Why the Intersectionality of Trans Rights and Period Poverty Matters
by Ezra Pearse
Conversations around wombs, pregnancy, periods, and general hygiene for anyone with a uterus, ovaries, and/or a vagina often exclude or even fail to acknowledge the range of identities other than cisgender women who need advice, care, and knowledge to act when their body starts showing concerning symptoms. Without spaces that speak about our diverse bodies with these intentions of care, we often feel unseen, unsafe, and overall disregarded in our range of experiences as human beings.
As per the 2021 National Census, the ONS revealed that trans people are around 81% more likely to be unemployed (seeking work) and 66% more likely to be long term sick or disabled. In addition, a more recent study from 2023 found that trans people in the UK are far more likely (on average) to live in deprived areas than cis people are. This data implies that trans people are disproportionately more likely to live in poverty, meaning it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume those who require period products struggle to access these on a safe, regular basis.
This highlights how the goal of ending period poverty can only be achieved with the inclusion of trans+ identities. In a similar way to feminism being for everyone, the right education about periods has the potential to improve the lives of anyone who has them or knows someone who does – that’s essentially everyone in the world!
With recent attacks on trans rights, the inclusion of the trans+ community in conversations about menstrual healthcare has become increasingly important. This notion is often thwarted by the idea that conversations around topics centring women’s bodies should only be held in spaces ‘for women’, but when the subject matter is the physical body, not perceived gender, surely room for nuance must be made?
Trans bodies are often viewed through a dehumanising lens in gynaecological treatments, our bodies seen as unnatural, disgusting, unworthy of care, and scrutinised or even denied treatment by medical professionals. This Swedish study in 2022 found that “only 9% of trans persons felt they currently had access to a trans-competent gynecologist or urologist”, granted Sweden’s past law requiring trans people to be forcibly made infertile had only been removed as recently as 2013. However, the eugenics ideology remains ingrained in much of global trans healthcare today, especially for trans men and nonbinary people assigned female at birth, whose healthcare is further jeopardised by the medicalisation of patriarchal control over female-assigned bodies. In the realm of menstruation, people with diverse gender identities must not only be openly accepted but invited, supported, and allowed to flourish if we are to truly change the trend of control that has been limiting the bodily autonomy of women and minority groups for centuries.
The trans rights advocacy group Nottingham Pastel Project has made a leading effort to begin establishing safe spaces for trans people in the UK, with their recent initiative known as YS2, an acronym meaning 'Your Spaces Too', signposting various venues and businesses as trans-friendly spaces with stickers and an allocated pointer on their YS2 Venues map. This change comes as a welcome relief from the recent advancement of recession-style politics in the UK, seeming to follow suit alongside the United States. Regarding abortion bans especially, a similar leg of frighteningly outdated ideas about bodily autonomy had come to rise, fronted predominantly by Reform UK’s Nigel Farage, but also, perhaps more worryingly, under the current labour government, in which the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) encouraged police officers to search mobile devices and homes of those who experience pregnancy loss. Fortunately, a recent vote to decriminalise abortion in England and Wales provides some hope, but the bare minimum means next to nothing when millions struggle daily to feel any sense of security at all. For the UK to be on the right side of history, outdated gender concepts and restrictions on bodily autonomy must be abolished, allowing people to exist authentically without shame or scrutiny—this also means offering better education and resources to safeguard the rights of anyone who menstruates, with respect for each individual's identity and personal experiences.
To reflect on and illuminate a brighter instance of recent history, Nottingham’s Trans Pride on the 21st of June saw an estimated 1000+ people fill the streets to march, chant, protest and show that our lives matter, that we are loved, and, regardless of what any court ruling or EHRC guidance changes may suggest, we’re here to stay. Taking this attitude of unwavering solidarity and applying it to change our stance on period poverty could prove to be the next step in providing essential advice, support, and resources for anyone who experiences periods.