HOORAY! Another Lecture About Tampons from a Non-Menstruating Person

It feels like it was only yesterday that trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney lectured everyone who thought it was weird that she*, a transgender individual born with XY chromosomes and male anatomy, carried around tampons to give to women. But apparently it was so long ago (read: one month) that it’s already time for another non-vaginaed individual really wants us to know a thing or two about menstruation and tampons that only they can explain! You know, with all their lived experiences as a menstruating person.

(Inb4 “why are you so obsessed with these people’s genitals” BECAUSE THEY’RE OBSESSED WITH WOMEN’S GET OUT)

Yeah. You’ve probably seen Jeffrey Marsh around the ol’ internet, and if you have, it won’t surprise you to all to learn that this nonbinary-identifying biological male has a weird amount to say about tampons. Like, not to judge a book by its cover, but they creep me out. It’s the weird, slow, condescending voice and the way they flash their teeth like a primate about to settle a territory dispute.

Anyway, enough about that, you’re not my therapist. Back to the story.

In 2020, Marsh did some paid promos for L., an organic menstrual product company. Recently, footage from said promos have resurfaced, and along with them the kind of condemnation characteristic of both the internet and women scorned. In response, Marsh posted a video to address the backlash.

A transcript of the video (which I have to play/pause about 1238197 times to type up so if you haven’t lit a candle for me at mass yet, maybe get that done this weekend) follows:

I did a brand deal for tampons! This was 2020, and this is me dancing around, this is a major national brand, paid me to make this ad for them on social media. And I wanted to say two things about it.

I’m sure you’ve seen the hate that Dylan’s gotten, please find this video of Dylan’s and watch it. Dylan is an angel, important, intelligent, uh, very– someone I care about very much.

And I made the video for two reasons. So that women would feel less stigmatized, so that people who menstruate would feel less stigmatized because– to, cis men, let’s face it–menstruation is seen as gross, disgusting, a joke, and as someone who does not menstruate– I’m nonbinary, I don’t menstruate– I wanted to help end that stigma if I could.

And I also– if you notice, I don’t do a lot of brand deals, I did this one because I wanted trans people to feel better and not have– you know, trans men who menstruate, and nonbinary people who menstruate, to not feel double stigmatized around mensrtuation and being trans.

And then the hate came for me. And I want to say something to the ladies of Twitter especially. We should be working together to undermine the patriarchy. We are not your enemy. The more you fight for your box, the more you are fighting for a hierarchy of one box over the other. We don’t want to take womanhood from you, we don’t want to tell you what to do, but I know as a nonbinary person, the more you police your gender role the more you are policing the idea that one gender role is the best.

It gives me a lot of emotion to talk about, because I am a feminist and I will keep fighting for your rights even if you hate me to my core because women are not second-class citizens. If I could have anything– it would be that people just don’t hate themselves as much. And I’ll continue to do that.

There is. . . quite a bit to unpack here. It’s hard to know where to start, so let’s just go chronologically.

First, “major national brand”? Sounds fake, but okay. I had never heard of L. before working on this article but maybe I’m just under a rock.

Second, there’s not a “stigma” around menstruation. Most women do it and most men are adults about it. If they’re not, they get bullied. By the women in their lives. We don’t need biological males to come in as white knights against the Crimson Tide. We got this.

Also, in total fairness, periods are kinda gross. Things can be natural and gross. When’s the last time you looked at a big ol’ sh*t and thought, “Awwww!” before flushing it?

I’m not going to touch the whole non-cis women menstruating issue because it’s not in my lane, and what I routinely ask of people like Dylan Mulvaney and Jeffrey Marsh is that they stay in theirs. And it’s the end of Marsh’s little speech that really gets my goat, anyway, because it is an absolute swamp of misguided and rather offensive assumptions.

I mean, come on. “Undermine the patriarchy”? 2015 called, it wants its neo-feminist slogan back.

But this idea of Marsh’s that separation necessitates hierarchy is flawed, and actually kind of sexist in and of itself. Fairness and equality is not everyone having the same thing. Men and women are different, and we are uniquely and equally magical in those differences. The equitable future that people like Marsh advocate is like the gender/social version of communism: yes, we are all the same, but we’re all poor, hungry, and miserable.

Marsh’s belief that they’re “fighting for our rights” is deeply condescending and genuinely insulting, and it makes their assertion that “[they’re] not trying to take womanhood” from women disingenuous. Co-opting female biology and then assuming women need help in “destigmatizing” said biology is, in fact, an assault on womanhood.

Personally, I find Marsh’s attitude and speech way more problematic than Dylan Mulvaney’s. I do believe Mulvaney when she says she was trying to be nice; as I wrote in my article about that video, I just wish she’d stay in her lane. But Marsh’s comments go way deeper into a very insidious brand of sexism masquerading as feminism.

Marsh is not a feminist. They are not fighting for women’s rights, and menstruation is not a battleground on which they are welcome. So kindly get out.

*A note on pronouns: In the wide world of things to care about and issues to take with people like Dylan Mulvaney and Jeffrey Marsh, pronouns just don’t rank for me. Given the overwhelming tendency on the internet, and dare I say particularly with progressives, to eschew actual substantive discourse for cheap potshots to call a W, I will not be giving anyone the ammo of my misgendering them. I really don’t care about these individuals’ gender identity, I care about their problematic attitudes toward women and femininity. So if they’re going to come at me, it’ll have to be on account of that, not because of a grammatical complaint.