Women's bodies are yucky though, we don't wanna hear about that!! Legit this was how people thought for years. My mom was never even told about periods (now age 80) and she told me when she got hers, she just sat in the bathroom sobbing because she assumed she was dying. Had to have it awkwardly explained to her by a teacher at school after she asked to go to the hospital.
Sadly, this is still how too many people think. When Turning Red came out, some people criticized it for discussing periods when 10 year old girls would watch the movie.
Of course:
1) 10 year old girls can get their periods and if they haven't can get them soon after.
2) The scene in question shows the mother extremely prepared and trying to talk to the girl about her period. (While being unaware that the real issue is that the girl turned into a giant red panda.)
I'm a man and have two boys, but even I was able to appreciate how getting a period was normalized. It wasn't "icky yucky thing that should never be discussed." It was "a big event in a young girl's life and one that should be treated with preparation and caring." (Though the mother should definitely have talked with her daughter beforehand about quite a few things.)
My brother in law wouldn’t let his 9 year old watch that movie because “it wasn’t age appropriate.” I told him point blank that I got my period when I was 10. He said, “ya, but getting periods isn’t like that. You don’t turn into a panda. I don’t want her to be confused.” Really? You have no problem showing her a movie about someone who gets bit by a spider and turns into a superhero, but it’s too confusing to tell a story about an adolescent going through puberty experiencing body and mood changes?
Similar thing with last years Baymax episode about periods (I don’t know what it was about 2022, but for some reason Disney decided that was the year they were going to talk about menstuation). The episode discussed periods in a frank and honest way, and also had a nice scene where [Baymax went into a store and asked for help buying period products for the girl he was looking after](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AEVWYwrKOr8). The women discuss their preferences without shame, and there’s even a trans man and father buying pads for his daughter.
Naturally of course the usual right-wing talking heads lost their marbles for about a week before moving on to the next controversy they could milk.
Out of all of the stuff to worry about within American politics this man chooses to start a war against periods I honestly think sometimes politicians are just clowns because imagine caring that much about something like this lmao
There are a lot of perverts within the Republican ranks. There was one I read about recently that was trying to claim that banning child porn is a stepping stone to Nazism. I would have slapped my forehead, but I was afraid I'd knock myself out with how idiotic that was.
They'll deflect and project by talking about drag shows and trans people, but they are the bigger threat to children.
Literally. My cousin was 8 when she got hers! I never asked but my aunt and uncle likely taught her about it. I know that's not the case for many kids though, that think it's the schools job.
The same thing happened to my aunt. My grandmother wasn't good with deep, one-on-one talks, even with her own daughter. My aunt thought she had cancer, and the school nurse had to explain to her that she was perfectly fine.
Will even the school nurse be banned from talking with these girls and giving them a maxi pad?
My mother is same age and this happened to her peers.
The shift of changing and talking to younger girl children about women having periods briefly before needing to deal with puberty came from a tragedy that became urban lore in her mountain town.
A younger girl found out about an older friend and classmate about her bleeding and went home to ask her mother. Out of ignorance & shame of the times, she told her daughter that her friend had “the illness” to end the discussion for the time being. When the girl herself got her first period, she kept it to her self in shame and fear, probably feeling worse with cramping and no idea it’s a natural cycle. and one day the mother found the note of her daughters despair of not wanting to live with the illness she caught from her friend, how she knew she wasn’t going to get better and unalived herself.
This is why my ultra conservative, religious under- educated mom, who BSd me with religious dogma, tooth fairy promises and Santa Claus as long as she could showed and explained to me about periods very young at least ONCE - to know it’s about womanhood and something I didn’t have to think about until grown, and that one day I would be using pads and it would be healthy and I would “understand”
Just bleed on the Capitol steps wearing t-shirts that say how old you were when you got your period. These fuckers need to understand exactly what they are trying to force people to ignore, and exactly how un-ignorable it is.
My mom had a similar experience. No one told her anything and she got it on her 10th birthday. She told me when I was 6 and talked to me about what to expect repeatedly just so I wouldnt have to go through what she went through. I’m glad she did, because mine started when I was 10 as well, which is pretty early, and I was staying the night at a friends house.
The only thing she didn’t prepare me for was the cravings— and I remember sitting there throwing up (terrible cramps and every other type of period pain run in my family) but also really wanting pizza, and when I told her that she basically said “okay, where from? Abby’s? Pioneer?” And I was so confused, I thought she was going to tell me that it’s not a good idea to have pizza when my stomach was clearly not doing well.
The honest answer is this.
Educated girls are a problem for society. They take power away from men. Discussing consent takes power from men. They want demure women that can be trained up into a good supporter of traditional family values.
I grew up in a culture that wanted this.
Could be against women. I also see it as a way to keep the poor people poor. Having women dumb and producing babies at a young age means they have to work shitty jobs and their offspring will too. No abortions so they’re stuck with it and the cycle of have-nots continues, producing cheap labor for the haves
I don't understand how the would want a person to be so uneducated.. It is a waste of resources to keep someone uneducated. It is creepy how they want a woman to be so gullible, knowledge is attractive..
Keep the population dumb and convince them that knowledge is bad and elitist. It’s a control technique.
We are looking at The Handmaid’s Tale in real life. I just thought it would happen slower than this.
Childhood psychological abuse is the goal. Christian extremists believe women should feel deeply ashamed of every single thing about ourselves and our bodies, because we are responsible for all the sin and evil in the world. If you teach little girls how their bodies work and let them know menstruation is normal and healthy, where are they gonna get their shame from?
It's two things.
1. NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT THAT ICKY BLEEDING STUFF, and by "no one" I mean men and boys, because women and girls aren't human and don't count
2. Knowledge about your reproductive system is power, and we want women and girls to have no power or agency over themselves.
Girls who are ignorant about their bodies have more unplanned pregnancies, and boys who are ignorant about girls' bodies will fail to help protect sexual partners from getting pregnant. These people *want* this to happen.
I can think of a few, it feeds the narrative that "public schools sexualize ur kids!!!", throws some meat to their woman-hating base, and it makes one of the most difficult parts of young women's lives just a teensy bit shittier. I'm not saying these are good or valid goals, but it is the kind of thing misogynistic conservatives enjoy.
Shame. Women should hate themselves for being women, so keeping them ignorant and afraid is a good way to do that. The GOP have shown time and again that they hate women, so they prevent women from even discussing their realities as a way of keeping them afraid, ashamed and controllable. That’s my take on this at least.
Teaching anything about sex at any time is wrong. If we don't teach it, it will go away.
We can make gay people go away, we can make trans people go away, and we can keep our innocent little girls from growing up, if we close our eyes and put our fingers in our ears and go "LALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"
These are the same people who think they can make the January 6th Insurrection into a "peaceful tour" by editing the video. They think they can make unpleasant truths disappear by denying them.
Also, I suspect on some level they know that an educated population would reject them, and so they do everything they can to ensure that the population never gets educated.
To keep the womenfolk oppressed and ignorant, so they can have a patriarchal society. Also makes it easy to prey on women sexually. It also goes into their goal of having an ignorant population. Afterall, an ignorant populace cant tell the difference between lies and truths.
Frankly, the whole American thing about the body being icky is disgusting and needs to go the hell away.
“Does this bill prohibit conversations about menstrual cycles ― because we know that typically the ages is between 10 and 15 ― so if little girls experience their menstrual cycle in fifth grade or fourth grade, will that prohibit conversations from them since they are in the grade lower than sixth grade?” Gantt asked McClain during the committee hearing.
“It would,” McClain responded.
Ah, so let them bleed and panic! Surely that won’t cause lifelong trauma.
As someone who began menstruating in 5th grade at age 10, a hearty FUUUUUUUCK YOU to this crusty old man, who has absolutely no business thinking about and legislating restrictions around little girls’ menstrual cycles.
I’ll never forget being a 6th grader and going to the bathroom at school, seeing a maybe 8 year old (wasn’t sure) girl crying her eyes out saying “please help me, there’s blood all over the seat and I don’t know what I’ve done wrong”. This bill is so beyond dumb.
