Hot Take

Hot Take: Transgender women cannot get their periods

I took this (for some reason controversial) opinion from Youtuber Misha Petrov. Here is her full video on it. It’s fascinating. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4MtH5YWZbA) Anyway I took on her opinion because, even though I don’t have a problem with transgender women I have a problem with them imitating periods and whining about something they don’t even experience.

Transgender women cannot experience periods for the simple fact they do not have uteruses and a period is the shedding of the uterine lining. Without a uterus, you are not going to have that. It is simple biology. 

Now there is some overlap between the hormones these transgender women may be receiving and period symptoms. Or it is just gas or constipation not menstrual cramps. But one key difference: biological women bleed. They bleed. It is not a period without blood. Some trans women like to simulate a period and I will not go into how they do that here because frankly it is kind of gross and a little disturbing. One has to wonder why these people are so desperate to experience a period when biological women are all too aware of how inconvenient, embarrassing, stigmatized and downright painful periods are, especially those with medical conditions like endometriosis or PCOS.

My co worker suffers from severe endometriosis. She’s been on birth control since she was thirteen and during her first two days of her cycle she usually has to go home early. For her a period is more than just that time of month. It is absolutely the worst time of the month. 

I am blessed not to have endometriosis but I have PCOS- polycystic ovarian syndrome. This means cysts grow on my ovaries. It didn’t start off so bad. I got my period when I was twelve. I  went home because my stomach really hurt and when I got home I went to the bathroom and discovered what had happened. My periods were always heavy. I never leaked at school (thank God!) but I usually leaked while sleeping even though I wore the sanitary napkins that were more like warships. The clothing cemetery gathered more and more underwear. 

When I went to see the gynecologist she noticed fine hairs on my body and she asked me a bunch of questions about my period which had been getting worse and heavier. She diagnosed me with polycystic ovarian syndrome and when I was eighteen I was put on birth control for the first time (which was convenient because I was finally comfortable having sex). But this was around the time my bipolar disorder reared it’s head and I blamed the birth control. I went off it.

I found myself in agony once a  month without the birth control to soothe my symptoms. I would lie shaking on the bathroom floor. I threw up. Going to school was usually not an option. In college I missed classes because I couldn’t get off the toilet or out of bed. I was seriously sick. When I came home from freshmen year I woke up once in the middle of the night screaming. My mom sponged my head as I cried and cried. It felt like someone had stabbed my stomach. Just as they were going to take me to the hospital it subsided. But my mom was worried so she brought me to the gynecologist. They did an ultrasound that revealed I had a collapsing hemorrhaging cyst on on my ovaries. It might be the worst pain I ever had. Ever since I’ve been back on the birth control. 

And that’s just women in the West. What about women in other parts of the world who don’t have access to sanitary supplies or medical supplies? Or women who aren’t allowed to be in their homes while menstruating and are forced to live in menstrual huts putting them at risk? To the transgender women who think having a period is trendy or romanticize it you don’t know what you are talking about. You don’t know periods. And you never will.