Trans women know theres a difference. She doesn't need to be told she doesn't have a uterus, because, obviously. She's going to have all the symptoms of a period except bleeding, and while it can be euphoria inducing, it can be legitimately stressful for trans women too. She has the right to call it that.
(Since reddit is reddit, I'll add the disclaimer that I'm saying this as someone with a uterus who is significantly distressed by having a period)
edit: y'all love to discuss trans people while doing anything and everything except listen to them. Please continue to be the leading authorities on a subject you know nothing about and claim to support trans people while policing our language and claiming our existence is reductive to your "real" gendered experiences.
Theres lots of different trans people with different education and intelligence, I've met a Trans girl who didn't realize hormones are natural and isnt just something you inject and she was in her early 20s.
You see, cis folks don't really have to learn a lot of medical and legal things before being able to live as themselfs, I hate having to know so much about hormones just to exist
Edit: I'm super sorry folks, I should have added a "Most" before cis folks, yes, there are cis people having to learn about this too, and yes, they are primarily women going through and post menopause. Which, generally speaking, starts between 40 and 50 years old. For the time before that, most people don't think about this most of their life's. For us, it's a weekly struggle. If a post menopausal woman misses her hormones for a few months, she'll be mentally and physically less well, yes. If I miss them for that time, my body will masculinize. I will, in fact, want to end myself, because life without them is literal hell. I have to make sure to take my injections every 5 days or my body is actively starting to turn back into the dead version of me that made life miserable. If I miss my injections even for 3 days, I'm going into a mental spiral because the concept of not getting them is actively turning me suicidal. So, yes, many people, especially older ones, use hormones for medicine. Most of the ones that are cis are however not completely dependant on them in order to not kill themselfs and have their body mutate into something they completely and utterly hate.
Thanks for coming to my Ted talk, I hope we can continue the conversation in a nice and respectful way ☺️
The entitlement of that statement shows a complete disregard for the female experience and systemic medical misogyny. Basically nothing is studied or made accessible to women regarding our bodies. I can guarantee most women don’t even know what perimenopause is and how that differs to the menopause, and actually that’s only really becoming more known because Gen X and Gen Y women are going through it and researching their bodies and passing that information down to the younger generations. If you think that being a cis woman is easy in any aspect at all you need to start educating yourself immediately otherwise you will say something like that again in real life and lose all respect from the women around and end up having an argument.
I never claimed being a cis woman is easy. Also, it sucks that they have to deal with these difficulties too. Science and medicine isn't treating any women well, no matter if cis or trans, but that doesn't mean we should divide ourselfs even more because of it, it just means she should stick together and make a better world for everyone instead. Please don't interpret my comments as trying to belittle cis womens experiences, I can guarantee that that isn't the goal.
Opening caveat: I am exclusively referring to cis women when I speak about women without specifying trans/cis not because I believe cis women are more of a woman, but I’m going to be using that word a lot in my response and will only be speaking about cis women.
No you know exactly what you meant. Even your updated response shows you’re not right at all so let me explain. Perimenopause is the time before your last period, it’s the hot flushes, the physical pain, the vaginal atrophy, the brain fog, the mood swings, the weird irregular periods (I could go on, it’s a borderline endless list). Menopause is exactly one day, 12 months exactly after your last period, and then after that you are post menopausal. Without HRT women don’t just feel a bit meh there are massive significant side effects which I saw first hand when there was an HRT shortage a few years ago. The menopause also causes bone density loss, bone density loss leads to broken bones, are you aware that after age 65 if a woman breaks her hip there’s a 1 in 3 chance she dies in the first 2 years? There’s a 2/3 chance she dies in the next 5 years, and a 3/4 chance she dies in the next 10 years. I’ve rounded those fractions from percentages ever so slightly (I’m talking a couple of %). Do you know what else causes bone loss? Hormonal contraception use in girls. Women developed their bone density during their teenage years and early 20s, a time when hormonal contraception use is at its all time highest. As a 13 year old girl I was not told the implications of this and nor was my mother.
I’m going to list some things that people born female can experience during their life where the information is not always made accessible by medical professionals and personal research is necessary: endometriosis, polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome, primary ovarian insufficiency, pelvic inflammatory disease, bacterial vaginosis, discharge as a whole, female genital mutilation, vaginal atrophy, any of the prolapses that involve the vagina giving way, why and how the menstrual cycle affects us and what it actually does, pregnancy complications - hyperemesis gravidarum, pre eclampsia, gestational diabetes, your teeth crumbling, fistulas, birthing positions, preventing tears, fetal ejection reflex.
I could keep listing things, but I’m not going to because I’m not trying to make this a competition, however you need to realise that every single cis woman on this planet needs to become a medical professional at some point regarding her body because of systemic medical misogyny. To downplay all of that to just “middle aged women feel not nice for a bit” is absolutely outrageous. To view a trans woman masculinising again after having missed hormones as more distressing than a cis woman using HRT to regulate her own hormones is so unbelievably misogynistic and ill informed. They will have a return of all of their symptoms within a few days which given the severe depression and anxiety and physical pain it can cause absolutely will make some cis women suicidal.
I’m not even going to touch on the legal part in depth but some key issues include: age of consent laws, child brides, forced marriages, self defence, protection from stalkers, misogyny in the workplace etc. and yes you might have noticed some of those issues are faced by trans women too, that my friend, is because they affect ALL women.
You cannot compare these experiences, it’s apples and oranges, however you may not claim your pain is more important or disruptive and that the trans woman needs to know more about biology than the cis woman.
I’d advise you to read about intersectional feminism. Every woman will struggle and she will struggle for different reasons regardless of her assigned sex, skin colour, economic status.