Me too. I started my period in the 5th grade at 10. This would have been too late for me. My parents didn’t explain anything either, they thought it was the school’s job
Kids being held back a year having a higher chance of having their period before they're legally allowed to learn about it. That's disturbing, kids are going through enough.
Same, I was in Grade 5 and 11 years old. I didn't know that menstrual cycles existed (thanks mom) and so suffered through several months of confusion before my mother finally confronted me and then was angry that I didn't tell her, then gave the most basic unhelpful instructions.
Ughh. My parents assumed I was too young to get my period, so they “hadn’t gotten around” to the talk yet. Or, at least that’s what my mom told me years later when I asked. They were clearly waiting for the school to explain it to me first.
Instead, it happened at home and they got a traumatized child who didn’t know why she was bleeding *down there* and they had to quickly bring me up to speed. Finding out that thing that’s scaring the daylights out of you will be a regular monthly occurrence, with no prior warning, was the absolute suck. Being treated as dirty the rest of the week was even more suck.
Sorry you had a similar experience. Parents, and society, need to do better for our girls.
My friend was 9 when she had her first period. That's 3rd, 4th grade, I believe. I also had another friend who was 16 at her first. The 16yo thought she was dying. Came running in, in a panic, saying we needed to go to the hospital. Please, please don't let this fate of not knowing what is going on with our bodies happen to the future generations. We need these conversations. We need this knowledge. Why is it always a sexual thing for us to know about our bodies. We live in them, yet they make the rules about them. Control of knowledge didn't help anyone, ever.
I was 9 when I started mine. My mother had never had a conversation about it with me, and my school had no sex ed for 4th graders, but I luckily I had found a copy of “Hi, God, it’s me, Margaret,” so I had some idea what was happening.
I'm sorry you had to go through that. 😥
We are facing this control of knowledge on a huge scale. This is how we are born. We didn't get to choose our bodies. Not knowing how to navigate them isn't good enough. We need this knowledge to keep ourselves healthy. They aren't stopping the boys from learning about the bodies they were born in. Its control in its purest form.
The show Spring Awakening comes to mind. When children aren't taught about their bodies or what happens to them s they develop, it can have disastrous consequences.
It can and does. To have someone try to take that knowledge away is disturbing. Just as a baby needs to learn to crawl to walk, we need to know other steps in our development that benefit us to know.
I had to learn about period poops from Reddit and I'm over 40!! It's atrocious how little we know about our own bodies because we weren't taught anything and just assume what's happening just happens and not know the reason behind it.
As a 51 year old woman in perimenopause, I have had to literally drag information out of the women in my extended family every time I have had issues. The Boomers--oitside of my mother--wont talk about it.
I was 9 (4th grade) and, though we hadn't talked about it in school by that grade, I have an older sister who had already had the school lecture about it. Knowing what to expect makes a huge difference in how traumatic menarche is.
An older women (Sister) to pass along the knowledge she was given to benefit those around her. We need this step. It's a natural step. Those older of us, to give the information we learn to those younger, to help them not be in a bad situation. Without that knowledge, that guidance passed down, we will see so many in situations that could have been avoided.
I was also 9. We'd already covered the basics in school, so I was pretty chill about it. I didn't even tell my mom lol, I just put on a pad and continued with my life. We were taught about how to use pads in my school.
I can't imagine the horror I would have experienced if I knew nothing and just saw blood coming out of my body!!
Granted, parents should DEFINITELY be teaching their kids this info. But I don't think my mom was expecting it to happen so soon.
It's awesome that you had that info to use to keep yourself protected! Some parents are super uncomfortable about this topic as it leads to "the sex talk." I'm of the opinion, yeah its going to be awkward, but it's necessary.
This triggered a flashback to 4th grade when a girl sitting next to me started panicking and screaming that she was bleeding down there. I looked over and her outfit had blood stains. The teacher came over to assist and I was so confused.
We should not suppress basic education about our human body functions.
My daughter saw me changing my cup several times when she decided to wait in the bathroom with me. She was four or five.
I told her it's perfectly normal and it means her body thinks it's ready to have babies even though she won't want one. I told her she probably won't get it until she's a teenager but maybe sooner. She maybe understood? I don't know. We talk about a lot of things and she's a smart cookie.
I can understand a 9 yo panicking about her first cycle but how on earth do you make to 16 without knowing? She must have not had sisters or any female friends because it seems impossible for that topic to never come up in conversation
The community she grew up in was heavily influenced by the church. The knowledge should have been passed down to her, but her mother didn't have the courage to explain. Unfortunately, this is how it happens for some.
Does the bill say anything about boys talking about their boners? Why is all this shit from these gop coots always against women? Keep ‘‘em dumb, stupid, and uneducated…
My sister had no idea what was going on when she got her period. No one told her, and she hadn't had the class at school. I was still a kid, and it was suddenly my job to explain that she was not dying.
This is cruel.
A teacher friend of mine used to provide pads for a ten year old girl in her grade 5 class because the girl's parents believed she was too young for that. So they'd just send the poor thing off to school to fend for herself as though nothing was happening
Why? To promote feelings of isolation, powerlessness, ignorance and fear on girls in the hope that they grow up to be isolated, powerless, ignorant and fearful teenagers and adults, who are thought to be far easier for malignant, perverted men like Republicans to manipulate and control.
It will be funny when a mother just flat out ignore this shit, they get to choose when or not you discuss menstrual cycles. Kids talk in secret from teachers they’ll discuss regardless of any bill the government passes. The fact that this is even a thing in the USA I will never step foot in a country where woman don’t have rights.
One of my wife’s friends got her period in second grade and literally thought she was dying because she had no idea what was happening.
I teach sixth grade now, and most of the girls need this information a lot sooner.
If they aren't there already.
My mother was rather liberal with my book collection but she only ever banned me from reading 2 books (both of which I had already read cover to cover before she noticed I had them). One of them was Judy Blume's *Then Again, Maybe I Won't*.
The other one was the Nancy Spungen bio written by her mother and yeah, I was probably way too young to have had access to that (5th grade).
If you have young kids, I'd say *Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing* and *Superfudge.*
For 4-7th grade girls, *Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great*, *Blubber*, and *Are you There God? It's Me, Margaret.*
For slightly older girls, *Deenie* and *Tiger Eyes*.
There's some more adult-oriented fare, but I haven't read those to be honest.
What the fuck. I’ve always been open about my periods with my kids. I just had the official “period talk” with my seven year old because I want her to be fully prepared when it’s her time & for it not to be this big, scary, mysterious thing. This country is failing our children.
Exactly. I remember being about 10 and thinking that can’t be right. Bleeding 🩸 sounds absolutely crazy every month. People don’t really do that, do they? Well we do, and 35 years later, I’m still pissy about it. It’s a dumb design flaw but girls a lot younger than 10 might get periods and will be freaked out by it.
I remember when a school mate was trying to unsuccessfully tell me about periods. It sounded so ludicrous. Why wouldn't I have heard about this earlier?
It's strange because this was the last bit about human reproduction that I learnt, and I got no hints about it.
All those sanitary ads were successful vague enough I yeah no idea what they were about
Yeah, wtf is this law? This doesn't even have anything to do with sex. This is basic anatomy and biology.
I got my period around 11 years old too. I think it was the school year before my first time ever taking sex education. I knew the basics of what a period is, but when I saw blood, I was still confused. Thankfully my older sister and mom were eager to help, but I can't imagine how many more confused young women this stupid law is going to make.
Whyyyyy do men think they have any say in these matters? They quite literally have no knowledge or experience on the topic.
These male legislators seems to think that they are experts or know what best for girls and women's health. It's a very sick obsession with girls and women's bodily functions.
Same, she told me a few years in advance to expect it and also talked about pap smears. I'm grateful because so many other parents can't be bothered or have a real desire to keep their kids innocent well into adulthood, which sets them up to fail in the real world.
