I have bought them for my wife and nieces.
It is not true that cashiers couldn’t care less when they are ringing up feminine products.
That said, people shouldn’t give a fuck about what a cashier thinks anyway. A cashier who thinks bad things about a person for buying menstrual products is a stupid-face jerk. Like the cashier in that video, who was stupid enough to express those thoughts out loud.
(I applaud the father for snatching that guy up with his words rather than with his fists. Many fathers wouldn’t have been so calm.)
“all the time” may be an overstatement – a lot of men don’t like to deal with that, and it’s more often the women who do the “family shopping”. That being said, yeah, my cisgender husband used to buy that stuff all the time when he was a stay-at-home dad, and I doubt the clerk looked askance at him.
A man buying products for a woman in his life is in a very different position than a man buying products for himself. It’s not about what the cashier thinks.
I’m gonna need this thing to be an SNL sketch right now. Love the dude in the background that starts going in on the clerk too.
The father was a case study in how you’re supposed to handle a jerk. He said all the right things and kept away from the personal insults, despite it being very apparent he was royally pissed off. The background dude was saying all the things a person shouldn’t say. He was stirring the pot, that’s for sure. But he was saying what we were all thinking. This bit made me bust a gut:
“You’re a Brony or whatever-the-fuck, and you’re about to get fucked up I promise you!”
I know people don’t like it that the cashier got “internet-shamed”, but I consider this an instructional video that both retail employees and customers can learn from.
I can’t stop laughing at this line. It’s like his inner 8th grader decided to come out in that moment. Brony doesn’t make any sense in this context but he just had to attack the clerk’s manhood in some way. And then the threat of violence takes the toxic masculinity cake.
But at least he was on the side of righteousness.
It looks like the cashier guy has a My Little Pony emblem on his shirt. So the background dude wasn’t being totally random with that little jab.
There is a trans artist who is trying to raise awareness that people are not something that only when have to deal with, and to reduce the stigma of tampons and pads:
They said: “Getting your period while not identifying as a woman can feel like a monthly battle both with your own body and with a world that continuously tells you that your identity isn’t real.”
This trans non-binary artist is making art with their menstrual blood | PinkNews
(Article includes a photo of the clothed artist free bleeding, so I wasn’t sure if I should do the two click rule)
From the article raventheif linked to:
I’m not exactly sure I understand the first part of this dream. If Clemmer is hoping to talk about periods without outing himself as a transman, then I don’t think this is a realistic dream. There’s no getting around the fact that menstruation is exclusively associative with female reproductive systems. This will always be true because of biology. It is major point of difference between cis men and trans ones. So yeah, if you’re talking to your buddy about bleeding every month, people overhearing you will know you’re trans. How much an individual should care about this isn’t dictated by society.
I hate to sound critical but there are other things in this piece that seem all over the place. For example, there is an emphasis on gender inclusion that is directed at women. But the practical difficulties that are described (such as the lack of trash cans in men’s bathrooms) are not a function of gender exclusion…if anything, it’s a failure to include females. If men’s bathrooms could better accommodate people who have periods, that would resolve some of the issues mentioned.
Access to period products is another thing I’m having hard time seeing. Forget about all the drug stores, grocery stores, gas stations etc that carry stuff. Amazon is a click away. No one should be complaining about access issues in a first world country and expect to be taken seriously. Not when there are poor countries that truly lack supplies and suffer in unimaginable ways because of that,
As shown in the video with that clerk that monstro linked to, it’s still a thing for periods to be viewed as shameful (“what will the neighbors think”). Women and girls internalize that shame all the time. Getting a period—even if you identify as a woman—can feel like a monthly battle. Winning the battle is a process that occurs from within, not from without.
I am not Clemmer but I suspect one thing they are dreaming about is to reduce the shame we see as surrounding this part of our bodies and our lives. It is awful, and young girls especially internalize that shame, I’m not sure how concerned they are about outing themselves as trans- they are pretty out about it already.
period.org was started by someone who was homeless and realized that “period poverty” was a real problem for some people. Amazon may only be a click away, but some people can’t afford it. The artist in question grew up in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which may be an influence on their view of availability (per another article).
I mean, part of it isn’t they want to talk about it without people knowing he’s trans. It’s that he wants being trans to be no big deal and menstruating men to be viewed as no less valid than ones with penises. That’s the issue, you’re viewing menstruation as inherently associated with women, and thus everything involving it must be a women’s inclusion issue. The entire point is to both degender and deshame the concept of menstruation. They’re not contradictory goals.
