On Dec. 13, about 40 Guilford High School (GHS) students through the Guilford Youth Feminist Alliance Club and the Guilford chapter of the national PERIOD non-profit organization gathered for a “packing party,” put together around 200 care packages of tampons and pads—including hand-written inspirational messages—to be delivered to homeless and low-income people through the Connecticut Diaper Bank, as they continue to lead local efforts to fight stigmas and bridge gaps for low-income people in need of sanitary products.

Advocating for an end to “period poverty” and destigmatizing the issue of periods became a passion project of GHS students Emma Bonz and Clara Meyers, who founded the Guilford PERIOD chapter two years ago, joining a large grass-roots movement that since 2014 has opened more than 600 local affiliates across the world.

“So [the Feminist Alliance] had been having these annual menstrual product drives,” said Meyers, “and we wanted to kind of make it a little bit bigger, and expand from just the idea of period poverty to also, what are the root causes to this lack of access, what’s the stigma around periods and how does that impact the access that people have to products.”

Issues addressed by the organization include schools providing menstrual products free to students, access to clean and appropriate bathroom facilities, and taxes imposed on sanitary pads and tampons, among many other things. Bonz said they have been working recently to coordinate with other local service organizations and food banks to determine what kind of need there might be for menstrual hygiene products.

Though starting at the most basic level—providing menstrual products for people who might otherwise be forced to use toilet paper or even less effective, less sanitary means of dealing with menstrual bleeding—issues with menstruation span widely across society, according to Meyers and Bonz.

Meyers and Bonz said that one of the most difficult and infuriating things about all these issues is that people don’t want to talk about them. The stigma that surrounds menstruation hinders efforts to address the surrounding issues, the students said.

“As a freshman, it was just so hard to talk about my period,” said Bonz. “And now I talk about it all the time. And it’s gotten a lot easier—like going to Walmart and filling shopping carts full of tampons. So that’s been a really cool experience, like watching us become bolder, and then watching the people around us become more able to speak about it as well.”

At a very basic level, people who menstruate face simple, everyday obstacles. Feminist Alliance Club President Elle Petra said change can start in schools, in offices, in everyday life as people deal with their periods.

“It’s empowering other people to be like, this is a natural part of your monthly cycle for any menstruator,” Petra said.

Helping more people acknowledge and understand these simple realities, Meyers said, is how you can build toward those more structural issues. The “tampon tax,” which refers to the practice of classifying menstrual hygiene products as luxuries rather than necessities for tax purposes, is something at the forefront of national advocacy efforts.

Connecticut state legislators changed the classification of sanitary products in 2018, but more than 30 other states continue the practice.

All of these issues, though—from potentially deadly health problems like toxic shock syndrome to school and work absenteeism from lack of access or education, to psychological wellbeing—begin with people talking about periods, according to Petra, Bonz, and Meyers

“I just think it’s impossible to achieve gender equity when about half the population is experiencing something every month that they can’t talk about,” said Bonz. “And that many people don’t have the access to the products that they need to feel dignified, to feel safe and sanitary. It makes it impossible to focus, it makes it hard if you’re trying to go to work or to school- it’s just really important.”

“It contributes to the gender wage gap,” said Petra. “Because women...and menstruators have to buy products that men and non-menstruators don’t.”

Members of PERIOD, Guilford participated in an October rally in New Haven as part of National Period Day to continue to raise awareness around these issues, according to Bonz. As PERIOD and the Feminist Alliance plan to continue to expand their relationships with local service organizations and businesses and look forward to more sanitary product drives, Petra, Bonz, and Meyers said there is one thing they hope everyone can do every day to help end these inequalities.

“Don’t let the conversation end,” Meyers said. “Even if it doesn’t affect you, it’s going to affect a lot of people you know.”

For more information about the national PERIOD organization, visit www.period.org.