‘Something about an app, you know?’: narratives of everyday menstrual justice among trans and nonbinary people in Canada and the USA

While critical research focused on trans and nonbinary people's experiences with menstruation is growing, no prior work has examined how menstrual tracking apps shape experiences of menstruation within trans and nonbinary lives. Drawn from a larger feminist narrative inquiry study, the purpose of this research was to address this gap by examining six narrative accounts of menstrual tracking app use and non-use among trans and nonbinary people in Canada and the USA. These narratives illustrate how trans and nonbinary participants situated practices of engaging with, or refusing to engage with, menstrual tracking apps help mediate and sustain dignity and agency in everyday life contexts, constituting forms of what we term 'everyday' menstrual justice. By foregrounding narratives of both use and non-use, we illustrate how participants navigated the dual principles of menstrual justice - 'freedom to' and 'freedom from' menstruation - by negotiating autonomy, dysphoria management, pain legibility, data privacy, and self-advocacy through digital menstrual technologies. This article advances an expanded understanding of menstrual justice that accounts for the diverse micro-level ways in which individuals across gender identities self-determine how and to what extent menstruation matters in their lives.