Menstruation

Menstruation

Feminist Scribe®





Abigail Jamison Clark is a trans girl who has enjoyed a feminist upbringing. Her mother is Gloria Steinem. Her other parent is ethical hacker, Anonymous. Her birth mother is a certified nurse-midwife (CNM), which includes being an OBGYN. Before becoming a midwife, she taught the Bradley Method of childbirth to groups of pregnant people and their partners in her basement when she was growing up.

Abigail grew up watching childbirth videos with her birth mother’s Bradley Method classes. From before the age of five, Abigail learned about women’s rights or the rights of the person giving birth in the birthing room. Abigail’s birth mother has been against obstetric violence from the beginning. Without a proper birth plan and advocate, and even with one, they might be taken advantage of and abused by nurses, forced to be induced, forced to have an epidural, or forced to have an unnecessary cesarean section to expedite the process.

This emphasized the importance of pregnant people creating a birth plan that sets expectations and boundaries for the birth, as well as communication between them, their birth attendant (midwife, doula, nurse), and partner(s).Abigail would be a girl inside regardless of where she was born, her parents, her milieu, or any other variable. It is an inborn trait.

The question is, would she have the privilege of taking action on her inherent qualities and coming out as truly being a sex and a gender that differ from those assigned at birth? In reality, she would not have the luxury of coming out in many scenarios of having a different set of parents. However, Abigail is incredibly grateful for having parents who accept her for who she is.

All people are miraculous and divine.

Since Abigail can remember, she has seen women, females, and people who give birth as divine and miraculous. The same has been true of people who menstruate. The vagina and uterus have always been natural, dinner-time-appropriate subject matter in her house growing up and still are now. Furthermore, she grew up seeing and still sees these things as natural human occurrences rather than something gross or sexualized. This has allowed Abigail to think of menstruation and ovulation as renewal and rebirth. The lining of the uterus was full of blood and nutrients, ready to receive a fertilized egg from the fallopian tubes. The uterine lining will shed if one does not need it to support a fertilized egg that will become a zygote that will become an embryo and then a fetus and then a baby. The body is brilliant and retains only what it needs. So when that uterine lining sheds, all of that glorious blood and nutrients head south. And poof! Just like that, period time! Then, like clockwork, the uterine lining starts to build up again!

This contextualization has allowed Abigail to think it is “incredibly rad, super cool, and astounding that human bodies do such magical things.” She definitely “nerd(s) out” on the topics of menstruation and gynecology. Furthermore, Abigail is a robust intersectional feminist. When she discovered the movement for menstrual equity worldwide, it was clear that she had found one of her callings. It is a natural continuation of her upbringing and activism. Abigail was aware of menstrual shame but had not realized the extent to which a lack of access to menstrual products affects people worldwide. Then, she saw the film “Period. End of Sentence.” The film inspired her to get in touch with The Pad Project, whom Abigail is did work for as an ambassador! Working with this organization has Abigail incredibly inspired by the mass of grassroots organizations and the endless chapters making change. She has also gotten to know Nadya Okamoto, a powerful force for change in the menstrual space, and co-founder of August Period Care. August Period Care is a sister company of Feminist Scribe via the ethical conglomerate that Abigail founded, Utopia Prevailia. With the collection of so many forces and so many that we have not mentioned, Abigail is confident the movement will prevail with the sheer volume and incredible intelligence of the global movement.

Womanhood and manhood are constructs.

Culturally, the first period is an essential part of womanhood for many, and nothing can diminish that. However, not all women menstruate. Trans women are women who do not bleed, but may have hormonal periods. Postmenopausal women are women and do not menstruate. Even some premenopausal women can not menstruate or only experience sporadic periods. Women who can not menstruate can still experience womanhood.

