Imagine how many people with periods will go without understanding what the fuck is happening to them and think something is severely wrong with them. I've heard so many stories about people who had immense shame and fear when they started their periods but hadn't been educated about them, and how that fucked them up even when they were adults because of the stigma surrounding discussions of periods.
My Boomer mom used to tell me the story of how when she was little, her Southern Baptist mom never had any sort of talk about menstruation with her because good Christian mothers just didn't do that in those days or some such shit. As a consequence, when her period finally started when she was 10, she freaked out in terror, screaming for her mom that she was dying. Her mom only laughed at her and threw a tampon at her. As you might imagine, the experience gave my mom all sorts of messed up feelings and shame going forward related to her gender and reproductive system. If only the schools she had attended back in those days had had some sort of mandatory education about this sort of thing, it could've saved my mom a lot of unnecessary trauma.
Of course, with this new bill, Florida GOP is looking to nip that possibility in the bud for future generations of menstruating kids they're hoping to shame and damage, like they did earlier ones. Just another day in a ruthless, Christo-fascist culture.
www.theguardian.com