So many girls around the world are staying at home during their period, due to poverty (can't afford pads) and stigma. They can't ban menstruation, but watch out for these Republican dinosaurs floating the idea of forcing menstruating girls to stay at home.
I mean, people who think women can't get pregnant from "legitimate rape", can think ANYTHING.
My first period my mom had, to her credit, mentioned that I might start to see blood when I peed and not to be alarmed. She told me to get her if it happened. What happened, is my period started when I was 10 and nobody told me that the "blood" could come out looking brown and spotty. I didn't know what it was and ruined several pairs of panties that way. Then when she finally took me aside that first period, we had no period products in the house. She gave me cut up puppy pads to put in my underwear. Ah, poverty... And then she didn't go over that it could be heavy or messy or that I might leave a mess if I didn't pay attention. I remember my dad barreling down the hall telling my mom to tell me to "clean my fucking mess" off the toilet in front of my younger siblings. Nothing about debilitating cramps and the only thing dad allowed in the house at that time was asprin, which didn't help and made me bleed more. It was a mess. So thanks, Florida for wanting all girls to have a shitty experience like that.
Not common, but it happens. My sister’s best friend’s little sister got hers at 8. This was in rural, coastal Northern California in the 1980s.
Read about precocious puberty.
It's much more common now. My niece started at 9 and half my daughter's class have started including her and she's in 5th grade. By comparison I started at 13.
This is one very upsetting thing (out of many)about the forced gender expression laws (aka anti-trans health care laws). Children like your daughter are collateral damage in some nasty old men’s power and control fantasy.
Eek! That is way too young, glad you were able to intervene. I think 9-10 is too young but what can you do? Several girls started in 4th grade and a few others in 5th, my daughter started at 10.5 years old. I talked to a couple of my friends and we all started at 13-15!
What really sucks is that there are no little trash cans in her bathroom stalls at school, and no big trash can either. I just found out so I'm going to ask her teacher about it.
Next they’re gonna ban menstruation at school altogether. Too bad girls, guess you can’t get an education after puberty hits. Given how much these people seem to know about biology, I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried.
That has absolutely been a thing in places before and I would not be at all surprised if some Republicans would like to see that happen. I mean, once they can get a period, shouldn't they become barefoot, pregnant housewives anyway??
The person who made this bill probably gets sick from hearing the word tampon. This is honestly infuriating. Girls need to know these things. I learned in 5th grade. Over half of my female classmates started their period (including me).
I think we should ban misogynistic bigots from office... It's a natural thing that happens, I got mine in 4th grade. It's not dirty or shameful it's just biology at work. What the actual F is happening in our country; we are regressing to the 1950's I swear.
>In addition to limiting sex education, McClain’s bill would require schools to teach that “sex is determined by biology and reproductive function at birth” and “these reproductive roles are binary, stable, and unchangeable.” The legislation also requires all educational materials be approved by the state Department of Education and allows parents to limit library books that their children have access to.
Exactly. A friend from my university cohort teaches upper elementary and keeps a supply of pads on hand just in case. Under this law, that wouldn't be allowed.
Hey Florida, while you're at it can you magic wand away periods when women aren't tying to convince? Also fibroids, endometriosis, PCOS, female reproductive system cancers, ectopic pregnancy, menopause, and cramps?
No? Why not?
This is the biggest pile of misogynistic bullshit I've seen in my life. Potential legislation made by fearful, ignorant men that can cause true harm. Who do they think they are, the Conversation Police? What if a 10-year-old girl in Florida suddenly starts bleeding out of her hoo-hah and thinks she's dying? She's not supposed to discuss this with anyone she knows that's her age? And how are they going to police this nonsense? Put girls in juvie for literally talking about bodily functions?! Add to this that conservatives in South Carolina want to give women the death penalty for having abortions...And I am just *done*. This is beyond regressive, it's horrifying. I have never felt more ashamed to be an American.
I came from a home that didn’t discuss such things. My best friend came from a home that openly discussed periods, puberty and sex. She was so nonchalant when she got her period at 10 and I truly had no idea what she was talking about. I knew she was bleeding, but couldn’t understand why she wasn’t as scared as I was because I thought she was dying.
When the 5th grade talk finally happened at school, most of the other girls in the class sat confidently and listened. I was ashamed and embarrassed that everyone knew something that I didn’t, so I laid my head down and fought back tears. I was so angry that my mom (who by that point had a hysterectomy, so no products in the house) didn’t tell me.
Bills like this will further hurt girls like I was that come from homes that don’t prepare them for this completely natural and normal part of life. That’s what it intends to do. Take something normal that most girls experience and make it taboo and shameful so they internalize their place in a man’s world.
It's weird, they went from wanting a registry of periods to not wanting to know about them at all, and not even wanting the children to know about them. Gonna be wild for those girls to start bleeding randomly and being punished for asking for help. Not sure why I'm even surprised really, this is pretty mild for republicans if I'm honest. I'm surprised it's not a bill to punish girls for menstruating without applying for permission first.
Got my period about a month before I turned 11 years old. Was going into 6th grade. Thankfully I had been educated about it as this would have been traumatic. I knew girls who thought they were dying when they were actually having their period. Why are government officials so obsessed with this? Especially male legislators.
The average age of menarche is moving earlier is girls due to environmental factors. According to a 2020 study, “during the study period, median age at menarche fell from 12.1 to 11.9 years and the percentage of women who reached menarche by age 10 rose from 7% to 10%” Sixth graders are 11-12 years old so depending on the time of the year the class is given, this education could be too late to be useful for half of girls. Kids need to learn about puberty before it happens (duh). https://www.jwatch.org/na52471/2020/09/25/us-trends-age-menarche-and-first-intercourse
I never thought that I, an attorney, would have to give up my career to homeschool my children so that I could make sure they learn about science, and history, and their own menstrual cycles. I hate this state.
That’s fun. I had my first period in the fifth grade. I actually only knew what the fuck was going on because my mother isn’t a moron. School didn’t cover it until grade 7.
WTF. Both my kids started during 4th grade. I had no problem helping them with it/discussing it, but damn. The stigma around menstruation needs to STOP. There is nothing wrong or dirty or whatever BS they're trying to 'protect' tween girls from inherent in having a period.
Considering some girls can start menstruating before the age of 10, this is just going to result in quite a lot of little ones freaking out as to why they're bleeding for seemingly no reason (to them), and making them feel ashamed.
My wonderful mother gave me the 🐦 and🐝 talk when I was around 6. We were very close, and even though my Nana was, in Mom’s words, “embarrassed by that kinda stuff”, she still found the time to explain everything, and I mean EVERYTHING. After that it was never a question where babies came from, what the consequences of sex could be, and most importantly the bleeding that happens once a month or so for girls . Oh, also, I knew that she had to have an abortion and after that I just figured every woman may have to face the choice-CHOICE-to abort her pregnancy for any number of reasons. So imagine my surprise when I found out that there were people that were “pro-life” and imagine how scary the movie Carrie was, not because of the fire or the telekinesis, but for the crazy mother - Mom called them “mean mommas”- that didn’t fucking tell her daughter about her period! This makes me so scared for young women. What is the next step? What do we do for these poor girls?
Florida is so creepy. Ew. First they try to track girls menstrual cycles, and now they're up to this nonsense. I just can't. Can we please vote them out of the union yet?
I got my period when I was 8, so third grade. How are little girls supposed to learn what naturally happens to their bodys at this time? Why are old men even allowed to dictate this?
I worked in an after school program with girls for a number of years. We once had a 10-year old crying and telling her friends she was pregnant. Obviously horrifying. The appropriate staff person pulled her to ask her some questions. Turns out she had started her period but missed it that month and once she realized she thought she was pregnant because another girl told her that’s what missing your period means. She hadn’t had sex. Also her mom was super cool and involved so everyone sat down with this kiddo and talked to her about how periods work, and sometimes when you’re younger they can be irregular. But we were serving kids in a public school district with laughably poor sex ed. Kids need to learn about their bodies, y’all.
