Hey, you, cis girl that's very (correctly) vocal about women being allowed to talk about their periods, do you include trans women in that?
I ask because every single time I've tried to talk about it to anyone that isn't a trans woman they get fucking angry. Which has caused me to have to just suffer in silence every single month. So I really relate to cis women when they talk about literally the exact same thing; being shamed by everyone around them their whole lives for talking about their periods, so they just suffer in silence every month as it negatively impacts their work and social lives. But I don't even feel like I can voice that I am literally dealing with the same exact thing because most of y'all react like you want to throw me in front of a bus for saying it, even those of you who act like your such big great transfem allies.
I guess I'll take this opportunity to talk about trans women periods. The first thing any tme person thinks when they hear this is always "how can trans women have periods? They don't have uteruses!"
The answer is: the uterus isn't what causes your period, it is effected by your period. What causes your period and what causes trans women's periods is the same thing: the endocrine system.
HRT changes the sex of your endocrine system. Feminizing HRT makes it a female endocrine system, giving us a 28-day hormone cycle just like cis women. At the end of that cycle, the hypothalamus floods the body with prostaglandins. Those are what cause all but one of the period symptoms, because they make muscles inflame and contract. They are what make the uterus shed its lining, they are what cause intestinal cramps, they are what cause body aches, they are what cause headaches and migraines. The only period symptom not causes by the release of prostaglandins throughout the body is depression, and that is caused by your endocrine system simply not processing as much estrogen and from simply feeling like shit.
So, the only symptoms trans women don't get every 28 days is menstrual cramps, because yes we do not menstruate since we don't have uteruses. But migraines, depression, body aches, intestinal cramps, and the infamous "period shits" don't exactly add up to us having any better of a time. Except we have to pretend that we're fine and nothing is different because no one believes that we get periods, not even cis women.
"But you can't call it a period then because that refers to MENSTRUATION!" is another one I hear all the time. This is incorrect. You use the word "period" instead of just "menstruation" because it doesn't just refer to menstruation. It refers to a period at the end of the hormone cycle where we experience a host of symptoms. And not all cis women experience all of the symptoms that encompass the period. Not all cis women get migraines, or body aches, or have severe depression. If a cis woman gets a hysterectomy she doesn't menstruate either! In that instance she experiences an identical period to what trans women experience. Yet, I doubt you'd insist that cis women who've had hysterectomies don't have periods.
Oh, another thing that I personally discovered after bottom surgery: vaginal odor changes for trans women during our periods too. I was not expecting that because I always thought it was just from menstruation. But nope, the ph levels of a trans woman's vagina are the same of as a cis woman's vagina, and it changes during our periods just the same.
I don't mean to distract from the very important message of this post, but I'm worried trans women may not know this because even a lot of cis women don't: if your period comes with severe depression, that's not normal or healthy, that's a medical issue. A little bit of depression and mood swings are normal, but if it's severe or debilitating? That's probably Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder. It sucks but it's treatable.
I thought it was normal for years to feel that way, and I don't want anybody else to suffer like I did. Trans women are likely even more vulnerable to having untreated PMDD due to a combination of difficulty accessing healthcare and the fact that cis women are refusing to share the period wisdom. (I'm not a cis woman btw, just an enby with a uterus and estrogen-dominant endocrine system.) (I'm also making the assumption that trans and cis women have equal probabilities of getting PMDD, but who knows really? I doubt anyone's ever studied it.)
I just want you to know this in case it helps anybody. Your period isn't supposed to make you feel like you're gonna die every month, and if it does, there are ways to mitigate that.
I always welcome people talking about this. When I made this post I was one of those women who thought the severe depression every month was normal. Another person using this post to talk about PMDD a few days later is how I learned about it and that I probably have it. Now I've seen my doctor about it and we're working on figuring out a treatment that works for me.
