Periods don't just occur for women during ~that time of the month~, and it's time we talk about it.
Luckily, activist Cass Clemmer — who uses they/them pronouns and works as a menstrual health activist — is taking this topic to the mainstream media. From making a coloring book about menstruation called The Adventures of Toni The Tampon: A Period Coloring Book, which is intended to be an "easy way to start a conversation with young kids about menstruation," to using Instagram to facilitate accessible conversations about periods, Cass is sparking important conversations everywhere.
Cass is hoping to normalized menstruation and the products that surround it. For this reason, they will often post pictures of tampons out in the wild with hashtags like #queeriods and #tamponsinpublic.
When Cass wound up receiving backlash over their coloring book, they told HuffPost that they knew they needed to do more.
That's why they staged this powerful photo:
Between the imagery and poetic caption, this photo is intended to remind us all to "shift the mindset around tying periods to womanhood and femininity," because "not all people who menstruate are women, and not all women menstruate."
That's why posts like these are all the more important right now, and we all must all go follow Cass' Instagram account ASAP.
Willa Bennett is a Fellow at Seventeen.com. Follow her on Instagram.