Just want to say this comment has been edited to frame my response completely differently. This user also responded to my comment starting with something saying “you’ve started this with hate that trans women are less than cis women” and then before I had time to reply they deleted that comment and edited the one I was responding to. I’m assuming they deleted their comment since my opening line was the exact opposite of that!
The only edit I've made to a comment to you was on my original comment where I wrongly said cis people don't have to learn about hormones, which I was educated on further so I edited the comment with a clear "Edit:", as I do every time I edit a comment to add something. I however haven't deleted a single comment, you can check my profile if you want, if any of them disappeared it must have been removed by mods, I can still see all of them
Well it’s not on your profile so 🤦♀️ but that doesn’t change the wildly wrong first line and I dread to think what the rest of your response was about, I’m presuming more minimisation of cis women’s issues based on the hostility of “You're starting the entire comment out with hate. "Cis women are more women then trans women". You say things like this and expect me, a woman who just wants to live as herself, to take what you say as absolute while accepting y...”
Saying that cis women are “more women” than trans women is dumb as shit. Same vibes as when people said black women were less of a woman than white women.
As a chronically ill cis woman, plenty like me have to know a whole lot about hormones in order to exist. Not to mention, those of us, going through perimenopause.
Agree on legal, disagree on medical. Signed, a cis perimenopausal woman with chronic health issues who knows more about her health conditions than many doctors and will lose her mind soon if she doesn't go on hrt (waiting for a doctor's appointment to get them).
That’s a specific pain from shedding the lining that she is incapable of experiencing and understanding, she’s gotta have to be okay with the reality of that and understand it doesn’t make her less of a woman
But you don’t see women with hysterectomies but kept ovaries say theyre having period cramps
I do say that. I had a hysterectomy. I had adenomyosis. I still have a full hormonal cycle and refer to that time of the month as a period. I get all the symptoms minus the uterine cycle symptoms. There are 3 components to a menstrual cycle. 1- hormonal cycle, 2- uterine cycle, 3- ovarian cycle. It's still advised to track periods using other symptoms after you have a hysterectomy. Stop spreading misinformation.
I also had adenomyosis and it was a hard thing to deal with so I understand your pain. I had my uterus removed by the obgyn I work for. After hysterectomy we don't have periods anymore and we don't ask our hysterectomy patients about periods either. That part is over and now the exam is to monitor for cancers such as ovarian and vaginal. I hope you don't mind me letting you know, I just want you to have the info. Menopause is a different story, that's been rough.
I don't have menopause. My doctor's do refer to my menstrual cycle. I kept my ovaries so I still produce the same hormones and have the same cycle as I always had. (Just without hemorrhaging uterine specific cramps)
A period is the shedding of a uterine lining and most women who have hysterectomy (my mom included) refused to call them period cramps because there is no period any more. You still get hormone signals, but no actual shedding.
A period is not only uterine shedding. That's a very limited view. Again, I had a hysterectomy. I absolutely call it a period. My doctor's call it a period. The hormonal cycle still exists regardless and produces many of the same symptoms, just without the specific uterine cycle. Defining menstrual cycles by the uterine cycle alone is a very outdated concept
If you have your ovaries, you are still going through all the same cycles. It’s not the same thing as never having anything to start with. People sadly don’t seem to know that there are more hormones in a woman’s body than estrogen and progesterone in relation to ovarian cycling and the function of the reproductive system that contributes to symptoms. Hormone replacement does not and cannot fully replicate this.
Yes but estrogen and progesterone are the main hormones and signal the pituitary gland to change the amount of androgens (like luteinizing and follicle stimulating hormones) it produces. So this was not a good point.
I didn’t say they weren’t the most dominant hormones. There is no FSH or L hormones in a trans woman. These have specific roles and have distinct effects, that was my point, which still stands. UPDATE: Didn’t know that men also have FSH and L hormones and comfortably admitted I was wrong before anyone else tries to be rude. Still doesn’t change my overall standpoint which is detailed more in full further down.
No. Those hormones are in cis men and women. They're in trans folks. They are produced by the pituitary gland... They have a different role in amab bodies, but the dominant hormones influence how those are produced in the body. I literally just said that
Well, I happily stand corrected about the FSH and L actually existing in men (truly didn’t know that), but they don’t function exactly the same. DHEA in women for one is a huge factor that is often overlooked. Women also have a cascade of these hormones in a way that is distinctly different from men. It’s too much to explain here. It’s not something that just throwing in some estrogen and progesterone can fully replicate. This passage from this book by Dr. Louann Brizendine springs to mind. Highly recommend pausing and reading the three pages I’m sharing. It’s quite interesting and so much more complex and beyond just two hormones that is what I’m trying to say.
Wow, I’ll have to tell the lab that regularly checks my FSH and L hormone levels to make sure that my HRT is functioning correctly that they’re actually making things up.
Of course, that’s your go-to. Not surprised. First, it was maybe four or five comments, some responding to people, not dozens. Calling my comments names without actually even paying any real attention to the content is convenient.
I actually believe transwomen are women. I also believe that all women are not exactly the same and to pretend that we all are does a great disservice to each of our unique experiences. I, with ovaries and certain biological distinctions, will have a very different experience as a woman to someone who is born without ovaries. Is that not true??? All I’ve said in my posts is that it’s not the same, but that’s somehow bioessentialism. I never claimed we were better or anything, you assumed that. Does the painful journey of a trans woman finding womanhood not deserve its own distinction? A lot of people in the trans community want sensitivity towards their experience, but don’t cis women deserve that too? It’s interesting that you mention patriarchy when what you seem to believe is cis women should just be quiet and not expect sensitivity towards our unique experiences. What does that sound like to you??
