TIME Magazine
Prisons Use Menstration as a Form of Punishment
There are approximately 170,000 people incarcerated in women’s jails and prisons across the country. While some identify as trans and gender-nonbinary, they all have similar reproductive health concerns. 90% of people in women’s jails and prisons are below the age of 55, and for them, those concerns include monthly periods. This means that every month, every time they menstruate, they face an additional layer of humiliation and dehumanization.
As a criminal-justice reporter and an oral historian, we collected first-hand accounts from prisoners as part of a global oral history project about menstruation. What we discovered, from correspondence with multiple writers incarcerated in different states, is a system that weaponizes menstruation as a form of punishment and oppression.
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Salon
“Don’t Say Period”: Now Florida wants to ban students from discussing menstration
House Bill 1069, also known as the “Don’t Say Period” bill, which passed in Florida’s Republican-controlled House at the end of March, means what you think it means.
The bill proposes banning any form of health education until sixth grade and would prohibit students from asking questions about menstruation, including about their own first periods, which frequently occur before the sixth grade. If passed by Florida’s Senate and signed into law by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, the ban will be effective July 1.
In response, much has been written about the harms of depriving young people of information about their own changing bodies, and how in such a void, schools will instead be teaching a culture of shame.
It’s a dizzying moment.
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