THINX, which makes underwear for women designed to replace the need for pads and tampons during their monthly cycle, has just introduced a version for trans men AKA women who are becoming men by way of multiple surgeries and a heavy regimen of hormone and psychotropic medication.
The company is advertising its new “boyshorts” online for $34, saying it’s their most “gender neutral” style to date. They provide a page dedicated to trans model Sawyer Devyst, a women transitioning from female to male, to let potential consumers better understand the point of view of a trans man who may be in need of underwear with built-in absorption properties to deal with a period that’s not supposed to be there because they are in fact “men.”
On the ad page, Sawyer writes (in all lower case) that,
gender and sexuality are two separate things. gender is who you go to bed as, and sexuality is who you go to bed with.
my gender is trans male, and my sexuality is queer. I’m attracted to men, women, non-binary people, people in between, people who identify as both male and female, who identify as neither male nor female. I’m just attracted to people.
everyone experiences dysphoria at some point about their body, whether you’re a man or a woman, whether you’re trans or cisgender. a product like thinx really makes people feel secure. and that’s regardless, if you’re a woman or a trans man, or a nonbinary trans person who gets their period.
The company realized it excluded people in its previous advertising, according to Slate.com:
Around this time last year, the company acknowledged that its tagline, “For Women With Periods,” left out trans men, who still menstruate if they aren’t on testosterone therapy regimens; the hormone can cause permanent changes in voice, facial hair, and genital size, but even if a trans man has taken testosterone in the past, his period will soon return if he stops taking regular doses.
The problem now is, they’ve opened themselves up to lawsuits for not acknowledging all other human identifiers:
And even this chart left out the most important one: trans am.