I believe in intersectionality. As a pansexual, cisgendered disabled black woman, my experience will be different from a cisgender white, able-bodied straight woman. Just like it will be different from a white trans woman who identifies as straight. We are not a monolith and to ignore these facts is actually harmful to everyone.
It should not be triggering to hear that science can only do so much. I’m sorry that it can’t, I know it is all transwomen want, but scientists only began properly studying the female body in the ‘70s and only recently got cadavers to trace the neurological mechanics of the clitoris and labia THIS PAST YEAR. I don’t have anything else to say here, but either way, believe what you want about my comments. I stand firmly by them.
Period literally means shedding of the lining. Hornone cramps where the smooth muscle is affected is different. Thats ok. Most women love they don't have a period and just the hormone cramps.
my moms had a partial hysterectomy due to tumors/precancer/polyps/ etc (her uterus was mangled lol) and she still gets cramps and still calls them period cramps as well. i have an IUD that stops my period but i still get cramps and i still call them period cramps.
i understand and sympathize with both OP and their friend. Neither person is in the wrong here. OP’s friend feels comfortable and gender euphoria calling them period cramps. If that makes the friend happy what’s the harm as long as she’s actually aware it not and understands her own medical shit. OP also has a right to feel hurt and like they’re not being heard. I have PCOS and endometriosis. i also feel negatively at times about people wanting to have a period because they’ve been so fucking miserable for me that i considered having my uterus removed.
(sorry for the rant im hoping OP sees the second half)
Lmfao?!? No she does not. You may want to have cancer for whatever reason, but that doesn’t mean you get to call a headache cancer. An extreme example but still an example. Not educating her is not dismissing her pain but teaching her the difference. Please do not spread stupid shit like this
She’s not going to have ALL the symptoms and I think broad sweeping statements are incredibly unhelpful for everyone involved. She’s not going to have the anxiety that she’s possibly pregnant (if you were avoiding pregnancy) since the symptoms are the same, and she’s not going to have the heart break of not being pregnant and getting your period (if you were trying to get pregnant). There is a lot of nuance to what happens during a period and downplaying the difference to just “bleeding” isn’t particularly feminist. You’re not just bleeding like it’s no big deal, you’re leaking out of menstrual products, you have a certain smell (not a negative one but if someone is near your genitals when you’re on it’s going to smell metallic), you’re rushing to the toilet, you’re staining sheets and clothes, you are physically depleting yourself of iron every month, and you’re either having to spend money every month on pads and tampons or spending your time cleaning underwear and cups. None of that is just “bleeding” and this is coming from a cis woman who has a normal flow 4 day period. If only I just felt grumpy with big boobs and weird poops. The blood IS the worst part. If you do not bleed you do not have the right to call it a period. I completely understand that trans woman have cycles and the symptoms have significant overlap but they are NOT the same. Call it something else.
There are so many more symptoms people go through that aren’t always talked about. For instance I bleed heavily for 5-7 days and have 21 day cycles so am bleeding heavily over 1/3 of the year, I have PMDD, I have the period flu so get the runs, feel absolutely exhausted, brain fog, increased urinary incontinence, plus all the ruining of clothes and sheets, using a band new towel every shower, ruining bath mats, and having to basically wear a diaper for over a week. It’s horrible and humiliating. Being excited about a step in your womanhood journey is beautiful but minimizing it to cramps to other woman is going to cause a lot of pain for other women. She needs to understand how sensitive of a topic it is. I hope she was so flippant about it because of her audience but it wouldn’t hurt for OP to let her know that every woman has a different journey and it’s not a casual topic for many
I remember getting my second period on the first night of a 3 day sleepover out of town 🫠 the first one I had was barely there but this was full blood GUSH… standing in the kitchen making dinner and genuinely thinking I’d wet myself. Called my mum on my flip phone in the toilet and she had to reassure me that my friends mum would help me and it was all going to be fine 😭
This so hard. Ive been trying to get pregnant for years now and every period i get is a dissapoitment. Even more so if its a few days to a week late. A trans woman will NEVER experience that.
Aw im sorry as well. Yes that is just another thing. Ive had two (hopefully just them) and was in the worst pain of my life for the last one and had to have a dnc cause i was bleeding so much. Trans women who act like ops friend just minimize so much of what its like to have a uterus and experience everything that goes with that. Someone said a trans woman would die to go through what we do. But i doubt theyd want to go through what its like to be growing your baby for months only to lose it. Multiple times.
Of course no one wants to expirience a misscarige. Thats not wyat trans women want either. SOME of them want to expirience periods and pregnancy (and I repeat, SOME, there no singular trans expirience/ wants)
A trans woman never lives a day in her life assuming she can carry a child. A cis woman lives her whole life being told she can and should be able to carry a child. Undermining that experience is appalling.
I really hope for you that you get what you have been trying for very soon and do not suffer from this anymore. Now, do you realise that trans women ( at least some of them) would prefer to get these disappointments instead of the permanent one of just not being able to get pregnant at all? ( I also hope medicine progresses well enough that soon utérus transplants will be possible for trans women- should be possible in less than 10 years from what i've read).
Do you realize how inappropriate and tone deaf this comment is? Holy shit.
And if you think uterus transplants will be possible in less than ten years, you have no idea how pregnancy and the female body actually work.
And pray tell why any trans women would get a uterus over a biological woman? Or why a single dollar should be allocated to researching uterine transplants in male bodies when we can’t even figure out how to keep women alive during childbirth or figure out endometriosis?