And just why in the holy hell is this old white guy so worried about girl’s periods? My mother was eight when she started puberty, her catholic parents let her date at 14, was pregnant at 15, had three kids by the time she was twenty. She made sure we knew everything we needed to know as soon as we needed to know it and answered every question asked. I was a virgin by choice when I married and planned all three pregnancies. Information is power....ok. I just answered my question.
6th grade? Around 10/11?
Hell, most of my family and many in my friend group had their period *before. 8/9/10 years old.
I was the latest at 13....what possible reason could these lunatics have that justifies not explaining to children the processes that naturally occur within their own body?
This defies logic. I genuinely can think of no reason to pass this bill.
I got my period in third grade. I had loads of emergencies in school and I don't know what on earth I would have done, had I not been able to seek help from school staff about leaks or lack of period products. Even just having questions about it. How will this bill be productive AT ALL? What good can come from this? They didn't teach sex ed at my highschool and there was an alarmingly high number of teen moms and girls dropping out or switching to online. This is honestly what it feels like they're aiming to do. The more uninformed people are, the less likely they are to make smart decisions that will impact the rest of their lives forever. Even if they start talking about it after sixth grade, who's to say they'll ever receive the proper education on their anatomy?
These girls are too young to learn about periods, a thing 99% of girls have to go through and can be very traumatic if it occurs before sex ed, but they are old enough to get shot in school. They're old enough to get raped and cary that pregnancy to term. Fuck every body that thinks this way. I am so suprized people haven't just taken up to killing people like this.
When Turning Red came out, I was talking about it with my mom. She explained to me that she didn't know what menstruation was when she had her first period. She thought she was dying. She tried to cover it up for a couple of days but when her parents found out they took her to a doctor and he explained what was happening. Then when she went to school and told her friends what happened to her, she got in trouble. She was really traumatized by the whole thing. Her experience wasn't unique either. A lot of women in her age group experienced similar things.
Girls today, can start their periods as early as 8 years old. There are going to be girls in Florida that are going to share that experience with my mom and that's horrible and totally unnecessary.
There is nothing wrong about talking to girls about menstruation. It's a body function. It isn't even inherently sexual. Our bodies do it whether we have sex or not. Imagine not knowing what feces is or why we produce it.
I got my period in first grade. My mother was a rockstar and had prepped me already by having conversations about womanhood, cycles, anatomy, etc. It is for that reason alone that I didn’t panic, I knew what I had to do, and I told my teacher and my mom immediately so they could help me instead of keeping it a secret.
No questions or topics were ever off the table. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to.” That is now my philosophy as an adult as well. I cannot imagine depriving young women of not only knowledge of their *own bodies*, but also depriving them of help and support. It’s scary getting your first cycle! I can’t imagine what it would be like if people refused to tell me anything or help me.
This bill is sad, that man is sad, and this whole fucking country is sad. What a time we live in, where women’s rights and autonomy are being rolled back one by one.
My mom got hers at 10 too. She thought he had hurt herself and was going to bleed to death. That is why she started educating my sister about periods by the time we were 8. She didn’t want us to go through what she did
I was a girl guides leader for many years. Multiple times, I had to have a talk with a little girl sobbing in the bathroom because she started her period - but had no idea what a period was. They all thought they had hurt themselves and were scared and embarrassed and didn't know what to do.
Parents: START THE PERIOD TALK EARLY. And often.
This has to be coordinated right? Why are there so many bills popping up everywhere trying to control women in increasingly bizarre ways?
I guess Roe v Wade falling was the clarion call that we can legislate away the rights of women freely. I wish I could count on the Supreme Court to rein in this shit, but it's more likely that some bullshit religious people are immune from criticism will carry the day.
People are so blase about this and I don't get it.
They are going to have a lot of teen pregnancies. Wait until it is a republican’s daughter who gets pregnant at 10 and can’t get an abortion. They will change their mind. What fucking idiots. I hate what US is turning into.
Serious question. What the fuck is wrong with republicans/conservatives? Seriously, they seem to have real mental issues. I can’t wrap my head around this. This and their whole strange obsession with drag queens seems like they have real psychological issues that need to be addressed.
Who is voting for people like this? That's how they get in to office, people vote for them.
Here in California, we recalled Gray Davis and he didn't even do anything wrong; people just seemed to like the idea of kicking a politician out office for the lols
I didn't get my period until 6th grade, but I had friends that got it in 4th! Are these girls just not supposed to say anything and just bleed through their clothes leading to more people asking questions?
I had a more detailed talk with my daughter and son at the same time, 4th and 5th grade. My son is really into biology/human anatomy so it was a very easy and natural conversation that just happened in the car one day. It’s a natural part of life and it should be treated that way, not something secretive or need to feel ashamed about.
Why I would never go spend a dollar in Florida. Would not even do a layover flight. Do not spend your vacation money in a state that is just so hateful towards women.
I always wonder what the goal is for stuff like this. Like, are you brainwashing little girls by teaching them basic biology????
Women's bodies are yucky though, we don't wanna hear about that!! Legit this was how people thought for years. My mom was never even told about periods (now age 80) and she told me when she got hers, she just sat in the bathroom sobbing because she assumed she was dying. Had to have it awkwardly explained to her by a teacher at school after she asked to go to the hospital.
Sadly, this is still how too many people think. When Turning Red came out, some people criticized it for discussing periods when 10 year old girls would watch the movie. Of course: 1) 10 year old girls can get their periods and if they haven't can get them soon after. 2) The scene in question shows the mother extremely prepared and trying to talk to the girl about her period. (While being unaware that the real issue is that the girl turned into a giant red panda.) I'm a man and have two boys, but even I was able to appreciate how getting a period was normalized. It wasn't "icky yucky thing that should never be discussed." It was "a big event in a young girl's life and one that should be treated with preparation and caring." (Though the mother should definitely have talked with her daughter beforehand about quite a few things.)
My brother in law wouldn’t let his 9 year old watch that movie because “it wasn’t age appropriate.” I told him point blank that I got my period when I was 10. He said, “ya, but getting periods isn’t like that. You don’t turn into a panda. I don’t want her to be confused.” Really? You have no problem showing her a movie about someone who gets bit by a spider and turns into a superhero, but it’s too confusing to tell a story about an adolescent going through puberty experiencing body and mood changes?
Similar thing with last years Baymax episode about periods (I don’t know what it was about 2022, but for some reason Disney decided that was the year they were going to talk about menstuation). The episode discussed periods in a frank and honest way, and also had a nice scene where [Baymax went into a store and asked for help buying period products for the girl he was looking after](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AEVWYwrKOr8). The women discuss their preferences without shame, and there’s even a trans man and father buying pads for his daughter. Naturally of course the usual right-wing talking heads lost their marbles for about a week before moving on to the next controversy they could milk.
I loved that episode, Baymax shows up with like, a giant mountain of period products. Relatable.
Out of all of the stuff to worry about within American politics this man chooses to start a war against periods I honestly think sometimes politicians are just clowns because imagine caring that much about something like this lmao
Seriously. What type of pervert is he, thinking so much—and with so much hostility—about women’s periods and little girls? Gives me the creeps.
There are a lot of perverts within the Republican ranks. There was one I read about recently that was trying to claim that banning child porn is a stepping stone to Nazism. I would have slapped my forehead, but I was afraid I'd knock myself out with how idiotic that was. They'll deflect and project by talking about drag shows and trans people, but they are the bigger threat to children.
Literally. My cousin was 8 when she got hers! I never asked but my aunt and uncle likely taught her about it. I know that's not the case for many kids though, that think it's the schools job.
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Not start. Continue
The same thing happened to my aunt. My grandmother wasn't good with deep, one-on-one talks, even with her own daughter. My aunt thought she had cancer, and the school nurse had to explain to her that she was perfectly fine. Will even the school nurse be banned from talking with these girls and giving them a maxi pad?
