On Menstruation and Gender

 I lay whimpering in bed, my body spasming and contorting as the pulsating throb of my bleeding radiated across my body.

First days of periods are hard on anyone. But god, are mine horrible. Utterly exhausting and a time when I truly curse my fate of being born a woman.

As I lay submerged in my own self-hate and pain, I remembered a study I had read about how period pain can be equated to the pain a person experiences during heart attacks. This means, every month, millions of menstruators across the planet, experience pain the equivalent of a heart attack. A lot of people laughed at this one - especially men - who seem to phoo-phoo the idea of periods being as painful as we claim. We’re just the more sensitive sex, you see.

But soon after this study was published, other doctors confirmed why period pain could be worse than a heart attack. It turns out, not all heart attacks are painful. But every period is. And when someone has dysmenorrhea - extremely painful periods - its akin to being in labour. Not the passive stage of labour, mind you. But the active, pushing stage of labour. Talk about life turning on you with a vengeance.

As I let these thoughts seep into me, I had another thought suddenly strike me.

Here I was, a cisgender woman, experiencing periods. Sure, I do feel nature has given my lot the worst to bear; but, I still acknowledge that this is an integral experience of being a woman. Especially if a woman wishes to be a biological mother.

But, what about the menstruators who do not identify as women. Who are born in a woman’s body, which they don’t recognise as their own, and are forced to experience month-upon-month, this faux (but very painful), labour-like experience.

How must they feel? If I as a cisgender woman can feel so much hate at my monthly fate; surely I cannot even begin to fathom the helplessness, anger, sorrow, fear and loss of identity that trans men experience.

This is the real brutality of life, if you ask me.

And the way trans men endure - not just the pain, but perhaps even nature’s disregard for their personal identity - is downright heartbreaking.

Everyone lauds endurance. To endure is to be special. To endure is to rise above weak human frailties. To endure is to prove our mettle.

Where is the compassion? For ourselves, for others, for the world….Until this compassion is learnt and taught and given and received and shared, our world will continue to look upon menstruation and menstrual pain as an “overreaction by someone sensitive to pain”, as “proof of a woman’s inability to handle challenges”, as “evidence of how trans men are mistaken about their identity” or “how nature reveals the truth” or how “periods pain is punishment for the Eves in us”…and who knows what other rubbish?!

Thinking about all this breaks my heart. While I languished in my own torment, I found myself praying for all those others who shared this pain with me. I prayed, not just for their physical pain to end, but for the mental and emotional anguish so many experience, when they are forced to endure a bodily function that is at odds with who they really are.

-Nisha Prakash