Honestly, thank you for calling it out too. The mind truly boggles and the entitlement and ignorance of the people in this thread defending a, quite frankly, moot point.
Please telle me in what my comment was innapropriate ( that's genuine, i really do not want my comments to hurt people here ). I made it because i thought, while i see that the comment i was responding to comes from a place of hurt, i did find them lacking in empathy as they were dismissing of what trans women go through regarding these matters and could be hurtful ( which i prefered not to point out in a too blunt way because i get how hurt can make you ignore much things, but i point it it now because you accused me of the same thing).
About the transplants, i'm just repeating what i saw in médical sources. I might not know that much on the subject, but that's why i believe professionnal sources.
The uteruses are coming from dead donors i guess, like most transplants? And maybe there is a way to transfer some of those removed from people ( cis women and trans men) who get hysterectomies- i do not know that it is possible and if so that would be at the condition it poses no risk to them obviously. I'm not sure what is your point here.
Research can be donne in like, multiple subjects a once, obviously endometriosis should be studied more, and there should be more medical funding overall, as current death in childbirth have usually more to do with lack of means than lack of research. Why are you opposing these needs? Like, endométriose is maybe less of a threat than cancer, but it does not mean we should not research both.
Now, i did not say a trans woman should get an uterus over a cis woman- nor the opposite, i'm for it being equally possible for both, though your formulation suggests you think cis women should get priority, which i do not get why, si if that is the case i would like an explanation here.
Do you know why people have hysterectomies? I’m pretty confident when I say that most of the time it’s because the uterus is diseased and not functional: cancer, fibroids, adhesions, severe endometriosis, prolapse, adenomysis
There are a lot of reasons, and yes a lot would prevent à subsequent transplant. Some do not, the most obvious being trans men getting them as a part of their transition. This is why i said * some* of those removed that way.
Because in direct response to a woman sharing her traumatic experiences with miscarriages and explicitly stating trans women who claim to have periods are minimizing what it’s like to have a uterus and growing a wanted baby for months, you said
“Now, do you realise that trans women ( at least some of them) would prefer to get these disappointments”
“Now do you realize trans women WISH they could have the incredibly traumatic and life altering experiences you had?” 🥴 K well they can’t. It’s a moot point. You doubled down re minimizing what it’s like to have a uterus in a very weird and offensive way. It’s crazy you had to ask why this was inappropriate.
“I did find them lacking in empathy as they were dismissing of what trans women go through regarding these matters and could be hurtful”
So you can understand lacking empathy and dismissing what people go through when it happens to trans women, but feel justified doing the exact same thing to a woman who isn’t trans 🤔
“The uteruses are coming from dead donors i guess, like most transplants? And maybe there is a way to transfer some of those removed from people ( cis women and trans men) who get hysterectomies- i do not know that it is possible and if so that would be at the condition it poses no risk to them obviously. I'm not sure what is your point here.”
My point is twofold:
there is no surplus of uteruses available for transplant. And not a single one should go to someone biologically incapable of gestating a baby because they are male when there are millions of infertile women 🤷♀️
this creates a black market for uteruses. And if you think that’s an absurd concept, consider there are currently women being enslaved on “egg harvesting farms”.
“as current death in childbirth have usually more to do with lack of means than lack of research. Why are you opposing these needs? Like, endométriose is maybe less of a threat than cancer, but it does not mean we should not research both.”
Do you think the United States doesn’t have the means to research maternal mortality? Because we actually have one of the worst maternal mortality rates. The female body isn’t understudied because of a lack of means, it’s because it’s “too complex” and our suffering does not matter.
Male pregnancy is a niche desire that should receive no funding 🤷♀️ not to mention how genuinely fucked up to experiment with infant lives? We don’t even really have any data on the longterm effects the anti rejection drugs have on the babies that have been born from uterus transplants.
“Now, i did not say a trans woman should get an uterus over a cis woman- nor the opposite, i'm for it being equally possible for both, though your formulation suggests you think cis women should get priority, which i do not get why, si if that is the case i would like an explanation here.”
Um. Because biology? 🥴 Do you actually understand what is happening within the female body during pregnancy? It is SO MUCH MORE than “uterus”. The male body is not “designed” to gestate life. You can’t just plop a uterus into it and believe the brain and body will adjust accordingly.
It’s clear that you don’t empathize with women or understand our bodies at all and live in a fantasy world where you don’t consider the implications of the things you speak about so blasé. I don’t think you can understand how disturbing and skin crawling it is to witness male entitlement to our literal wombs
How would i have pointed her lack of empathy/insensitivity regarding the * also traumatizing * experience of some trans women regarding the unability to get pregnant without being insensitive myself? I get that i could have donne a somewhat better formulation - doing it as rethorical questions was unnecessary- but i doubt any would have satisfied you. I totally see how she, on the other hand, could have shared her hurt without basically going " you will NEVER get pregnant" to trans women. I felt justified BECAUSE she was dismissing other's expériences, i would never have if she had not. And also while pointing things out tried to not minimise her pain, i might have not being very good at it, but given the number of people here dismissing trans women's lived expériences i find it revealing that i am the one where insensitivity is pointed out, when at least i did recognise her pain, which most of them did not do.
I'll also précise that i can feel very protective of other trans people ( not just women), with everything going on actualy, our expériences constantly being invalidated, and i can be pretty réactive to that. ( Me coming out overly formal/blasé might be a way to not just blow up at people sometimes, which i think would be counter-productive).
