Ahead of the Menstrual Hygiene Day on May 28, the Youth4Water, UNICEF and RD Women's University hosted a panel
discussion titled 'Engendered Menstrual Hygiene Management Education and Awareness: Fostering Transformation with Diverse Gender Groups' on here on Friday.
The panel consisted of social activists from the Diverse Gender Group
such as Meera Parida, Sadhana Mishra and Lora Mohapatra. The panel
also consisted of two youths from Odisha, Anwesa Dutta and Sarthak
Sarangi from Youth4Water who asked relevant questions on the topic.
The experts enlightened the audience of about 100 on the issues that
diverse gender groups face during menstruation.Overall, the topics discussed during the session focused on understanding menstruation with Diverse Gender Groups perspective, the physical and mental issues related to menstruation in gender diverse population and challenges faced by diverse gender groups.
"The transgender persons face thousands times more problems during
periods," said Meera Parida. "We need to have a system in place to
talk about menstruation more freely with diverse gender groups. The
transgender community is the most less talked about group in our
society and the problems they face during menstruation go unnoticed.
We need to break the taboos and myths surrounding menstruation," she
added.Mohapatra demanded gender neutral public toilets.