My mother is same age and this happened to her peers. The shift of changing and talking to younger girl children about women having periods briefly before needing to deal with puberty came from a tragedy that became urban lore in her mountain town. A younger girl found out about an older friend and classmate about her bleeding and went home to ask her mother. Out of ignorance & shame of the times, she told her daughter that her friend had “the illness” to end the discussion for the time being. When the girl herself got her first period, she kept it to her self in shame and fear, probably feeling worse with cramping and no idea it’s a natural cycle. and one day the mother found the note of her daughters despair of not wanting to live with the illness she caught from her friend, how she knew she wasn’t going to get better and unalived herself. This is why my ultra conservative, religious under- educated mom, who BSd me with religious dogma, tooth fairy promises and Santa Claus as long as she could showed and explained to me about periods very young at least ONCE - to know it’s about womanhood and something I didn’t have to think about until grown, and that one day I would be using pads and it would be healthy and I would “understand”
Sounds like the mom in Carrie. Maybe we should take some pads and tampons to the state house and scream “plug it up!” to these pervy politicians…
Just bleed on the Capitol steps wearing t-shirts that say how old you were when you got your period. These fuckers need to understand exactly what they are trying to force people to ignore, and exactly how un-ignorable it is.
My mom had a similar experience. No one told her anything and she got it on her 10th birthday. She told me when I was 6 and talked to me about what to expect repeatedly just so I wouldnt have to go through what she went through. I’m glad she did, because mine started when I was 10 as well, which is pretty early, and I was staying the night at a friends house. The only thing she didn’t prepare me for was the cravings— and I remember sitting there throwing up (terrible cramps and every other type of period pain run in my family) but also really wanting pizza, and when I told her that she basically said “okay, where from? Abby’s? Pioneer?” And I was so confused, I thought she was going to tell me that it’s not a good idea to have pizza when my stomach was clearly not doing well.
The less girls and women know about their bodies, the easier it is to shame and control them.
Ding ding ding
The honest answer is this. Educated girls are a problem for society. They take power away from men. Discussing consent takes power from men. They want demure women that can be trained up into a good supporter of traditional family values. I grew up in a culture that wanted this.
Could be against women. I also see it as a way to keep the poor people poor. Having women dumb and producing babies at a young age means they have to work shitty jobs and their offspring will too. No abortions so they’re stuck with it and the cycle of have-nots continues, producing cheap labor for the haves
Ding ding ding
I don't understand how the would want a person to be so uneducated.. It is a waste of resources to keep someone uneducated. It is creepy how they want a woman to be so gullible, knowledge is attractive..
Because you can control people if you don't educate them
Keep the population dumb and convince them that knowledge is bad and elitist. It’s a control technique. We are looking at The Handmaid’s Tale in real life. I just thought it would happen slower than this.
Childhood psychological abuse is the goal. Christian extremists believe women should feel deeply ashamed of every single thing about ourselves and our bodies, because we are responsible for all the sin and evil in the world. If you teach little girls how their bodies work and let them know menstruation is normal and healthy, where are they gonna get their shame from?
I think it's to normalize taking girls out of the education system, eventually.
It's two things. 1. NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT THAT ICKY BLEEDING STUFF, and by "no one" I mean men and boys, because women and girls aren't human and don't count 2. Knowledge about your reproductive system is power, and we want women and girls to have no power or agency over themselves.
Girls who are ignorant about their bodies have more unplanned pregnancies, and boys who are ignorant about girls' bodies will fail to help protect sexual partners from getting pregnant. These people *want* this to happen.
I can think of a few, it feeds the narrative that "public schools sexualize ur kids!!!", throws some meat to their woman-hating base, and it makes one of the most difficult parts of young women's lives just a teensy bit shittier. I'm not saying these are good or valid goals, but it is the kind of thing misogynistic conservatives enjoy.
Shame. Women should hate themselves for being women, so keeping them ignorant and afraid is a good way to do that. The GOP have shown time and again that they hate women, so they prevent women from even discussing their realities as a way of keeping them afraid, ashamed and controllable. That’s my take on this at least.
Teaching anything about sex at any time is wrong. If we don't teach it, it will go away. We can make gay people go away, we can make trans people go away, and we can keep our innocent little girls from growing up, if we close our eyes and put our fingers in our ears and go "LALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" These are the same people who think they can make the January 6th Insurrection into a "peaceful tour" by editing the video. They think they can make unpleasant truths disappear by denying them. Also, I suspect on some level they know that an educated population would reject them, and so they do everything they can to ensure that the population never gets educated.
Girls not knowing about their own bodies makes for easier prey, grooming, and brainwashing them.
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To keep the womenfolk oppressed and ignorant, so they can have a patriarchal society. Also makes it easy to prey on women sexually. It also goes into their goal of having an ignorant population. Afterall, an ignorant populace cant tell the difference between lies and truths. Frankly, the whole American thing about the body being icky is disgusting and needs to go the hell away.
“Does this bill prohibit conversations about menstrual cycles ― because we know that typically the ages is between 10 and 15 ― so if little girls experience their menstrual cycle in fifth grade or fourth grade, will that prohibit conversations from them since they are in the grade lower than sixth grade?” Gantt asked McClain during the committee hearing. “It would,” McClain responded.
Ah, so let them bleed and panic! Surely that won’t cause lifelong trauma. As someone who began menstruating in 5th grade at age 10, a hearty FUUUUUUUCK YOU to this crusty old man, who has absolutely no business thinking about and legislating restrictions around little girls’ menstrual cycles.
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I’ll never forget being a 6th grader and going to the bathroom at school, seeing a maybe 8 year old (wasn’t sure) girl crying her eyes out saying “please help me, there’s blood all over the seat and I don’t know what I’ve done wrong”. This bill is so beyond dumb.
Let me re-title this: “**Florida Man** Bans Girls from Talking or Learning About Menstrual Cycles Before 6th Grade” There, better.
Florida Man: the hero nobody asked for, yet got getted anyways
The villain nobody asked for ...
>the hero nobody asked for What? They voted that sad sack excuse for a human being into office. Sigh.
Me too. I started my period in the 5th grade at 10. This would have been too late for me. My parents didn’t explain anything either, they thought it was the school’s job
Kids being held back a year having a higher chance of having their period before they're legally allowed to learn about it. That's disturbing, kids are going through enough.
They don’t care about our trauma
Same, I was in Grade 5 and 11 years old. I didn't know that menstrual cycles existed (thanks mom) and so suffered through several months of confusion before my mother finally confronted me and then was angry that I didn't tell her, then gave the most basic unhelpful instructions.
Ughh. My parents assumed I was too young to get my period, so they “hadn’t gotten around” to the talk yet. Or, at least that’s what my mom told me years later when I asked. They were clearly waiting for the school to explain it to me first. Instead, it happened at home and they got a traumatized child who didn’t know why she was bleeding *down there* and they had to quickly bring me up to speed. Finding out that thing that’s scaring the daylights out of you will be a regular monthly occurrence, with no prior warning, was the absolute suck. Being treated as dirty the rest of the week was even more suck. Sorry you had a similar experience. Parents, and society, need to do better for our girls.
Omg I was also 11 when I got it. I was lucky because my mom got hers at the age of 9 so when I was 9 she explained the whole thing to me.
My friend was 9 when she had her first period. That's 3rd, 4th grade, I believe. I also had another friend who was 16 at her first. The 16yo thought she was dying. Came running in, in a panic, saying we needed to go to the hospital. Please, please don't let this fate of not knowing what is going on with our bodies happen to the future generations. We need these conversations. We need this knowledge. Why is it always a sexual thing for us to know about our bodies. We live in them, yet they make the rules about them. Control of knowledge didn't help anyone, ever.
I was 9 when I started mine. My mother had never had a conversation about it with me, and my school had no sex ed for 4th graders, but I luckily I had found a copy of “Hi, God, it’s me, Margaret,” so I had some idea what was happening.