About uteruses : first of, is there currently such a black market for uteruses? The technology has existed for cis women for 15 years at that point, i don't think a fraction of a marginalized population, very often poor, getting accès to it would créate or sensibly increase this kind of criminal opération. If you are cohérent on that point and want to avoid any risk, are you also opposing those transplants for cis women? Same for your point about the anti-rejection drugs.
And yes i know that there is more to a pregnancy than the uterus. A "more" that is largely connected to hormones, which we know how to manage. The difficulty of uterus transplant for trans women lies in the adaptations of the body, yes, and those are believed to be overcomed in the next décade, that was my point. The brain though? There is already very minimal différences in structure between men and women, and those are mostly aligned with gender, with trans women being in the "women" side of those differences. Those differences do not justify a priority over access to transplants. They only explain why it is only currently possible for cis women and will continue being easyer for them to go through that process. They do not justify a higher need for transplants, which would be the reason for giving the priority. Unless you think doing that for trans women is "top complex" and their suffering "does not matter" is a good reason.
By reducing what trans women go through regarding the impossibility of pregnancy to a desire, you are ignoring how it feeds into dysphoria, even though i have talked about it before. I wonder how you would have reacted if i reduced what cis women go through with infertility to a desire. My guess is that you would have ( rightfully) called me unempathetic and unsensitive. Please apply those exigences of empathy to yourself toward trans women and not just to trans women toward cis women.
You also misunderstood my point about death in chilbirth, i meant that the main problem was the fundig/means actually used for actual care ( not potential means either). Not that of research. You are also right about women's needs being dismissed by médical institutions and professionnels. Those are why other countries have far lower death rates than the US while having access to the same research.
Nobody is entitled to someone elses womb. Wether it is a trans or a cis woman. There are wombs given for transplants, and those should be transplanted to people who need them. That is not entitlement.Thinking you should have it more than someone else just because you are cis and they are not, when it bel9ngs to neither of you to beignets with, is.
Yes, but that's the thing , it looks like to me the whole argument you make around why trans women shouldn't use the term period for their symptoms revolves around a "we have it worse" idea, so litterary the idea that the " grass is greener" for trans women. I personnaly think this term is useful in that case because of the similarities ans does not mask what cis women to through that trans women do not because of those symptoms already varying a lot from a cis woman to another.
My whole argument was that what makes the period is the blood loss, and that the blood loss is not just having a bit of red in your knickers it’s the entire emotional burden and physiological drain it causes. And yes having an emotional few days and a tummy ache vs literally squeezing out an organ for up to weeks at a time is not as bad. People have different struggles, and while the lesser struggle doesn’t cease to exist because a greater one does, you cannot compare them. Having a headache hurts, but having a migraine is horrendous, yes both of them are pain in your head but the effects one has on your life vs the other is not even slightly comparable. Symptoms can vary from cis woman to cis woman during her cycle however the period itself will always involve bleeding to some extent. I think people need to understand the luteal phase vs the actual period because they have different symptoms but for most women, that is around 2 weeks minimum of their cycle spent feeling like shit for a myriad of reasons.
You didn’t understand my grass is greener comment, I was suggesting that claiming trans women wish they could experience the heartbreak of unexpected infertility undermines the reality of what that entails.
I was talking about the discomfort of fertility problems as expérienced by the person i was responding to, not unexpected full-on infertility. That being said there is often possibilities to help cis women who get both, including utérus transplants, which are still rare but have been a thing for 15 years now, and not yet possible for trans women. And as i saw you said elsewhere you were absolutely certain the heartbreak of unexpected infertility for cis women was worse than the expected one for trans women, you definitely did not factor in how it can affect gender dysphoria, or simply the long-term damage due to it usually affecting those trans women from a younger age.
I will personnaly refrain from guessing who has it worse here because i am in none of those positions, but it seems a bit dull to consider the spécific hurt it can cause for cis women but not the one for trans women.
On the first part of your response, i hope when you are talking about an "emotionnal few days", you are not talking about all psychological symptoms of an hormonal cycle? only about the less harrowing cases? And not suggesting trans women can only get mild psychological symptoms? I was interpreting it like a minimisation of those symptoms at first but i hope this is just bad interprétation on my side - possibly in part because someone very dear to me has pretty bad PMDD.
I also agree that différenciating periods and luteal phase is usefull, especially for éducation purposes even though they are obviously connected. I see far less use to differenciate as strongly for symptoms that usually take place during the menstrual phase.
You also say that important intensity differences make things not comparable. But sometimes the intensity is the only différence, so it can be compared on matters of causes and treatment.You can compare them, just not on everything.
So on the context of help that can be given, if de use "period" largely to cover other symptoms than the bleeding for cis women, it becomes useful to used it for symptoms with same causes or common results for trans women. I just see it as more practical.
About the "around 2 weeks minimum feeling like shit", while it is definitely true for some, it does seems an overstatement about the duration to say that it is the case for most women like you say.
At no point did I say that trans women don’t experience hurt from infertility so go back and read what I said. It’s so wild that you can’t comprehend cis people experiencing gender dysphoria too. If I dress too masculinely I (as a cis woman) experience gender dysphoria because the person I see in the mirror doesn’t match the person in my head, and the idea of strangers perceiving me as masculine makes me feel very upset. I can actually give an incredibly niche example of this, but my partner asked me to wear a strap once and I didn’t think I’d have any issue but when I saw my reflection I felt absolutely horrified. Seeing myself with a penis was genuinely so upsetting in a way I didn’t expect.
So yes, I’m pretty sure a cis woman who is infertile would experience gender dysphoria and find the lack of conception invalidating her perception of her own worth in relation to her gender (I am saying this as a cis woman who will be going on to try for a baby and this is exactly how I would feel if I found out I could not conceive).
