Gender neutral menstruation products in Stuff

Sometimes a thought hits me and I then I find myself googling it and looking at other people’s ideas and points of view and suddenly I’ve wasted a whole lot of time obsessing about something that really isn’t all that important. That’s what happened yesterday when I used a restroom in a coffee shop and saw a sign above the toilet. It was a gender neutral single stall restroom, and the sign said, “Ladies, please do not flush your feminine hygiene products down the toilet.”

I probably wouldn’t have thought anything of seeing that sign in the women’s restroom, but since this was unisex the thought crossed my mind: I wonder if this would be considered transphobic since it’s presuming only people who identify as female (or “ladies”) would have periods.

So I google it. I forget my exact google question. I think I typed “gender neutral menstruation products.” And I get results along the same lines of what I was thinking. Not everyone that has a menstrual cycle identifies as female, so people are becoming more and more concerned with the idea of not presuming that “feminine” products are only for women.

I know there are probably people that feel strongly for both sides of this argument and I’m not really sure how I feel. I suppose it doesn’t hurt or affect me at all to be more inclusive in how I think about gender specific terminology.

I asked Olsen what she thought. I tried not to ask a leading question, I just said asked her “out of curiosity” what term she used as a default for “feminine products.” She sighed and said, “I just call them tampons, calling them ‘feminine products’ would make me feel like an old lady.”

I wonder if not being gender specific is just more normal for younger people, and that’s why she feels that way.

Last updated October 09, 2017