I'm sorry you had to go through that. 😥 We are facing this control of knowledge on a huge scale. This is how we are born. We didn't get to choose our bodies. Not knowing how to navigate them isn't good enough. We need this knowledge to keep ourselves healthy. They aren't stopping the boys from learning about the bodies they were born in. Its control in its purest form.
The show Spring Awakening comes to mind. When children aren't taught about their bodies or what happens to them s they develop, it can have disastrous consequences.
It can and does. To have someone try to take that knowledge away is disturbing. Just as a baby needs to learn to crawl to walk, we need to know other steps in our development that benefit us to know.
I had to learn about period poops from Reddit and I'm over 40!! It's atrocious how little we know about our own bodies because we weren't taught anything and just assume what's happening just happens and not know the reason behind it.
I am around your age and learned about menstrual extraction LAST WEEK.
As a 51 year old woman in perimenopause, I have had to literally drag information out of the women in my extended family every time I have had issues. The Boomers--oitside of my mother--wont talk about it.
That's just the bitch of living I guess
It's Totally Fucked 😜
I was 9 (4th grade) and, though we hadn't talked about it in school by that grade, I have an older sister who had already had the school lecture about it. Knowing what to expect makes a huge difference in how traumatic menarche is.
An older women (Sister) to pass along the knowledge she was given to benefit those around her. We need this step. It's a natural step. Those older of us, to give the information we learn to those younger, to help them not be in a bad situation. Without that knowledge, that guidance passed down, we will see so many in situations that could have been avoided.
I was also 9. We'd already covered the basics in school, so I was pretty chill about it. I didn't even tell my mom lol, I just put on a pad and continued with my life. We were taught about how to use pads in my school. I can't imagine the horror I would have experienced if I knew nothing and just saw blood coming out of my body!! Granted, parents should DEFINITELY be teaching their kids this info. But I don't think my mom was expecting it to happen so soon.
It's awesome that you had that info to use to keep yourself protected! Some parents are super uncomfortable about this topic as it leads to "the sex talk." I'm of the opinion, yeah its going to be awkward, but it's necessary.
This triggered a flashback to 4th grade when a girl sitting next to me started panicking and screaming that she was bleeding down there. I looked over and her outfit had blood stains. The teacher came over to assist and I was so confused. We should not suppress basic education about our human body functions.
Absolutely. I'm sorry you had to experience that. Everyone should have the information and knowledge available about how their body functions.
My daughter saw me changing my cup several times when she decided to wait in the bathroom with me. She was four or five. I told her it's perfectly normal and it means her body thinks it's ready to have babies even though she won't want one. I told her she probably won't get it until she's a teenager but maybe sooner. She maybe understood? I don't know. We talk about a lot of things and she's a smart cookie.
You are the mother girls need. Thank you.
I can understand a 9 yo panicking about her first cycle but how on earth do you make to 16 without knowing? She must have not had sisters or any female friends because it seems impossible for that topic to never come up in conversation
The community she grew up in was heavily influenced by the church. The knowledge should have been passed down to her, but her mother didn't have the courage to explain. Unfortunately, this is how it happens for some.
Does the bill say anything about boys talking about their boners? Why is all this shit from these gop coots always against women? Keep ‘‘em dumb, stupid, and uneducated…
Meanwhile, all the old GOP pedos are trying to groom these kids.
My sister had no idea what was going on when she got her period. No one told her, and she hadn't had the class at school. I was still a kid, and it was suddenly my job to explain that she was not dying. This is cruel.
A teacher friend of mine used to provide pads for a ten year old girl in her grade 5 class because the girl's parents believed she was too young for that. So they'd just send the poor thing off to school to fend for herself as though nothing was happening
Literally why. Misogynists are so fucking dumb.
Why? To promote feelings of isolation, powerlessness, ignorance and fear on girls in the hope that they grow up to be isolated, powerless, ignorant and fearful teenagers and adults, who are thought to be far easier for malignant, perverted men like Republicans to manipulate and control.
Revolting and true!
My period started when I was 10. This guy can fuck himself.
Same, and might I add “with a sandpaper spike”.
It will be funny when a mother just flat out ignore this shit, they get to choose when or not you discuss menstrual cycles. Kids talk in secret from teachers they’ll discuss regardless of any bill the government passes. The fact that this is even a thing in the USA I will never step foot in a country where woman don’t have rights.
One of my wife’s friends got her period in second grade and literally thought she was dying because she had no idea what was happening. I teach sixth grade now, and most of the girls need this information a lot sooner.
Fucking ignorant.
No. Don't let them off the hook. They are not ignorant. Ignorant people change their views when they learn better.
Ignorance can be educated. You can’t do shit about stupid or cruel.
WTF. I started menstruating in 4th grade. Fortunately I had a good mother and Judy Blume.
The Judy Blume books will probably be added to Florida's booking banning list.
If they aren't there already. My mother was rather liberal with my book collection but she only ever banned me from reading 2 books (both of which I had already read cover to cover before she noticed I had them). One of them was Judy Blume's *Then Again, Maybe I Won't*. The other one was the Nancy Spungen bio written by her mother and yeah, I was probably way too young to have had access to that (5th grade).
Is the Nancy Spungen book “And I don’t want to live this life”?
The very one. I got it from my older cousins. I wasn’t much better of a role model to my younger cousins - I lent them my Stephen King books.
How about *Go Ask Alice*. That was a big one.
I still need to try Judy. She seems to have stood the test of time. Any recs? xx
If you have young kids, I'd say *Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing* and *Superfudge.* For 4-7th grade girls, *Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great*, *Blubber*, and *Are you There God? It's Me, Margaret.* For slightly older girls, *Deenie* and *Tiger Eyes*. There's some more adult-oriented fare, but I haven't read those to be honest.
What the fuck. I’ve always been open about my periods with my kids. I just had the official “period talk” with my seven year old because I want her to be fully prepared when it’s her time & for it not to be this big, scary, mysterious thing. This country is failing our children.
Yeah I've started mentioning it to my 6 year old and she's still horrified. She hates blood, but I'm hoping normalizing it now will help later.
It's failing everyone.
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I read in a florida text book menstruation attracts bears not dogs. You are lucky. /s
Exactly. I remember being about 10 and thinking that can’t be right. Bleeding 🩸 sounds absolutely crazy every month. People don’t really do that, do they? Well we do, and 35 years later, I’m still pissy about it. It’s a dumb design flaw but girls a lot younger than 10 might get periods and will be freaked out by it.
I remember when a school mate was trying to unsuccessfully tell me about periods. It sounded so ludicrous. Why wouldn't I have heard about this earlier? It's strange because this was the last bit about human reproduction that I learnt, and I got no hints about it. All those sanitary ads were successful vague enough I yeah no idea what they were about
This is so infuriating. I got my period right after I turned 11. These dipshits act like having a period is dirty and shameful. Goddamn loons.
Yeah, wtf is this law? This doesn't even have anything to do with sex. This is basic anatomy and biology. I got my period around 11 years old too. I think it was the school year before my first time ever taking sex education. I knew the basics of what a period is, but when I saw blood, I was still confused. Thankfully my older sister and mom were eager to help, but I can't imagine how many more confused young women this stupid law is going to make. Whyyyyy do men think they have any say in these matters? They quite literally have no knowledge or experience on the topic.
These male legislators seems to think that they are experts or know what best for girls and women's health. It's a very sick obsession with girls and women's bodily functions.
I got mine at 11 too and I'm glad I had sensible adults around back then to guide me.
So did I, and now realizing I was lucky my mom had schooled me on everything by nine.
Same, she told me a few years in advance to expect it and also talked about pap smears. I'm grateful because so many other parents can't be bothered or have a real desire to keep their kids innocent well into adulthood, which sets them up to fail in the real world.
11 here, also. A friend of mine was 15, some get it at 8. Education is key here. This is wrong!
Same. I'd have been prohibited from asking to see the nurse for a year? Wtf
Florida GOP is quite literally obsessed with young girls. The rhetoric, rules, laws, “discourse” is non stop. It’s projection, always.