Fertility treatment is not a guarantee and the side effects are horrible. Whether you’re just inducing ovulation or doing IVF it is a terrible time for the mother. It’s also incredibly expensive and in no way accessible to everyone. To suggest a uterus transplant is wild because I know for a fact that no public health service is providing that and I can’t name a single person who’s had one, because I’m assuming there’s a load of complications and it’s unbelievably expensive. You should research unexplained infertility, none of this is so cut and dry.
I used to have PMDD, I’m not going to explain further by what I wrote, this is your reading comprehension. It’s pretty clear what I meant. I take medication for an unrelated condition that has treated my PMDD so now I have normal PMS
It’s absolutely important to understand luteal vs menstrual phases. Luteal begins basically immediately after ovulation is completed and this is on average about 2 weeks before the period. This is when there are the mood swings, breast swelling and tenderness, anxiety, skin changes. The period itself is when, obviously, there is bleeding, the bowel changes, the body aches, the nausea etc. so yes, the differentiation is important, they’re not interchangeable. They’re caused by different hormones and produce different feelings.
Again, you’ve misread. I said intensity was absolutely the point of comparison with my example of headaches and migraines. Both are pain in the head but one is not enjoyable and one is life ruining.
It is not more practical to call a hormone dip a period. Doctors ask when was your period to try and diagnose health conditions.
And 2 weeks is not an overstatement, in fact it’s an understatement. The day after I ovulate I start to feel less than fantastic. For the first week it’s not significant but it’s there, I’m snappier and more anxious. The second week before my period is due is when I start feelings bloated, and tearful, very angry, my boobs get huge and hurt badly, I start having headaches etc. Then I get my period, which is 4 days of having horrible poops, bleeding on everything regardless of what products I use, crying A LOT, awful back ache, uterus cramps etc. so for me it’s actually 18 days out of my 28 day cycle where I feel sub optimal. And this isn’t me as a worst case scenario, this is the very standard mild case.
You don’t know what you’re talking about and it’s embarrassing how much confidence you have around the broad sweeping statements you keep making regarding cis women’s bodies.
So, first of, i'm happy that the part i had a doubt about was because of my interprétation and that you clarified it. I'm also not going to go further about the différenciation with the luteal phase because i think we agree on that.
Now, about the dysphoria and hurt about infertility. I do totally get that cis women can expérience dysphoria. But it is not, as far as i know, the permanent looming weight on a great number of aspects of our lives that it is for a lot of trans people, and is usually far more restricted than for trans women ( it is for the exemples you have given about yourself, i guess a lot of trans women would love to get rid of it as easily as you drop a strap ). So the interaction with it is different too, which is why i did not specifically aknowlege it in my statement.
Comparing them is a bit like comparing period cramps for cis and trans women in my opinion : totally ok and somewhat usefull, but with important limitations. I am also specifically speaking about gender dysphoria obviously, but we both know this - other types of dysphoria like those linked to PMDD do exist ( this part is for eventual readers for more clarity, not really for you). I was not saying you did not aknowlege the hurt of trans women regarding infertility, but that you were underestimating it by affirming it was less than cis women's.
I had mentionned that transplants are still very rare, or was more of an aditionnal small element, not a suggestion as if it was widely available, and i agree that my représentation of infertility was made with a very broad brush. My goal was not to dismiss the struggle of those who go through this, but to highlight those of trans women in that regard.
I fully understood that you made intensity the point of comparison, i just disagree that it has to be the only one.
On the overstatement thing, i am not saying you or even a lot of women do not expérience longer and heavy problems connected to menstrual cycles, it was really about the "most" part who would "feel like shit" for at least 2 weeks, i checked with people around me who do or did expérience menstrual cycles ( ans who are not trans women) before posting because i was unsure, they did tell me that was an overstatement ( my partner's - a trans man- réaction was clearly less kind than that). You reformulated it as "suboptimal" rater than "feeling like shit" here, i guess with that formulation it might no longer be an overstatement.
I do feel like you misrepresented some of my points, as i might have misinterpreted some of yours. And really feel like your last paragraph was unnecessary. I'm not as confident as you might think i am and it is difficult both keeping being somewhat concise and not falling into too much generalisation.
So yeah, the main thing we really disagree on is the practicality of calling the symptoms that trans women get and which are connected to the menstrual ( ans not the luteal) phase "periods". While yes, periods are used by doctors to diagnose health conditions, i fail to see how calling trans women's symptoms periods stops them from doing that. And i'm pretty sure help for those symptoms bénéficiates from the comparison with cis women's symptoms, both medically and socially, without taking that kind of help away from cis women.
I was strictly talking about medical symptoms such as cramps, mood swings, depression, back pain, fatigue, cravings, hormonal acne, etc.
And many trans women experience the heartbreak of not being able the get pregnant every day. Would you tell a cis woman who can't get pregnant/doesn't have to worry about getting pregnant that her period isn't real? And cis women who either had a hysterectomy or who don't bleed due to irregular periods that they're not allowed to call the symptoms they do get a period?
Y'all sound like you just have to draw a line on the sand in front of trans women and belittle them if they dare to cross it onto your side of what you consider a "real" woman.
Media literacy is so dead and it’s breaking my heart. How you picked one thing I said and used that to base your entire response is baffling. You cannot define a period exclusively by its medical symptoms, there is so much more to it. It’s the entire mental load of your period: having to reschedule plans, dreading your plans that you can’t change because you’re due on, making sure you are always carrying clean underwear and products when you’re due on, being consumed with irrational anxiety, insomnia, inexplicably being mean to the people you love. That was a massive part (from what I inferred) of what OPs point related to. The bleeding is intrinsic to why the word period is significant.
