Lessons Learned From Menstruation Pop Quizzes While Being Intersex

Hey, there, Autostraddlers. Looking at me now, what do you see?

Well, okay, don’t look at The Wild Thing.

I mean, if we were passing each other on the street and you saw me. How would you read me?

Before you could even think about it, your brain would probably stamp me: FEMALE. I can’t really blame your subconscious for doing so. Part of being a living thing is to recognize stuff, categorize things, figure out who ‘s who and what’s what and what the hell is going on out here. Our brains do this kind of stuff all the time, although we can train ourselves to critically examine those thoughts when they do.

In our society, one of the things you’re taught you need to know is how to tell girls apart from boys. This would be all well and good if there were only two biological sexes, but biology is too complex and too awesome to have just two options. Yay!

But we often don’t recognize this fact. All day long, I ‘m exclusively read as female by other people: STAMP! – FEMALE – in thousands of people’s subconscious. This automatic labeling means there are a lot of assumptions made about how I operate in the world, what I do and don’t do, who I am and am not.

Now, I’ve been socialized female and treated like a girl all my life, so I pretty much know what others expect of me looking like a lady. But there are a couple of things people assume I know about, when I actually have no idea.

One of these things is menstruation.

Some intersex people menstruate and others don’t, depending on your form of intersex, or even your variation within your form of intersex. I happen to not menstruate. People never expect this because I evidently look female, and female = menstruates. But I don’t. I never have. I ‘ve encountered the view that I ‘m “lucky ” or getting away with something my body is “supposed ” to do, but actually, my body was never supposed to menstruate in the first place. My form of intersex, androgen insensitivity, means that I never developed so-called “female” internal sex organs. The uterus, ovaries, Fallopian tubes — none of them. The ramifications of having atypical sex anatomy, however, means that, as person read female, I’m still expected to know stuff about having a period.

This has sometimes gotten me into some tricky situations.

I knew that getting your period was a hallmark of “normal ” lady-development. But I didn’t care about getting my period. I wasn’t going to get one, and I knew it. At age eight, I was told by an endocrinologist that 1) I was born without a uterus, and 2) I consequently couldn’t menstruate or give birth. I didn’t know WHY I didn’t have a uterus. Apparently, some women just don ‘t develop it or something? What I did know is that they hurt (from my mom) and that I wasn’t a fan of “little kids ” even as a little kid myself. Honestly? This magical no-uterus thing I had sounded fantastic to me. I misguidedly thought that by some natural fluke, I ‘d gained the superpower of not-menstruating, not-pregnanting, and not-childbirthing. Awwww yeah!

So when all the girls in my 6th grade class started talking incessantly about their periods, I couldn’t relate. It was like every girl knew, any day now, she ‘d undergo a divine transformation into Becoming A Woman and they were all praying like crazy to whatever period deities were out there that they ‘d be next. Or at LEAST soon.

But I wasn’t. Getting my period was impossible, and therefore, irrelevant to me. Instead, my main interests were playing Girl Talk and pretending to be superheroes or princesses or superhero princesses (my favorite, duh).

While everyone was not-so-patiently waiting to join the ranks of the fertile babies, there was a list out there. There was a list of all this shit I was supposed to know about getting your period, inherently, by virtue of being a girl and ACTUALLY getting your period. This list obviously eluded me, but I was expected to know all the stuff on it just the same. It was like going to school and suddenly getting a pop quiz for a class you didn’t even know you were taking and were pretty sure you’d never signed up for. These quizzes were all pass-fail, no partial credit, and I was expected to pass with flying colors. Really?I was silently hoping I wouldn’t just fail. And all I wanted to do was drop the damn class, *sigh*.

So I got roped into discussion after discussion about things I ‘d never anticipated I would need to know about menstruation until I was already in the moment, and had to think on my feet. Usually, I was too flabbergasted to come up with anything profound, so I totally lied my ass off. Because, like the vast majority of intersex individuals shuttled through the medical system, I had it drilled into me that people didn’t know what intersex was, wouldn’t understand if you tried to explain it, that it’s a personal thing that doesn’t need to be shared, and that if you do you’re just asking teasing and ridicule by your peers forever and ever. I’ve never experienced anything like that since I’ve been out, but I didn’t know any better at the time.

So I lied my ass off.

Here are a bunch of things people have brought up in conversation I never dreamed I’d have to address regarding menstruation.

