In the past year, MCPS girls’ bathrooms have undergone a much-anticipated change: the addition of menstrual product dispensers. As part of a pilot program implemented by the Board of Education, these dispensers are being installed in female bathrooms across the county. The program is on track to provide period products to all middle and high school restrooms in MCPS by August 2025. Though the response has been largely positive, new controversy has arisen amidst the LGBTQ+ community members, arguing that period products should be placed in both female and male bathrooms as soon as possible.
Having a period is not cheap. Classified as a “luxury” item, and taxed like one, the average cost to buy products is about $13.25 a month, totaling $6,360 in an average menstruating person’s reproductive lifetime. This high price point has led millions of students both girls and gender-queer unable to purchase these essential items necessary to function normally on their period. Though the pilot program is tackling one side of the problem, the provision of menstrual products exclusively to female bathrooms is currently excluding non-binary, genderfluid and transgender students from accessing such products until 2025.
Cisgender women are not the only people who get periods. By neglecting the fact that transgender men and gender non-binary individuals also menstruate and are in need of products, low-income gender queer students are the main demographic being disproportionately affected. With minimal access to free products, gender queer students are ironically faced with the same lack of menstrual equity the pilot program was designed to fix. Though the program is on track to become more inclusive of all gendered bathrooms, presently, the issue still persists.
Regardless of socioeconomic backgrounds, school is meant to offer all students an equal education. However, that standard is unattable for gender queer students that do not have access to hygiene products. When menstruators resort to unhygienic alternatives such as reusing pads or using bunched up toilet paper, it leaves them with a heightened risk of urogenital infections and physical harm.
More often than not, the physiological effects are directly tied to psychological health. The mental toll from period stigma, paired with dysphoria and physical cramp pains, are more than enough to hinder a student’s performance in school. A national study sponsored by Free the Tampon found that due to menstrual inequity, 1 in 5 students have missed school. The disproportionate amount of students missing class is a clear factor that those without access are being marginalized. By excluding gender queer students from access to the appropriate period products, their educaction is suffering.
Zackary Shapiro, a junior at Clarksburg Highschool and current President of the Gay Student Assosation (GSA) said, “it is essential to have an even playing field, and the huge obstacle that this issue imposes makes life so much more difficult for nonbinary and transgenger men.” Similarly, New York University students organized and led a petition for free hygiene products in all university restrooms and gained more than 3,000 signatures, many of which identified as a part of the LGBTQ community.
Though the LGBTQ+ community and many allies are passionately in favor of getting products in both male and female bathrooms, there are a fair amount of critics of the movement. Many cisgendered men argue that putting menstrual products in men’s bathrooms is wasteful as it could be of better use in the women’s room where the demand is significantly higher. Cisgender men talk about the fear of the “feminization” of the men’s restroom and the potential uncomfortable encounters that would bring about. The first step into changing this mindset is to introduce the program to high schools to normalize hygiene products in all bathrooms.
Introducing pads and tampons into male bathrooms would undoubtedly be a huge societal shift. It would give gender queer students equal access to products, help bridge the education gap between lower and higher income students, and improve the health and wellbeing of those students. Simultaneously, however, the shift also signifies the breaking down of gender norms and directly promotes the integration of new and different ideas regarding gender and expression. With the menstrual hygiene product company, Always, removing the female symbol off their packaging to be more gender inclusive, it is clear that our world is changing the once traditional norms of “girls” and “boys’’ regardless of the controversy.
Written by Inaya Siddiqi of Clarksburg High School
Graphic by Angelina Guhl of Richard Montgomery High School