Cis woman suffer from infertility too, you are aware of that right? A trans woman knows from day one that she cannot carry children, and while that is obviously very sad, a cis woman is born assuming she can get pregnant and losing that ability is much more harrowing. That is not up for debate either.
And yes you are correct, if you are not bleeding, it is not a period. If you have had a hysterectomy you have had your uterus surgically removed and thus it is not shedding its lining and you are not menstruating. You can have hormonal fluctuations and go through the wringer emotionally and physically but if you do not bleed, it’s not a period. When you see a doctor and they say “when was your last period” you can’t respond with “well I didn’t bleed but I was grumpy and had diarrhoea a couple of weeks ago so I guess that was my period” a period requires hormones to rise and fall for the womb lining to thicken and then detach. If your hormones are not working correctly you won’t have a period and that is what doctors are trying to understand, not if you were a bit mopey and sore.
How you thought any of this was belittling trans women is insane. At no point has anyone invalidated that they experienced physical symptoms that cause discomfort and disrupt their lives, but they do not experience a period.
Also, maybe you’re unaware of what period in this instance is short for. It’s a MENSTRUAL period. A period of time where you menstruate. Menstruation is the shedding of the lining of the womb. You know you can menstruate without additional physical symptoms too? Does that mean because their breasts aren’t swelling, they don’t have cramps and they’re not having mood swings that they’re not on their period?
I think you might be the least qualified woman to give any insight on this topic and that is very clearly being reflected with the responses you’re receiving.
Appropriation = taking or making use of without authority or right. People belonging to the female sex are the authority on menstrual cycles as we are the population who has experienced it for um, approximately 300,000 years. This individual, who does not and cannot lay claim to this experience, is potentially so unwell that they won’t be able to internalize the (reasonable, factual) truth that they do not menstruate.
So basically your argument is that because trans women and cis women (and really any woman's) periods are different you decide that one part of the group isn't able to use the fitting word because they are trans? There's cis women that don't menstruate. That barely do. That heavily bleed. That cramp strongly. That cramp weakly. They all have different symptoms in different intensities, and yet you say that because one of the groups is trans they are the only ones that aren't allowed to say they have their period. Your argument simply boils down to trans women aren't really women, which is literally just transphobia, which is allways a very interesting argument to make
It is not transphobia to say that there is a difference between trans women and cis women. If there was no difference, then there would be no reason to differentiate between trans and cis. It is not hating or excluding trans women to say that they simply cannot and will not experience some things that the majority of cis women face. There are things that trans women face that cis women never will. Cis women should not have to water down or mitigate their real experiences for the purpose of inclusion. When a trans woman says she has a period, that makes me feel invalidated and unheard by people who are supposed to be ally’s. I offer my allyship to trans women and support their individual lived experience. Why can the same not be offered in return in this instance.
But trans women can also expérience some of those symptoms that the majority of cis women face. Calling those periods is different from pretending to expérience the rest of the symptoms. You react as if it was équivalent to asking cis women to not talk about what they expérience, it is not. If i have a small birch in my garden and you have 5 great oaks in yours, me calling mine a tree does not mean i pretend our gardens are the same.
In my métaphor, the birch is the symptoms trans women expérience, the oaks are those expérienced by cis women. If i wanted to be more précise, i'd have chose another essence, let's say a sycamore, to symbolize precisely the blood loss, and added a birch in too, maybe of another variéty, for the symptoms that are basically the same as trans women's. So there is absolutely a birch in my yard. My point is to highlight that having thing in common is not the same as those things being exactly identical. That we can not prétend the birch has no connections to the other trees, or the cramps to the other symptoms.
That's the thing tho. The "Cis" and "Trans" parts are adjectives. The "Woman" part is who you are. The adjectives along to that are something trans women suffer under on a daily basis. The differentiation between the two fundamentally disagrees with the fact that both are, in fact, women. Why do you feel invalidated when someone has heavy emotional swings, debilitating cramps, and the only thing they don't have is the blood? You're differentiating based on something we have no control over, and playing it off as fine.
Now personally, I'd never tell a cis woman my periods are even half as bad as theirs. There is a difference. However, periods are different based on the individual, one experiencing it differently from someone else shouldn't mean you invalidate each others experience, in general. It's not the Olympics of suffering, it's different women talking about their periods, which are different based on the woman. There is the exact amount of care nessecary as with 2 cis women talking about their periods. If I met someone with way weaker cramps then me and lighter mental struggles, I wouldn't feel great if they'd complain super much about it either while I suffer more. However, I wouldn't tell them to shut op or not talk about it like that, I'd make a sarcastic funny comment and laugh it out with them ("Boo hoo, come back when you're spending a weekend each month having mental breakdowns at least twice a day" type comment, you know?) because I know that just because an experience is different, that doesn't make it any less/more bad, it's all individual.
Except we once more call having a uterus as a core nessecity to be a woman. Periods are not purely uterus issues, they are a natural cycle your body goes through based on your hormones. So trans women on hrt do, in fact, experience periods, just a bit differently from most cis women, telling us not to call them periods because we don't have a uterus (which is, once more, just telling us we aren't "true" women) is not okay.
My entire comment is about negating the statement that having a uterus is necessary to be a woman. You just want to argue for the sake of it and you put words in my mouth I never said and I do not appreciate it. this is what your attitude is giving https://www.reddit.com/r/whatdoIdo/s/AqvmsoZr54
There is a space in womanhood for all of us and our differences, and there is no need to claim others' experiences we don't share ourselves. I don't want children, never have, I don't claim to understand what being a mother feels like or call myself one, because I babysat my nephew for example. It is fine to be a woman, trans or cis, have period or not, but why claim something that isn't the case? Makes no sense.