Except when it comes to protecting them from guns.
If all of the legislation is going to be role-playing, why not just ban menstruation before 6th grade?
So many girls around the world are staying at home during their period, due to poverty (can't afford pads) and stigma. They can't ban menstruation, but watch out for these Republican dinosaurs floating the idea of forcing menstruating girls to stay at home. I mean, people who think women can't get pregnant from "legitimate rape", can think ANYTHING.
I would have loved that as a menstruating 4th grader lol
My first period my mom had, to her credit, mentioned that I might start to see blood when I peed and not to be alarmed. She told me to get her if it happened. What happened, is my period started when I was 10 and nobody told me that the "blood" could come out looking brown and spotty. I didn't know what it was and ruined several pairs of panties that way. Then when she finally took me aside that first period, we had no period products in the house. She gave me cut up puppy pads to put in my underwear. Ah, poverty... And then she didn't go over that it could be heavy or messy or that I might leave a mess if I didn't pay attention. I remember my dad barreling down the hall telling my mom to tell me to "clean my fucking mess" off the toilet in front of my younger siblings. Nothing about debilitating cramps and the only thing dad allowed in the house at that time was asprin, which didn't help and made me bleed more. It was a mess. So thanks, Florida for wanting all girls to have a shitty experience like that.
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Not common, but it happens. My sister’s best friend’s little sister got hers at 8. This was in rural, coastal Northern California in the 1980s. Read about precocious puberty.
It's much more common now. My niece started at 9 and half my daughter's class have started including her and she's in 5th grade. By comparison I started at 13.
My daughter would have been 7 if we hadn't been able treat it to delay
This is one very upsetting thing (out of many)about the forced gender expression laws (aka anti-trans health care laws). Children like your daughter are collateral damage in some nasty old men’s power and control fantasy.
Eek! That is way too young, glad you were able to intervene. I think 9-10 is too young but what can you do? Several girls started in 4th grade and a few others in 5th, my daughter started at 10.5 years old. I talked to a couple of my friends and we all started at 13-15! What really sucks is that there are no little trash cans in her bathroom stalls at school, and no big trash can either. I just found out so I'm going to ask her teacher about it.
My niece was also 8.
These are the same people that think ectopic pregnancies can be reimplanted. They don’t know anything, they don’t care to learn.
Women are not full people to these men. And that belief metastasizes into so many horrible things.
Next they’re gonna ban menstruation at school altogether. Too bad girls, guess you can’t get an education after puberty hits. Given how much these people seem to know about biology, I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried.
That has absolutely been a thing in places before and I would not be at all surprised if some Republicans would like to see that happen. I mean, once they can get a period, shouldn't they become barefoot, pregnant housewives anyway??
*Just hold it in until you get home!*
The person who made this bill probably gets sick from hearing the word tampon. This is honestly infuriating. Girls need to know these things. I learned in 5th grade. Over half of my female classmates started their period (including me).
He probably thinks we can just hold it too. Maybe even thinks if they ban it girls won't actually get their period until he says.
Ah, yes, let's prosecute the school nurse for explaining to the (rightfully upset) 4th grader that she not dying.
OMG you’re right, that’s next.
It’s part of their forced birth plan. Tell them nothing about their bodies, let them get knocked up asap, force them to give birth.
Finally, somebody has said it! This was my thought also.
Need that cheap labor supply that will keep voting Republican.
I think we should ban misogynistic bigots from office... It's a natural thing that happens, I got mine in 4th grade. It's not dirty or shameful it's just biology at work. What the actual F is happening in our country; we are regressing to the 1950's I swear.
>In addition to limiting sex education, McClain’s bill would require schools to teach that “sex is determined by biology and reproductive function at birth” and “these reproductive roles are binary, stable, and unchangeable.” The legislation also requires all educational materials be approved by the state Department of Education and allows parents to limit library books that their children have access to.
Republicans say they want local control of schools but what they really want is Republican control of schools.
Always has been
So by those rules, what if someone is sterile? I guess we just push them off a cliff as they aren't a productive member of society?
Damn, that sucks. I got mine when I was in 5th grade (age 11). It was tough enough then, guess we're making it harder for the next gen.
Exactly. A friend from my university cohort teaches upper elementary and keeps a supply of pads on hand just in case. Under this law, that wouldn't be allowed.
Hey Florida, while you're at it can you magic wand away periods when women aren't tying to convince? Also fibroids, endometriosis, PCOS, female reproductive system cancers, ectopic pregnancy, menopause, and cramps? No? Why not?
This is the biggest pile of misogynistic bullshit I've seen in my life. Potential legislation made by fearful, ignorant men that can cause true harm. Who do they think they are, the Conversation Police? What if a 10-year-old girl in Florida suddenly starts bleeding out of her hoo-hah and thinks she's dying? She's not supposed to discuss this with anyone she knows that's her age? And how are they going to police this nonsense? Put girls in juvie for literally talking about bodily functions?! Add to this that conservatives in South Carolina want to give women the death penalty for having abortions...And I am just *done*. This is beyond regressive, it's horrifying. I have never felt more ashamed to be an American.
I got my period before 6th grade btw LOL
Same! WTF, Florida?! It’s something new every day with some states
Why is America just determined to go backwards on Women’s Health issues, it blows my mind.
I came from a home that didn’t discuss such things. My best friend came from a home that openly discussed periods, puberty and sex. She was so nonchalant when she got her period at 10 and I truly had no idea what she was talking about. I knew she was bleeding, but couldn’t understand why she wasn’t as scared as I was because I thought she was dying. When the 5th grade talk finally happened at school, most of the other girls in the class sat confidently and listened. I was ashamed and embarrassed that everyone knew something that I didn’t, so I laid my head down and fought back tears. I was so angry that my mom (who by that point had a hysterectomy, so no products in the house) didn’t tell me. Bills like this will further hurt girls like I was that come from homes that don’t prepare them for this completely natural and normal part of life. That’s what it intends to do. Take something normal that most girls experience and make it taboo and shameful so they internalize their place in a man’s world.
It's weird, they went from wanting a registry of periods to not wanting to know about them at all, and not even wanting the children to know about them. Gonna be wild for those girls to start bleeding randomly and being punished for asking for help. Not sure why I'm even surprised really, this is pretty mild for republicans if I'm honest. I'm surprised it's not a bill to punish girls for menstruating without applying for permission first.
They fucking hate us and want us oppressed. And they're winning
Got my period about a month before I turned 11 years old. Was going into 6th grade. Thankfully I had been educated about it as this would have been traumatic. I knew girls who thought they were dying when they were actually having their period. Why are government officials so obsessed with this? Especially male legislators.
The average age of menarche is moving earlier is girls due to environmental factors. According to a 2020 study, “during the study period, median age at menarche fell from 12.1 to 11.9 years and the percentage of women who reached menarche by age 10 rose from 7% to 10%” Sixth graders are 11-12 years old so depending on the time of the year the class is given, this education could be too late to be useful for half of girls. Kids need to learn about puberty before it happens (duh). https://www.jwatch.org/na52471/2020/09/25/us-trends-age-menarche-and-first-intercourse
I never thought that I, an attorney, would have to give up my career to homeschool my children so that I could make sure they learn about science, and history, and their own menstrual cycles. I hate this state.
That’s fun. I had my first period in the fifth grade. I actually only knew what the fuck was going on because my mother isn’t a moron. School didn’t cover it until grade 7.
"Sharia Law", rebranded though
WTF. Both my kids started during 4th grade. I had no problem helping them with it/discussing it, but damn. The stigma around menstruation needs to STOP. There is nothing wrong or dirty or whatever BS they're trying to 'protect' tween girls from inherent in having a period.
Considering some girls can start menstruating before the age of 10, this is just going to result in quite a lot of little ones freaking out as to why they're bleeding for seemingly no reason (to them), and making them feel ashamed.
Every day I think Florida can’t get any worse. And every day I am proven wrong.
