Transgender Man Becomes First In The World To Front A Campaign About 'Periods'

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A transgender man has made history by becoming the first in the world to front a campaign about periods after he was ashamed of his own. 

Kenny Jones, 23, a model from London UK, explained how he struggled with his periods as he began his transition from female to male as a teenager.

Jones came out as trans at the age of 14 by changing his name and shaving his head, then began to make hormone blockers, but despite this, he still gets period every month.

Jones is now fronting the I'M ON campaign by Pink Parcel alongside celebrities and like fashion designer Olivia Rubin and writer Dolly Alderton, in an attempt to put an end to the stigma around having periods.

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'It's something that's not talked about. I've never had a discussion with another trans man about periods and it's quite weird to think that considering it's a normal thing to go through at the end of the day." Jones said.

'It's a very strange stigma that we shouldn't talk about it and I think that's a bad thing. It should be put in a positive light and say it's OK to talk about things. It's just a natural part of who we are, a normal body function.

The daily mail reports: 'During my transition, I did have to deal with experiencing periods each month and the embarrassment and feelings of shame that can come with it.

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'That's never easy, for a man or woman, to have to deal with. Periods are something that women often struggle to talk about, and growing up while I was transitioning, I often felt like if they couldn't talk about it, I definitely couldn't.'

Kenny was referred to a psychiatrist at the age of 11 when he refused to wear a skirt to his all-girls school, and was later diagnosed as transgender at 14.

At 16 he shaved his head and changed his name by deed poll, and at 17 he began taking blockers that stopped the production of estrogen and halted menstrual bleeding.

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As a child he didn't understand what gender was, and would dress in an androgynous way, he played on the boys' football team and changed in whichever changing room he wanted.

His friends were accepting of his transition, and he even chose his male name thanks to a nickname he'd been given him before he came out, because he acted and dressed so much like a boy.

After he began to live as a boy, he dropped out of school in year nine and was sent to college with older students.

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He said: 'It was a lot more open. I think that was to do with the age, because everyone was older and a bit more mature.

'Whereas when you're young, people don’t really understand what's going on. It got easier as a I got older.'

It would take him six years to finally feel comfortable with his body, when he was 20-years-old and his facial hair started coming through.

He said: 'I think people are so caught up with the aesthetic of how somebody should look rather than how they feel. Although I felt like a man, my beard only came through then.

'Looking like a man ultimately determined how people looked at me and perceived me. I wanted to be represented and seen as a man, so up until then everything was kind of up and down and going through all these mixtures of feelings; kind of being confused for a while then coming out the other end content and being able to participate especially in campaigns like this.'

The I'M ON campaign sees Kenny and female celebrities modeling empowering slogan t-shirts to break the stigma about periods.

he campaign, run by subscription service Pink Parcel, found that over a third of British people see periods as a taboo subject.

Kenny says he is prepared for the backlash as a trans male fronting a campaign about a very feminine issue but says he only wants to spread positivity.

He said: 'I like making history. I want to encourage people to have open conversations about this kind of things and it think the reaction from the public will be quite funny.

'If you have a negative comment or you don’t think transgender people are worth or should be a part of this then you're not living in today’s century.'