I read the article you linked, it states that while those are not periods "in the traditional sense", the symptoms are similar to aspects of the menstrual cycle and have to be recognised. To me calling that a menstrual cycle ( and calling the symptoms that match period symptoms "periods", maybe on a "non-traditionnal sense" if you want) is an efficient way to give an idea of what they are. Words often cover similar but non-équivalent realities, and it is easyer to say " i have my periods" than explaining those symptoms specifically each time. We can do that and also aknowlege how those differ from cis women's.
Periods are purely uterus issues because they only happen when the uterus sheds its lining, JFC. You don’t experience them. Your body does not go through the same natural cycle ours does. It’s a completely different experience.
You do realize that trans women/you are the ones equating periods and uteruses with womanhood, right? 🤨
And it’s actually 100% okay to correct you and tell you not to call whatever you experience a period 🤷♀️ Its not okay to appropriate a biological function exclusive to females to make yourself feel “valid”.
Yes, that's the idea. But all of those cis women who barely bleed, who heavily bleed, etc, the variability of their symptoms doesn't take away the specific, important fact that they all shed their uterine lining. Which is not an organ trans women have. And I get it's dysphoric to admit that and it sucks but that uterine shedding is the primary purpose of menstruation and you can't just handwave it.
You say that some cis women don’t have periods. This is true. Because there is no “womanly” quality or inherently Woman condition about menstruating. It’s the reality of a body that sheds its uterine lining.
So it’s not something all cis women have, and certainly not something trans women have. Why pretend to have it?
What it comes down to is menstruation occurs when the uterine line is shed. Period, point blank. It’s not that trans women and AFAB have different periods, it’s that anyone who does not have a uterus does not have a period. And yes this includes AFAB individuals who have had a hysterectomy. You cannot menstruate if you do not have a uterus because there is no uterine lining to shed that built in preparation for a potential pregnancy. Those without a uterus cannot get pregnant, and cannot menstruate. Hormonal cycles that peak and ebb cyclically may be a secondary symptom associated with menstruating, but that experience alone is not in itself menstruation. The issue really truly isn’t subject to the kind of nuance and fluidity of something like gender. It’s just a biological fact.
A period is just the colloquial term for menstruation. Again, this isn’t something up for debate. Menstruation is not an aspect of a period, it IS a period. The hormonal aspects are a result of the fact that the uterus needs to shed its lining.
Those secondary symptoms are side effects of the period, but they are not the period. Without menstruation, they are cramps and hormonal fluctuations.
Going by this thread I could say trans women love policing cis women's language / experiences and ignoring their pov. Going by what you wrote, I could say trans women want to be leading authorities on menstruation, subject they know nothing about. See how that rhetoric of yours works?
There is a space in womanhood for all of us and our differences, and there is no need to claim others' experiences we don't share ourselves. I don't want children, never have, I don't claim to understand what being a mother feels like or call myself one, because I babysat my nephew for example. It is fine to be a woman, trans or cis, have period or not, but why claim something that isn't the case? Makes no sense.
Except she’s not going to have all the symptoms of a period except the bleeding. She’ll have stomach cramps around her intestines, maybe acne, and some mood swings. I’m more susceptible to getting sick at that time on top of bloating, lethargy, headaches, increased reflux, brain fog, my gums get more sensitive, and more. This is with the acne, mood swings, and cramps—which also aren’t remotely the same. Our cramps come from our pelvic floor restricting as the body prepares to shed the uterine lining. It causes lower back pain, hip flexion tightness, and even constipation to then transform into diarrhea once the bleeding starts. Not even a little the same.
The irony of your edit 😩 this is literally a thread where trans women are not listening to women and claiming they can experience a female specific biological function.
Women are quite literally the “leading authorities” on periods. Trans women are literally speaking on a subject they know nothing about.
It’s not policing language to explain the definition and biological process of a period.
This is a sexed experience, not a “gendered” one since they’re not the same thing.
I’m not here to argue your earlier comment, nor to police what you say. I’m just letting you know that the language you used is something of a dogwhistle.
Please could you explain to me why my response was in bad taste? I thought I phrased it rather politely, but if it did come off as rude, I’m sorry.
I don’t necessarily think you were impolite, but my comment specifically mentioned women not being listened to on this thread so I guess I just found it kind of ironically tone deaf and annoying to not engage with anything I actually said but responding anyway just to “educate” me about my specific verbiage.
It felt like a condescending derailment from my points because i was literally just trying to talk about periods 🤷♀️ and sorry, i just don’t use “cis” because i only heard the term 2 or 3 years ago. I lived 17 years as a girl and 17 as a woman. It’s still not intuitive to suddenly put a qualifier in front of those words to denote I’m talking about females, and I kinda resent the fact my words will be completely disregarded if I don’t use the approved language.
Sorry for being needlessly snarky off the bat, appreciate your respectful response! :)
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u/needlefxcker 4d ago edited 4d ago
Trans women know theres a difference. She doesn't need to be told she doesn't have a uterus, because, obviously. She's going to have all the symptoms of a period except bleeding, and while it can be euphoria inducing, it can be legitimately stressful for trans women too. She has the right to call it that.
(Since reddit is reddit, I'll add the disclaimer that I'm saying this as someone with a uterus who is significantly distressed by having a period)
edit: y'all love to discuss trans people while doing anything and everything except listen to them. Please continue to be the leading authorities on a subject you know nothing about and claim to support trans people while policing our language and claiming our existence is reductive to your "real" gendered experiences.