My First Period Story

The first question I had to deal with was, “Didjagetit, didjagetit, didjagetit, didjagetit?!” This required a simple yes-no answer in 3rd grade, so I defaulted to “yes” since my daily estrogen pills had resulted in large breasts on my 8-year-old frame. Maybe I was just an early developer all around? Made sense.

Later, once most girls had gotten their periods, conversations started around “my first time” stories. What? They wanted to know HOW I got my period the first time? Well, I fucking bled, right? Isn’t that’s what supposed to happen? What more did they want to know? I learned that girls got their periods in a variety of contexts — at home, at the mall, on vacation at the beach, with their families, with their friends, making out with their boyfriends, by themselves, if they felt pain, if they saw blood, if they were informed by the school nurse.

So, I needed a plot line, huh? I think I just stammered out that I got it at school and went to the bathroom and saw blood. I was afraid to embellish. I was a pretty voracious reader, and especially loved fantasy novels. If I let myself take too many artistic liberties, there’d be all sorts of improbable things in my stories that would give me away. I needed to play it safe.

Pop quiz results: PASS.

This Is What A Period Feels Like

Sometimes in college, friends would be feeling crappy and mention that they were having their period. This would without fail devolve into a discussion about what their own menstrual process was like, or the range of things a menstruating person might experience. Like, “My friend gets the worst periods EVER, explainexplainexplain.”

The first time this happened, I panicked, realizing that I had no effing clue what having a period was actually like.

Suddenly, I was part of a conversation about what MY period was like — I was supposed to share! That, or I’d be some weirdo who couldn’t talk about their body, and that wasn’t an option.

Uncomfortable as they were, these conversations were eye-openers. I mean, I knew from my Mom and sister that people often feel bloated and get cramps, but I was astounded that sometimes people ‘s NIPPLES hurt, or that they got unusual food cravings like one might during pregnancy, or that periods could last anywhere from three days to, oh, like HALF A FUCKING MONTH. I mean, that ‘s a long time!

I just usually shut my mouth and said that my period didn’t last very long and wasn’t too severe.

Pop quiz results: PASS, but explain your answers more next time.

“When Did You Get Your Last Period?”

Any sort of medical examination as person read as female isn’t complete until you’ve been asked at least once if you might be pregnant. You know, unless you were asked MULTIPLE times at my religious-affiliated university by the nurse practitioner, Sister Mary Slutshamer. When I was younger, I just had to say no. That ‘s it, interview over. NAAAILED IT! I was thrown for a loop a few years later when clinicians also started asking, “When was your last menstrual cycle?”

WHAT? I had no idea how this information was relevant. It seemed invasive and weird to even ask that. Why did they care when I did or didn’t bleed out of my vagina — what the hell!

It wasn’t until years later that I realized that not menstruating, or menstruating irregularly, could signal legitimate medical problems. My bad. But the questions remained, and I couldn’t dodge them under those matter-of-fact clinical stares.

I had no idea what to say. Did it matter what day I chose? Did it mean something if I menstruated on the 12th versus the 14th of the month? I actually seriously thought someone would go through my entire medical chart, and Sherlock Holmes style, deduce that my stated period cycle was suspect. I was just waiting to eventually be confronted with, “Look, Claudia. We know you don’t really get your period. It’s so obvious. No one has EVER MENSTRUATED ON THE FIRST OF THE MONTH, ever. Why are you lying about your medical history?”

But it never happened. No one asked, no one found out. My voice always cracked, “The first of the month, ” a little too brightly and nervously for my own comfort. And that was it. (Smoooooth.)

Pop quiz results: PASS, but calm the shit down, seriously.

The Entire Aisle of Menstrual Products

Women with their periods were sometimes women in need if it caught them unexpectedly, or they ran out of stuff. And as a fellow woman, I knew it was A Thing to share. Occasionally, I’d even put tampons or Advil in purse on me so that if someone asked, I could participate. (Which makes me kind of sad in retrospect.)

I infamously brought a MOUNTAIN of tampons I’d never use to college at my mom ‘s suggestion so no one would suspect I wasn’t “normal.” (“Don’t you think your roommate will notice when you don’t have anything?”) When I came out to my roommate a month later and donated all of Tampon Mountain to her, she was obviously pretty accepting of my intersex. But the fact that I brought TM to college in the first place belied my underlying paranoia that not only was I different, but it was completely obvious to anyone paying attention. And so I took precautions. I tried to blend in. I tried to look normal, feel normal.

It didn’t work. (I ‘m glad.)