I think a lot of modern trans and queer philosophy is kind of subtly at odds with the philosophy by more traditional varieties of feminism and that’s causing a lot of the friction (without considering TERFs, I mean just plain often older feminists who are otherwise okay with trans people). There’s this definite feeling among old feminists that things are shamed because they’re female (esp biological functions), and thus embracing them as feminine and part of femininity and deshaming them liberates women. Obviously historically opposition to these things has been rooted in misogyny, but queer philosophy both believes that women can and should be proud of themselves and their femininity, but also believes that biology should be liberated from gender. And that that itself leads to liberation. It’s a very subtle philosophical difference, but enough of one to cause a sort of tension where people talk past each other.
Again, that post I quoted earlier:
You are, of course, allowed to embrace your menstruation and be proud of it, but he argument is that should stop at linking it to a gender and forcing that gender on others who share your biological functions (or assuming others who share that gender share those functions, which is an issue even throwing out trans people).
I found a different rendering of the same story here: https://www.glamour.com/story/cass-clemmer-instagram-Freebleeding
Found this quote:
Earlier in this thread, I reported the same feelings, despite identifying as a woman. Eventually I realized my error was in how I conceptualized womanhood. I associated it with things that kid-me considered negative. Yucky. Eye rolley. Unlike me, who was cool, smart, and talented and nothing like the one-dimensional Smurfette placeholder that represented my mental construct of femininity. With time, I figured out this was nonsense.
With periods and transmen, I’m not convinced a lack of gender inclusivity is a real problem. We’re not talking about club that transmen are being denied access to. Most women treat menstruation as a private affair. We talk about them with other women and sometimes men, but that’s it; and I’m not getting the sense transmen are dying to be included in these conversations. There are no perks or privileges that come with this bodily function, unless you consider trash bins in public restrooms a perk.
It was mentioned that being outed from leaks was a concern that transmen in general have. Some may not be concerned with being outed but I’m sure plenty don’t want to stand out from other men. Which is understandable, but not really a problem for someone else to solve.
I think destigmatizing periods is a worthy cause; I agree with Clemmer on that. The messaging to do that is where we disagree.
I mean, there are kind of short term realities and long term goals here. Yeah, trans men absolutely don’t want to be outed by periods in the near term because being outed can be embarrassing and dangerous due to the stigma and bigotry against trans people. However, in the long term, were being trans considered no big deal it’s not really a concern and it’s possible to feel one while hoping the other is the case someday.
(Though I’ll also say, generally being outed by periods isn’t a major concern unless you’re a lucky one who can pass without hormones. Taking regular testosterone at doses needed for transition generally causes complete menstrual cessation as long as you’re consistent about taking it. My ex and my best friend only ever have periods if they can’t or don’t take their T for about a month. Well, my best friend identifies as NB now and afaik stopped T altogether, albeit the T stuff may partially be due to insurance/money, but the point stands).
I’m not seeing menstruation as associated with women. I see it as associated with sexually mature humans with female genitalia and gonads. Do you agree these are two different things?
For your second point, I agree menstruating men shouldn’t be viewed as no less valid than ones with penises. Menstruating women shouldn’t either. That is the issue I keep coming back to, because in all the talk about how difficult it is for men to endure periods, it is easy to miss the fact that these difficulties are shared by women. Women internalize the message that they are “lesser” because they bleed like “women do”, and transmen internalize the message they are “lesser” because they bleed like “women do”. As long as transmen refuse to look at that internal messaging and push against it (like feminists do), it will be hard for them to truly shed the shame they feel.
I never said I was proud of my period. It’s a biological function that stopped being a psychologicsl burden for me years ago. That’s it, that’s all. Just like peeing.
And once again, I don’t see it as gender thing and I’m not trying to force anyone man into any gender box.
When I was a cashier and I saw dudes buying menstrual products, I figured they were for girlfriends/wives/daughters, etc.
I imagine it’s something psychosomatic.
(And no offense to that dude, I know what he’s trying to say, but surely I’m not the only one who finds menstrual art – no matter if it’s from ciswomen or transmen – disgusting. Please, don’t use your bodily waste as paint)
They Didn’t! They just left it like that, which is what made it so weird