| dc.description.abstract | ["Nowadays, the feminist movement called “menstrual activism”, or “menstrual equity” become more and more a subject of predilection for feminist activists and gender studies researchers. Today’s menstrual activists consider menstruation as an issue of recognition and equity between gender, and it even reach trans studies as menstruations were for a long time seen as a symbol of womanhood. However, this movement has changed a lot between the second and third waves of feminism, creating a new paradigm of menstruation. Indeed, even if menstrual activism always worked on the deconstruction of periods taboo, and the inequalities menstruators suffer because of this biological particularity, the third-wave feminism appropriation of this movement is also the beginning of the visibility of menstruation: today’s menstrual activists consider menstruations as an issue of recognition and equity, a difference between humans that should not be invisibilized neither be the symbol of weakness, while menstruations were for “second-wave feminists” more an issue of control and easing.
Yet, this new visibility of menstruation as a “women's right” and “celebration of womanhood” can have a negative impact on other communities, and in particular the trans community. To interrogate the inclusivity of trans identities in intersectional feminism, I will use the case study of the new visibility of menstruation to ask: do the actions of feminists in fighting the stigmas of menstruation (negatively or positively) impact trans people? While studying the example of the increasing visibility of menstruation since 2015 in France, I would like to show that today’s “menstrual activism” and menstrual politics lack intersectionality. By being trans-exclusionary, these activists and politics invisibilize trans folks, forgetting that not all women have periods, and not all menstruators are women. Thus, this research tries to show how recent feminist actions still face a lot of issues, such as essentialism and transphobia.
This analysis permits us to also show how intersectionality is still needed in feminism and that feminist progress does not automatically call for gender equality.
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