By: Kateland Kirk
Always, a leading company in the manufacturing of menstruation products, is now making a great effort to become more inclusive with the transgendered and non-binary community. In today’s world even those who do not identify as female menstruate, and they are not sitting silently by while they are made to feel like outcasts.
It was brought to Proctor and Gamble’s (P&G) attention, by members of the transgender and non-binary community, that not all who use their products are women. Through Twitter these brave individuals told P&G how they felt the Venus symbol was incentive. It seems P&G couldn’t agree more because on October 22nd they announced that they would be removing the Venus symbol off all of their packaging. Their media relations team said “We’re also committed to diversity and inclusion, and after hearing from many people across genders and age groups, we realized that not everyone who has a period and needs to use a pad identifies as female. To ensure that anyone who needs to use a period product feels comfortable in doing so with Always, we updated our pad wrapper design.”
As it was stated by the founder of PERIOD, Nadya Okamota, their needs to be more work done to make menstruation more inclusive to incorporate all who experience it by, “acknowledge[ing] that not all women menstruate, and that not all menstruators are women. Femininity is about gender expression and has nothing to do with the biological process of menstruating.”
It is refreshing to see such a big company changing with the times, and doing so in a way that does not isolate, alienate, or invalidate those who were not the original intended customer. As the cultural climate changes around us we need to be aware of our actions and how they are being perceived by those around us. What may seem small to you, or even go unnoticed, has the potential to emotionally or mentally scare someone else. We don’t always know the effects of our actions until after they have been executed, but we should make an effort to rectify them if it is brought to our attention that they have negative effects on someone else. With this being said, I think it is wonderful to see a push in the right direction for the transgendered and non-binary community by such a public corporation. Letting people know that they are not unnoticed or being ignored is an important step for equality across the board, no matter how you identify.