For those people who undergo menstruation, imagine your romantic/platonic/familial F/O helping comfort you through this rough time.
They helpfully remind you to set alarms to take pain meds, making sure you’ve water nearby.
If you have to go to work, they help you get ready, giving you a safe space to complain about how you don’t want to go, and they listen sympathetically if you need to vent about how emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausted you are.
They offer gentle words of comfort and encouragement as you go to work, send you uplifting memes and texts while you’re there, and when you come back home, they wrap you up and hug you and praise you for getting through the day.
They encourage you to shower, knowing you’ll feel better when you do and when you’re out and dressed they wrap you up in a blanket burrito and plop you on the sofa to enjoy your favorite shows with you, and if you need to cry, they just hold you and encourage you to let it out, speaking softly and rocking you in their arms until you’re feeling better.
I’ve noticed that when I remind people that “women’s issues” affect men too- periods, pregnancy, abortion, higher sexual assault, etc- they react very dismissive. Like, “oh yeah, trans men too, i guess.” And it’s because they don’t view trans men’s issues as men’s issues, they view them as a subsect of women’s issues. People, including many, many allies, just straight up do not conceive of trans men as men. They certainly may believe us when we say we identify as men, but in their minds we are always just a different flavor of woman- and I know this because I have gotten this point of view in my own head, where I have to remind myself that my issues are, in fact, men’s issues. Not women’s. Not “non-men’s.” Abortion is a men’s issue. “Pink taxes” are a men’s issue. These are things that affect men.
