Notices by Vagina Museum (vagina_museum@masto.ai), page 2

In our current exhibition, Menopause: What’s Changed?, we ask visitors to consider the language we use to describe menopause and menopausal people. Language matters, it reflects and reinforces stereotypes entwined with misogyny, ageism, and ableism.

How, then, might we rethink our language? How can we reclaim existing language and how might we introduce new language into the mix?

You know your body best. If something doesn’t feel right or something about your cycle has changed (the colour or smell of your discharge, the heaviness of your flow, the regularity of your cycle, etc.), you are allowed to seek medical advice.

Remember:
🩸 You can usually bring a friend to the GP
🩸 Track your symptoms and keep a diary with as detailed notes as possible
🩸 Ask your doctor to record every decision they make in your medical notes, including decisions NOT to run tests or investigate further
🩸 Ask for a second opinion
🩸 Seek out reliable sources of information and exercise caution about online sources
🩸 Ask for help! Reach out to mutual aid groups and food banks in your area if you’re struggling.

Despite the fact 1.8 billion people around the world menstruate every month, only <0.1% of global research funding goes toward menstrual health. Support projects like Free to Bleed and organisations like Nisaba to put menstrual health on the agenda.

And as a treat, we're offering 10% off everything in our Menstrual Health Day 2026 collection all week. Just use BLOODYBRILLIANT at checkout to redeem!

https://vaginamuseumshop.co.uk/collections/menstrual-hygiene-awareness-2026

Apart from period poverty, people who menstruate also experience hardship and discrimination when seeking healthcare. Advocating for yourself in medical settings can be really difficult. Misogyny, racism, ableism, transphobia and many other systems of oppression are deeply embedded within the modern healthcare system and make it difficult, if not impossible, to be taken seriously.

RE: https://masto.ai/@vagina_museum/116634098531721762

Link has now been fixed!

Enjoy 10% off our World Menstrual Health Day 2026 collection all week with BLOODYBRILLIANT.

This Thursday we'll be recognising World Menstrual Health Day alongside Free to Bleed, a data-driven advocacy and art project for menstrual justice.

Some key facts:

🩸 Around the world, 1.8 billion people menstruate every month.
🩸 In the UK, 2 million girls miss a day of school each month because of their period
🩸 75% of surveyed asylum seekers who menstruate reported struggling to obtain period products.

A recent Aldi study reports that 30% of women and people who menstruate are having to choose between buying period products and other everyday essentials, such as food, clothing, or paying household bills.

https://www.aldi.co.uk/period-poverty

🏆Nominate us for a Movement for Good award🏆

The Movement for Good Health & Wellbeing special draw is live for another five hole days, and the Vagina Museum has the chance to receive a quim-credible £5,000.

Every nomination really does make a difference, and it only takes a minute to complete. You can nominate us here: https://movementforgood.com/draws/special/health-wellbeing/?cn=1182022&ct=health#nominateACharity

Thank you for supporting us!

Menarche is a moment of change, of transformation. It shouldn’t be shamed or shrouded in secrecy. Talking about it can be scary, but it also opens a door to connection.

What do YOU wish you had known?

Before the Blood: Community and Belonging from Menarche to Migration is still on display, Wednesday to Sunday 10am to 6pm.

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Nisaba is a grassroots organisation that provides holistic, trauma-informed, menstrual, sexual and reproductive health and wellbeing services for migrants. Follow their work and donate if you can! https://www.nisaba.org.uk/

Perpetuated by patriarchal and cisnormative myths and misconceptions, this shame and stigma affects girls and gender diverse children the most. Without the language to describe what’s happening to them, children grow up unable or ashamed to ask questions — to express curiosity or concern about their bodies. Naturally, this influences behaviour not just in childhood, but well into adulthood. And it affects all of us.

What do you wish you had known before you had your first period?

Across the world menstruation continues to be shrouded in stigma, shame, and silence. Millions of children face their menarche without knowing what it is, why it’s happening, what it’s called, or what to do. Too often, the answers to these questions are only found through an individual’s own experience.

The other reason is that gynaecological health concerns are often dismissed by doctors. If you're having recurrent yeast infections or symptoms, sometimes it can be hard to feel heard and continue advocating for yourself. These tests can feel like they provide answers.

These are genuine and real problems that healthcare providers must address.

Science has a lot of catching up to do on the vaginal microbiome and its role in vaginal and broader health. The research is now happening, and every year a clearer picture begins to develop. But we're not quite there yet in this understanding.

The surge in these products comes for several reasons. First of all, there are likely to be lots of benefits to at-home testing for infections rather than going to a doctor for your swab, and this is a preferable for some people for a variety of reasons. There are clinically-backed, regulated pilot studies and programmes happening around the world to assess at-home testing for STIs or HPV.

Because the data isn't publicly accessible by publication, it's rare to find a testing company who will be transparent about the basics, such as if a test was run on the same sample twice, it would give the same results. When a comparison database is used, it's also hard to know how representative the dataset is.

Because we know so little about the vaginal microbiome in general, datasets are, at best, as incomplete as the rest of science. A database probably won't include every single genetic variant of a strain of bacteria. They're also likely to be skewed specifically towards white populations.

At the end of the day, we don't know enough about what a typical and healthy microbiome looks like, and it's likely that this differs across populations anyway - for example, African American women are more likely to have a healthy microbiome which contains very little Lactobacillus and more of other bacteria.

There's also a question over clinical validity and utility: whether the test kits are genuinely establishing a disease that needs treating. If a test detects presence of a small amount of a specific bacteria in absence of other symptoms, it doesn't necessarily mean you need treating with antibiotics - in fact, this could be harmful to your microbiome!