Jesus, I still get so annoyed by the “trans women have periods!” statement because honest to god, cramps and headaches are not menstruation. I don’t have cramps, I don’t have any headaches or moodswings, and my digestion isn’t terribly more impacted by my menstruation than when I drink too much coffee. But I menstruate. My uterus sheds its lining and I bleed. That’s all there is to it. The discomfort a woman experiences during her menstruation varies by the individual herself. I know women who can’t function on their periods without taking several doses of ibuprofen. But it’s not the pain that defines menstruation, it’s 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 “oh, you’re still having a period! You just aren’t bleeding!” 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 isn’t shedding, you’re not menstruating.
No one is saying that in order to be a biological female, you “have to menstruate”. Pregnant women don’t menstruate. Menopausal women don’t 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 you’re pissy one week of the month, doesn’t mean you’re experiencing it! Stop being so godawfully misogynistic and fetishizing our biological reality.
