your blood comes,  it's time to rest know that you are never unclean, never      untouchable use a cup within or a rag without; no trash      needed now you have power of life, a child is a forever      decision your pleasures will grow with you, never say      never whether voracious or sated, you are whole,      unbroken your orgasms are medicine and magic, use      them well be a lifelong lover to yourself, let others join      you always, always: celebrate your miraculous body

adrienne maree brown, Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good

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Menstrual health is a human right. People who don’t ovulate will still likely have friends, family or lovers who do. Debunk “separate but equal” gendered sex education practices and embrace normalizing conversations about reproductive health. Demystify the period now!

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Why are menstrual pads always wrapped in flowers and shit why don’t they ever put anything cool on there. Like shadow the hedgehog

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Shout out to the ten primate species, four bat species, elephant shrews, and the Cairo spiny mouse. Nobody else gets it

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baymax says

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Menstruation in 15th Century manuscript Aurora Consurgens.

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blood. Regardless of gender and society and everything that makes us us, we all have relatively the same liquid red stuff. perhaps this is the singular thing that's untainted by a preconceived notion about who we are supposed to be. perhaps, we don't have to be anything. perhaps, we can just be stardust and blood and love.

enough of poetics (not a word). what does the muse intend to say? perhaps, a self-exploration of what it means to bleed. not just bleed in any way. i mean, like, our uterus literally pushing out its lining and causing us a lot of nuisance in the process.

so, periods, basically.

it's some sort of mocktail of biology, blood, and…gender.

why tho? why is gender brought into something that is unrelated? It's simple, my pituitary gland and my ovaries release chemical hormones into my bloodstream and then my uterus does funny stuff and bleeds. that's it. I hope you know that the uterus has no gender, right? My textbook seems to think otherwise. Oh wait…apparently, pad manufacturers believe so too. as do a majority of the people I know. we've got stereotypical happy go lucky period commercials with cis female-presenting folk dancing about on-screen. we've got floral pink plastic pads (that are horrid for the environment too btw, take note pad manufacturers!). we've got a lot of pink, a lot of plastic, a lot "women's problem" comments…well at least we've got blue blood?

the muse is lost. lost in a pink sea of hyper-feminine products and packaging and perfect bodies telling me what to do, how to sit, how to behave, how to identify myself. perhaps the muse is simply frustrated, perhaps the muse doesn't want to be gendered. this muse doesn't want their friends to suffer through gender dysphoria because someone decided that period blood is pink. perhaps the muse simply wants to embrace the joyous concept of being suspended by light somewhere in-between.

the truth is: red is just a colour. pink is just a colour. the truth is we are awashed in a rainbow and outer-rainbow of colours that cannot be judged. menstruators are diverse-r than we can ever know.

not all menstruators are women. not all women are menstruators. there is no binary. read up about it.

the truth is, the muse is screaming out loud:

periods. are. genderless.

(art & writing i originally created for ylac csf as posted on the ig acc youdeserveittoo_)

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More emoji combo atrocities courtesy of the blood drop/menstruation emoji

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Blood is only acceptable

When it’s violent.

And the bleeding many endure

Cyclically

Might be considered violence

But we still wait to mention it.

It costs lives

And years

And comfort

And health.

But it’s

gross

So we can’t mention it.

For the sake of those who don’t understand.

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Spain: First nation in the EU to allow paid menstrual leave

Did you know that period cramps are as bad and as painful as heart attacks? And when we talk about menstruators who work in offices and other places, they have to produce similar or more productive work when compared to their non-bleeding counterparts. Often, period cramps are so intense that it is unbearable. But it is only now that a few nations around the globe, like South Korea and Indonesia, have realized this and have allowed paid menstrual leave.

Most recently, Spain may be the first nation in Europe to provide period leave for employees who are experiencing period pain. The proposed law has generated discussion but still needs to be approved by the parliament. A draft law allowing employees to take paid sick time off for severe menstrual discomfort was adopted by the Spanish Cabinet in May, 2022. If parliament also adopts the proposal, Spain would become the first nation in Europe to have such a law.

Spanish Equality Minister, Irene Montero told reporters after a Cabinet meeting, 

"We are making a law that will ensure that women can live better." Moreover, she added that, “It is an end to working in pain and popping pills.”

The paid sick leave, which would be paid for by the government, is for extremely painful periods. Thanks to a bill enacted by the country's minority Leftist coalition government. According to a proposed bill, women could receive up to five more days of vacation per month depending on the situation.

So what do you think? Should countries like India follow suit? Should the government propose and pass this law? Do share your views in the comment section below. - Jaya Prakash, Intern at Lemme Be