“That time of the month.” “Aunt Flo.” In the 1995 film “Clueless” it’s called “the crimson wave.” Often treated as a taboo subject, a new student organization on campus is fighting to end the stigma around menstruation. PERIOD USC, a chapter of the national organization PERIOD, was founded this semester by students who’ve experienced that stigma and want to make change on campus.
“The fact that I was scared to talk about my period until I was in 10th grade is pretty weird considering that male puberty [is] talked about like a thing [of] comic relief,” said Ellie Sulla, PERIOD USC’s co-event coordinator.
The national organization advocates for menstrual health through means of legislation and volunteer efforts. Last March, PERIOD distributed 2 million menstrual products nationally as need rose at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
Beyond fighting stigma, the national organization has legislative goals of repealing the “tampon tax,” where female hygiene items aren’t considered a necessity, thus taxed as a luxury.
“If we don’t eradicate stigma around menstruation, there’s no way we’re gonna be able to pass legislation because we have to first get people to even start talking about it,” said chapter manager Eira Nylander Torallas.
Much like the national organization, founded in 2014, the USC chapter aims to end period poverty — the lack of access to necessities like sanitary products, menstrual hygiene education and toilets — and period stigma that prevents these basic needs from being met.
Founded by the chapter’s president, Praesna Danner, a sophomore majoring in art history, the student-run club had its first meeting Sept. 9 to discuss sustainable period products and sexual health, among other topics. While the club does focus on menstrual product accessibility and period education, it also facilitates discussions based on topics of interest to the group’s members, such as sexual health.
After being diagnosed with two menstrual disorders in high school, Danner became more aware of the restrictive legislation around birth control and reproductive rights, which prompted her to start the USC chapter of PERIOD.
“You start recognizing all the issues with the different legislature battles over who controls birth control and reproductive rights and all of this,” Danner said. “Then I just started to notice that there is a lack of this at USC, and it’s one of the things that I am most passionate about. So I was ready to make something and start something.”
Menstrual product access is not only limited to cisgender women. Reanna Cruz, a non-binary senior majoring in film production, said their experience with menstrual products has been difficult, especially when everything from ads to packaging is centered around cisgender women. This can be harmful for those who don’t identify that way, like non-binary people and transgender men.
“Personally, I feel a disconnect towards the female identity,” Cruz said. “And when I go shopping and I see tampons that are targeted towards females, it makes me feel worse because I’m already struggling not identifying as female, and having to go through this [menstruation] once a month with my female genitalia.”
Sulla, the co-event coordinator, expressed how PERIOD USC caught her attention because of how different it was from other campus health organizations.
“A lot of the clubs that are kind of about health [are] really focused on med school or tutoring and how to get ahead in classes,” Sulla, a sophomore majoring in French and human biology, said. “Whereas this one was advertised as learning about what exactly period inequality is like ... By merely applying to the club, I’ve been learning so much.”
In addition to educating its members about period inequality, the national organization donates menstrual products to those who are in need. In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the chapter is looking for new ways to virtually fulfill its goals.
Plans for the future include a “menstrual product drive” where donations and profits will go to women on Skid Row and fund events that center around health and wellness.
In the United States, 21.4 million women are living in poverty, meaning less have access to clean sanitation facilities and menstruation products. In a time where these products have an added tax that ChapStick and Viagra are exempt from, some resort to using anything that could potentially act as an absorbent, like newspaper, toilet paper and socks.
The organization also plans to advocate for the USG Senate to pass a bill that would provide free menstrual products in all restrooms across the USC campus. USG previously called for a similar resolution in 2018 to have feminine hygiene products in all female and unisex bathrooms across USC’s campus.
“The trans male community needs access to those same type[s] of resources,” Cruz said. “And it’s inherently transphobic if it’s just equating, you know, people that use the female restroom with having female body parts.”
On Oct. 8, the USC PERIOD chapter hosted a yoga fundraiser with a local Los Angeles organization, Black Women for Wellness, to raise awareness of issues in women’s health and to help students who wanted to destress.
PERIOD as a whole partners with university’s chapter organizations to help them in their student-led initiatives. In this case, PERIOD USC worked with the national organization’s development team to create the yoga fundraiser.
“We did an educational roundtable with one of the people from Black Women [for] Wellness, and then [PERIOD USC] were interested in a yoga fundraiser,” Torallas said. “So then we connected them to the USC chapter. So that’s kind of how that sort of thing usually works out with our chapters.”
Though the chapter is still new, its executive board members have high hopes for what members will gain from joining. Sophomore Amanda Grennan, who is majoring in economics and public relations, hopes those who join recognize the privileges they have when it comes to period access, especially those from the United States.
“I hope that it educates people on how lucky we are to live in a first-world country where you can buy these sort of things [period products],” Grennan said. “And for the most part, a lot of them are comfortable and have access to health care like Planned Parenthood right now. [Also] the women that join this club have the ability to go out and tell other people and share.”
Danner, the chapter’s founder, wants PERIOD USC to serve as complementary education to the student health training the USC students complete before their freshman year. She also hopes that members satisfy their desires to make a change on campus in the organization.
“We do the alcohol training,” Danner said. “We did sexual assault training, but nobody talks about all of this. And I do hope that it makes members feel like they were part of something that made actual change in their time while they were here.”