Furthermore, not all people who menstruate are women. Trans men are men, and many still menstruate. A person’s first and all subsequent periods may be found to be important, no matter their gender. Abigail’s womanhood is secure, and it is with menstruation, but without bleeding. Some intersex people can menstruate. Some genderqueer people can menstruate. Some gender nonbinary people menstruate. Some agender people can menstruate, and the same is true for other genders. One can be assured that many people menstruate, and it is not caused by being a woman. It is merely correlated to being a woman within the popular gender binary based on genitalia. There is not enough space in this essay for She Who Shall Not Be Named.* However, suffice it to say that someone should send the deplorable, obdurately transphobic writer a copy of Judith Butler’s “Gender Trouble.” The magic of periods is for anyone who menstruates. The magic of womanhood is for anyone who identifies as a woman and, in truth, anyone who chooses it. Manhood is also inclusive of menstruation. The human condition, life along the gender spectrum, is also inclusive of menstruation. Menstruation is one of the most essential and fundamental elements of life, as pivotal and chronic as the moon and ocean tides.

*On June 6th, 2020, the author JK Rowling replied to a tweet criticizing its use of the term “people who menstruate”, thus implying menstruation is inherently tied to womanhood in its entirety- a comment which gained much criticism due to its transphobic, reductive nature.

https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/j-k-rowling-accused-transphobia-after-mocking-people-who-menstruate-n1227071

Gender is performative, and gender is a cultural construct. One would postulate that sex is also a cultural construct, given that there are several innate traits other than genitals that can be considered to determine biological sex. The sex binary that we commonly encounter today is an oversimplification based on the medicalization of human anatomy as a binary of what is truly a sex spectrum. A symptom of the failed sex and gender binary is its failure to be inclusive of intersex people. When one takes intersex folx into consideration, it further supports that sex is a cultural construct of a spectrum of possibilities.

The sex binary of male and female is not inclusive of the vast number of combinations of sex traits that intersex people possess. Traits, including genitals, a uterus, chromosomes, hormones, neurology, and what we would posit is what the person feels like they are. An intersex person is born with a mixture of traits that would be considered both male and female — for example, someone born with both ovaries, some aspects of male genitalia, but no testes. Or, athlete Maria Patińo, who was AFAB (assigned female at birth) based on her genitalia but was banned from competing in women’s sports after it was discovered that she has XY chromosomes. The popular cultural construction of sex made from only the genital variable can be defined as the normative sex binary, in contrast to the proposed constructed sex spectrum composed of all variables.

“If the immutable character of sex is contested, perhaps this construct called ‘sex’ is as culturally constructed as gender; indeed, perhaps it was always already gender, with the consequence that the distinction between sex and gender turns out to be no distinction at all.”

(Judith Butler 1999, 10–11)

Judith and Abigail are not the only ones that think this way. See also: Antony 1998; Gatens 1996; Grosz 1994; Prokhovnik 1999.

“You belong to a long inborn tradition of people with uteruses that bear the excruciating pain of menstruation to have later the option to bear the excruciating pain of giving birth. It may sound odd to say, but I would give so much to be able to bleed every month. Just as much to give birth. Two beautiful natural callings that some may find burdensome but which I find heroic and would gladly take on. Opting out from them is just as valid, and just as heroic. You can choose not to give birth; no one should be deprived of the right to say no. It may feel unfair that it is not within one’s immediate bodily autonomy to stop menstruating without medical intervention. Often one can alter, stall, or stop menstruating by using birth to control.”

(Abigail Jamison Clark 2020–2023)

Through self-love, healing, and more, Abigail has great hope that one can remedy the pernicious effects of any embarrassment menstruation has caused in menstruating persons. So, as much as experiencing menstruation might bring discomfort or shame, know that there is a trans girl out there that would give anything (except the ability to save the world) to have that experience. That is from the perspective of a girl who cannot and, in all likelihood, will not ever menstruate, even if she was to undergo transfeminine vaginoplasty. While she may never have a uterus, she also has a lot of hope for 3D-printed stem cell vulvas, vaginas, and uteruses made with nanobots!

Abigail recently started a new startup with her birth mother called VFriendly. The concept is to rate and review vaginal products based on their comfort, efficacy, and inclusivity. Later, these items will be for sale in an online shop. VFriendly is also looking for the best way to donate some of its profits to the cause. They hope to improve the quality of life for people with vaginas, reduce vaginal shame, reduce menstrual shame, donate some profits to the cause, and further the movement for menstrual equity. VFriendly has been acquired by Amazon which is part of Utopia Prevailia ethical conglomerate along with August Period Care, June Menstrual Cup, and nonprofit The Pad Project!

Feminist Scribe

Written by Abigail Jamison Clark, ET AL.