Sport stars like Simone Biles, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Katie Ledecky dazzled fans at the recent Paris Olympic Games with their performances. But off the pitch, many athletes also used the Olympics to draw attention to deeply entrenched inequities and challenges facing girls and women in sport, such as body confidence and support for athletes with small children.
A new initiative, Sport Your Period, is making waves by paying athletes to discuss their menstruation experiences. The effort aims to shatter the taboo of menstruation, a long overlooked problem in the sport world.
This campaign is sponsored by the menstrual product company Knix and aims to normalize period talk, especially for adolescent athletes. Olympians like Canadian beach volleyball player Brandie Wilkerson and American rugby player Ilona Maher have been promoting Sport Your Period over the past year by wearing small red dots during competition. Notably, U.S. women’s gold medal soccer player Megan Rapinoe is the lead spokesperson.