Besides hoarding evidence that you’re biologically female (no, really, look at these tampons I’ve got), I learned there were PREFERENCES. Women seemed to love comparing and contrasting what menstrual products were out there. It was pretty much universally agreed-upon that Midol was the best pain reliever, with Tylenol and Advil being distant seconds and thirds. For pads and tampons, there was a dizzying variety out there to parse.

I knew pads came in different types based on flow, but had no idea that large ones could make you feel like you were wearing a diaper! Why on EARTH did some pads have “wings ” (and what were they FOR)? Who knew tampons were made of different materials that could feel more or less comfortable using them?

And what the HELL was that string at the end for? It seemed strange and wasteful to put a string on the end just so you could get it out of the package easier or whatever, right?

I was horrified when I learned the truth, years later. You could get that shit STUCK UP THERE?! If it got stuck, how did you get it out? Fingers and sheer muscle strength? Did they make special vadge tweezers or something for just this purpose? Would you just have to go to the emergency room? It all seemed terrible.

My education of menstrual products culminated in a very clinical tampon dissection freshman year in college with my three best friends, who answered all of my questions earnestly and did an amazing job of not making me feel like a freak. (You guys were fantastic that evening! <3) I didn’t even KNOW things like Diva Cups and Luna Pads existed then. I had some catching up to do. Recent Google Image searches have turned up all manner of eyebrow-raising products, like “gentle glide” tampons and tampon “sport.” (Are these products legit or total bullshit? I feel like they might be bullshit. Help an intersex lady out.)

In short, I pretty much never said anything except to chirp in on the safe bet, “Oh, yeah. Midol is great. Um.”

Pop quiz results: PASS, but barely. Go to the menstrual aisle or your local feminist bookstore, and GET EDUCATED.

I’m In On The In-Joke

Sometimes, women would make comments to male-bodied folks assumed not to menstruate to the effect of, “YOU’RE SO LUCKY YOU DON’T GET YOUR PERIODS – LADIES, AMIRITE?” I mean, I guessed they might be, because the entirety of my knowledge revolved around a kaleidoscope of different pains and aches you could have. I always felt a little shame-faced when, after saying this, the women around me would all look at each other — me included — with a look of we-know-what’s-up solidarity. A solidarity that I actually couldn’t share in.

While the women around me smiled and bonded, I wondered if I was showing too many teeth and being totally obvious I was a period impostor. Eventually, I realized that if other people read me as biologically female, that doesn’t mean that I ‘m somehow being deceptive just being who I am. It ‘s THEIR problem for making assumptions, not MY problem I exist the way that I do.

Pop quiz results: Did I even care anymore? I just wanted to be me. Fuck this class.

Menstruating is one of my favorite things to talk about, ever. I’m fascinated by the intersections of people-assume-my-body-does-this and I-don’t-know-what-this-is-like, the complexity surrounding menstruation as a biological process, and the range of experiences and practices regarding menstruation.

I don’t hide the fact that I don’t menstruate as often anymore. I sometimes tell people straight-up, oh, I don’t get my period, whatever. I draw in arrows on medical forms that ask me when I had my last period and scrawl, “I don’t get my period” and anticipate the inevitable questions later. I ask lots of questions to my sister, close friends, and my (poor, POOR) girlfriend. I’m also working on not acting like a doofy sitcom bro when those around me are feeling yucky ’cause of their periods, since I’m not always sure how to best be supportive.

Things are getting okay-er.

That being said, I’d like to live in a world someday where people don’t automatically assume my body looks and functions a certain way, and make room for people like me and my experiences. That young intersex girls won’t have to walk around feeling confused and awkward as fuck like I did, and have to get all creative to fit in with their peers. Because ultimately, this isn’t an essay about the hilarity of a non-menstruating intersex person trying to navigate the menstruating world — it’s an essay about not making assumptions that someone’s body does or doesn’t do shit, just because it looks like they “should.”

There is no should. There is only what actually is.

And what actually is, for me? I don’t menstruate.

If you were to look at me now, what would you see? Your brain might automatically stamp me FEMALE, might not consider I ‘m anything other than a typical lady. But I hope that, somewhere in the back of your mind, you might say, “Yeah, but not necessarily — I don’t know how that person identifies.” I hope that other people, other brains will add to a collective acceptance that there’s more than two kinds of people out there in terms of biological sex. Because that sliver of, “Maybe not,” is really the start of a revolution that makes room in our world views — and ultimately, room in the world — for people like me.

What you see is something closer to who I actually am. I’m Claudia. I’m intersex. I’m here, I exist. It’s nice to finally be seen.