Recently, menstrual pad company Always (a Procter and Gamble subsidiary) has announcedthat it will no longer add the Venus (women) symbol to its products to become more inclusive to trans and nonbinary folks. Naturally, that hasn’t gone over well inTERFist (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist) andtransphobiccornersoftheorbit. Conversely, the move is being praisedintrans/nonbinary-affirming areas of the world.
Always announced it will be removing the Venus symbol from the packaging of their pads and pantyliners to be more inclusive of transgender and non-binary people.
Proctor & Gamble, the parent company of the brand, made the announcement on Tuesday, according to multiple reports.
“For over 35 years Always has championed girls and women, and we will continue to do so,” Proctor & Gamble said in a statement, according to NBC. “We’re also committed to diversity & inclusion and are on a continual journey to understand the needs of all of our consumers.”
Cassandra Stone at Scary Mommy:
Popular menstrual pad brand Always will no longer add the Venus symbol to its product packaging in order to make their products more inclusive. The Venus symbol, colloquially referred to as the “female symbol” has historically been used to represent women. The change to product packaging is in response to customers who asked the brand to be more welcoming to people who menstruate but do not identify as women.
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Many people are still under the impression that transgender and nonbinary people cannot experience menstruation — a claim medical experts have debunked and used to try to educate those who may not fully grasp the nuances of gender.
“Menstruation can occur for anyone with a uterus,” Turban says. “There are many medications that stop or lighten periods — used by both cisgender and transgender people — but these do not completely stop menstruation for all people.”
Also, not all transgender or gender non-conforming people choose to take hormones that may or may not affect menstruation. People who take testosterone, for example, can see their menstrual bleeding deteriorate or even stop, but not all people who take it experience this. Additionally, taking hormones doesn’t affirm gender identity, so plenty of transgender or gender non-conforming people still have a regular menstrual cycle.
A shadowy cabal of transgender activists recently held Procter & Gamble’s board of directors at knifepoint, forcing them to make their products more explicitly trans-inclusive under threat of being canceled on Twitter dot com.
That…never happened, though I can understand why you might think so based on how the media has covered P&G’s decision to remove the circle-and-cross “female symbol” from the packaging of its Always brand line of menstrual hygiene products, as CNN reported on Tuesday.
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To read this coverage, one might think that queer activists had organized en masse to get this one corporation to stop packaging its menstrual products with a symbol that could potentially suggest that only women have periods, which would make sense seeing as how the single greatest threat to the trans and nonbinary community—after, you know, violence, homelessness, sex work criminalization, health care access, and influencers—is whether commercial packaging makes us feel valid.
In reality, none of this happened. “Trans activists” did not force P&G to change its maxi pad packaging, nor did some all-powerful “transgender lobby” pressure a global, multi-billion dollar corporation to do as it said. According to Snopes, a single teenager named Ben Saunders reached out to Always in June with concerns that the female symbol on the company’s wrappers was alienating to trans and nonbinary customers who menstruate but aren’t women.
Activists are applauding the move. Steph deNormand, the Trans Health Program manager at Fenway Health, told NBC News, “For folks using these products on a nearly monthly basis, it can be harmful and distressing to see binary/gendered images, coding, language and symbols. So, using less coded products can make a huge difference. Trans and nonbinary folks are constantly misgendered, and a gesture like this can broaden out the experiences and open up spaces for those who need the products.”
In my opinion, it is a very good thing for Always to remove the Venus symbol in a bid to be more inclusive to more than just the cis women community. This move is recognizing the realitythat it’s not just cisgender women whomenstruate.
This move is NOT about “denying the existence of women”, despite how transphobes want to spin it otherwise.
Feminism that excludes trans and nonbinary folks isn’t real feminism at all! And as always, TERFs can fuck off!