Tampons in the Men’s Room//Maggie Brennan, M.A.

Photo Credit: Richard Yeh/WNYC

This past weekend, I experienced a first.  I got a menstrual hygiene product from the men’s room.  How did this happen you ask (or maybe you’re a more enlightened person, who’s reading this and thinking, “no big deal.”)?  Well, as part of a campaign on campus led by a progressive student organization, many of the more readily accessible men’s, women’s, and gender-neutral restrooms on campus now offer free menstrual products, which is a small but incredibly necessary step toward gender parity in the health of the school’s students.  What truly impressed me, though, was the decision to put bins with the free products in the men’s rooms, not just the women’s rooms and the gender-neutral rooms.  The University of Kansas is certainly not the first institute of higher education to take such a step, with both Cornell University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison making headlines for doing so, and many more schools making menstruation products available for free in only their women’s restrooms.    

The importance of this type of policy strikes me as being twofold.  Firstly, it accounts for the experiences of young transmen, who most likely have not had the opportunity, or desire, to transition, and may still be experiencing menstruation.  Having menstruation products readily available in the men’s room, therefore, allows them to use the restroom that corresponds to their gender identity without unnecessarily outing their trans status.  Secondly, having these types of products readily visible to young, cisgender men could help reduce some of the stigma and misunderstanding that is associated with them.  My hope is that seeing how cheaply mass-produced, and utterly not stimulating tampons and pads are might help more young men better understand the push amongst menstruating individuals to get such products covered by insurance and health centers as an essential health products.  We use these products not because we like them or they make us feel good (a shockingly common myth), but because we must for our own health and the health of those who share our spaces, and having young men learn that, though it may indicate a naïve level of optimism, could lead them to being better allies to both the women and transmen in their lives.  The last benefit that I can see, though I admit that it may not be as important as the other two, is that if other women notice that the particular type of product that they would like to use is no longer available in their designated restroom, it could be a great opportunity to combat their own internalized stigma, and ask a masculine-identifying individual to see if it’s available in his restroom.  Or maybe that’s just something I’d do!  Hopefully, this is a policy that will spread to all of the restrooms on not only KU’s campus but to restrooms across the country!

   

Written by: Maggie Brennan, MA