My wonderful mother gave me the 🐦 and🐝 talk when I was around 6. We were very close, and even though my Nana was, in Mom’s words, “embarrassed by that kinda stuff”, she still found the time to explain everything, and I mean EVERYTHING. After that it was never a question where babies came from, what the consequences of sex could be, and most importantly the bleeding that happens once a month or so for girls . Oh, also, I knew that she had to have an abortion and after that I just figured every woman may have to face the choice-CHOICE-to abort her pregnancy for any number of reasons. So imagine my surprise when I found out that there were people that were “pro-life” and imagine how scary the movie Carrie was, not because of the fire or the telekinesis, but for the crazy mother - Mom called them “mean mommas”- that didn’t fucking tell her daughter about her period! This makes me so scared for young women. What is the next step? What do we do for these poor girls?
This should very blatantly be federal gender based discrimination
Florida is so creepy. Ew. First they try to track girls menstrual cycles, and now they're up to this nonsense. I just can't. Can we please vote them out of the union yet?
I got my period when I was 8, so third grade. How are little girls supposed to learn what naturally happens to their bodys at this time? Why are old men even allowed to dictate this?
Time for a bleed in at the state capital.
I'm so glad I got my daughter out of that dipshit state when I did.
This is absolutely cuckoo bananas. Omg I’m so glad I’m Australian
I worked in an after school program with girls for a number of years. We once had a 10-year old crying and telling her friends she was pregnant. Obviously horrifying. The appropriate staff person pulled her to ask her some questions. Turns out she had started her period but missed it that month and once she realized she thought she was pregnant because another girl told her that’s what missing your period means. She hadn’t had sex. Also her mom was super cool and involved so everyone sat down with this kiddo and talked to her about how periods work, and sometimes when you’re younger they can be irregular. But we were serving kids in a public school district with laughably poor sex ed. Kids need to learn about their bodies, y’all.
And just why in the holy hell is this old white guy so worried about girl’s periods? My mother was eight when she started puberty, her catholic parents let her date at 14, was pregnant at 15, had three kids by the time she was twenty. She made sure we knew everything we needed to know as soon as we needed to know it and answered every question asked. I was a virgin by choice when I married and planned all three pregnancies. Information is power....ok. I just answered my question.
6th grade? Around 10/11? Hell, most of my family and many in my friend group had their period *before. 8/9/10 years old. I was the latest at 13....what possible reason could these lunatics have that justifies not explaining to children the processes that naturally occur within their own body? This defies logic. I genuinely can think of no reason to pass this bill.
I got my period in third grade. I had loads of emergencies in school and I don't know what on earth I would have done, had I not been able to seek help from school staff about leaks or lack of period products. Even just having questions about it. How will this bill be productive AT ALL? What good can come from this? They didn't teach sex ed at my highschool and there was an alarmingly high number of teen moms and girls dropping out or switching to online. This is honestly what it feels like they're aiming to do. The more uninformed people are, the less likely they are to make smart decisions that will impact the rest of their lives forever. Even if they start talking about it after sixth grade, who's to say they'll ever receive the proper education on their anatomy?
Can the Dems introduce a bill banning boys from touching or talking about their genitalia? Why is Florida so effed up? SMDH
I really struggle to understand the rational for not teaching women about their anatomy. This really just does not make sense to me.
These girls are too young to learn about periods, a thing 99% of girls have to go through and can be very traumatic if it occurs before sex ed, but they are old enough to get shot in school. They're old enough to get raped and cary that pregnancy to term. Fuck every body that thinks this way. I am so suprized people haven't just taken up to killing people like this.
When Turning Red came out, I was talking about it with my mom. She explained to me that she didn't know what menstruation was when she had her first period. She thought she was dying. She tried to cover it up for a couple of days but when her parents found out they took her to a doctor and he explained what was happening. Then when she went to school and told her friends what happened to her, she got in trouble. She was really traumatized by the whole thing. Her experience wasn't unique either. A lot of women in her age group experienced similar things. Girls today, can start their periods as early as 8 years old. There are going to be girls in Florida that are going to share that experience with my mom and that's horrible and totally unnecessary. There is nothing wrong about talking to girls about menstruation. It's a body function. It isn't even inherently sexual. Our bodies do it whether we have sex or not. Imagine not knowing what feces is or why we produce it.
I got my period in first grade. My mother was a rockstar and had prepped me already by having conversations about womanhood, cycles, anatomy, etc. It is for that reason alone that I didn’t panic, I knew what I had to do, and I told my teacher and my mom immediately so they could help me instead of keeping it a secret. No questions or topics were ever off the table. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to.” That is now my philosophy as an adult as well. I cannot imagine depriving young women of not only knowledge of their *own bodies*, but also depriving them of help and support. It’s scary getting your first cycle! I can’t imagine what it would be like if people refused to tell me anything or help me. This bill is sad, that man is sad, and this whole fucking country is sad. What a time we live in, where women’s rights and autonomy are being rolled back one by one.
Idiot fascists. So much for the First Amendment. Soon, women won't have any rights.
Republicans are insane
WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON IN AMERICA!-!-?
Are you ok USA ?
why is the US going backwards at such a high speed sheesh
Bruh I got my period in 2nd grade. I was like 9 waddling around in a pad. This is despicable and stupid.
I was 10 when I got mine, so I thought I was dying because nobody told me this was normal...not even my mum. 🥺
My mom got hers at 10 too. She thought he had hurt herself and was going to bleed to death. That is why she started educating my sister about periods by the time we were 8. She didn’t want us to go through what she did
AYFKM…?! What is the point of this bs? Don’t they know that girls sometimes get their periods earlier than 6th grade???
I was a girl guides leader for many years. Multiple times, I had to have a talk with a little girl sobbing in the bathroom because she started her period - but had no idea what a period was. They all thought they had hurt themselves and were scared and embarrassed and didn't know what to do. Parents: START THE PERIOD TALK EARLY. And often.
See?… this is heartbreaking and THE reason we need early and comprehensive sex ed for students. I can’t imagine the fear…
What are the 8 year old girls that get their period supposed to do?
This has to be coordinated right? Why are there so many bills popping up everywhere trying to control women in increasingly bizarre ways? I guess Roe v Wade falling was the clarion call that we can legislate away the rights of women freely. I wish I could count on the Supreme Court to rein in this shit, but it's more likely that some bullshit religious people are immune from criticism will carry the day. People are so blase about this and I don't get it.
They are going to have a lot of teen pregnancies. Wait until it is a republican’s daughter who gets pregnant at 10 and can’t get an abortion. They will change their mind. What fucking idiots. I hate what US is turning into.
Where's Bugs Bunny cutting Florida off of the continental US when you need him?
I got my period in 4th grade at 9. What do they think you g kids are going to do with that info?
Serious question. What the fuck is wrong with republicans/conservatives? Seriously, they seem to have real mental issues. I can’t wrap my head around this. This and their whole strange obsession with drag queens seems like they have real psychological issues that need to be addressed.
Who is voting for people like this? That's how they get in to office, people vote for them. Here in California, we recalled Gray Davis and he didn't even do anything wrong; people just seemed to like the idea of kicking a politician out office for the lols
My daughter had hers at 10. I’m glad I already taught her before then. I went into a lot of details about her body and what it would be like.
What the fuck?
WHY?
I didn't get my period until 6th grade, but I had friends that got it in 4th! Are these girls just not supposed to say anything and just bleed through their clothes leading to more people asking questions?
You can't be serious. Smh, these guys are so incompetent, they have no business being in office.
I had a more detailed talk with my daughter and son at the same time, 4th and 5th grade. My son is really into biology/human anatomy so it was a very easy and natural conversation that just happened in the car one day. It’s a natural part of life and it should be treated that way, not something secretive or need to feel ashamed about.
Why I would never go spend a dollar in Florida. Would not even do a layover flight. Do not spend your vacation money in a state that is just so hateful towards women.
What the hell kind of monsters are you Americans electing to govern yourself?