A note:

I never had the goal of starting a nonprofit. I just saw a problem and wanted to do my part in helping fix it. I never thought they would be where they are today.

I founded Operation Period in 2015 because of two distinct experiences. One: I was having a ridiculously painful period in February of that year and I kept complaining before I stopped myself — I had Midol, pads, and food. I would be okay. But I knew others wouldn’t. I started doing some searches online about how the unhoused got their menstrual products. I learned that, most of the time, they didn’t. Two: About a week later, a person in front of me at the store couldn’t afford their products. I bought both of ours together but knew it couldn’t stop there. So Operation Period was born.

Here is the reality of menstrual injustice in our country:

• 20% of students who menstruate miss school because of their period pain or because they don’t have access to menstrual products

• Some incarcerated menstruators have reported only receiving two pads per month in federal prison.

• Unhoused menstruators often have no pads and must substitute toilet paper because of the expensive nature of menstrual products and because people often don’t donate pads or tampons to shelters.

• Trans and nonbinary menstruators must often pick between their gender identity and access to menstrual products when selecting a restroom to use.

Menstrual equity, which advocates for access to menstrual products, is the current goal of most menstrual organizations. But we believe we have to go to the root causes of why people don't have menstrual products in the first place – things like the prison industrial complex, houselessness, racism and xenophobia, disability injustice, and transphobia  – and address them intersectionally.

That is why, in 2020, we coined a new term: menstrual freedom. Menstrual freedom advocates for the abolition of any system or barrier that prevents a person from experiencing their period in a dignified way.

We must work to achieve menstrual freedom. And young people must lead this movement, because our future is the one at stake right now.

Let’s build this future together. 

#TheFutureIsMenstrualFreedom

#ForUsWhoBleed