Periods in Public Spaces: My GATE Fellowship and the 2024 Olympics

When I share that I spent my summer as a Menstrual Health Fellow at the GATE Program, people often want to talk about period products, menstrual disorders, or their first period story. These were all topics of interest to me, along with an eagerness to sharpen my research skills, improve my knowledge as a puberty educator, and learn more about menstruation in a global context. I was not expecting to be immersed in the world of public toilets and their surprising yet obvious impacts on menstruating in public spaces.

Around the world, 800 million people menstruate every day—many who must navigate complex urban settings while managing their period. When public toilets do exist, menstruation is often forgotten from their design, despite being a basic biological function. The absence of menstrual accessibility in public life causes people who menstruate to resort to unsafe practices, experience discomfort, or miss work or school just to manage their period. During my fellowship, I found that this is not only a local problem, but also a global one.

In 2022, GATE partnered with six cities around the world to assess the menstrual-friendliness of public toilets in New York City, Osaka, Barcelona, Rio de Janeiro, Manila, and Kampala. A menstrual-friendly public toilet (MFPT) includes an in-stall disposal bin, free or low-cost menstrual products, hooks, functional locks, mirrors to check for leaks or stains, and utilities like water, soap, and adequate lighting, among other essential features. I learned about this work in Dr. Marni Sommer’s “Global Menstrual Movement” course, during which I got to audit public toilets around New York City. I found that public toilets are essential for everyone, ranging from unhoused folks, parents with young children, street vendors, and people who menstruate. Yet, they are a forgotten aspect of public life.

As a GATE fellow, I supported the development of a Menstrual-Friendly Public Toilet Toolkit (MFPT) based on evidence collected in the six-city study and accompanying story collection project, Menstruation on the Move. With project partners in Osaka, Barcelona, Rio de Janeiro, Manila, and Kampala, we are advocating to integrate menstrual-friendliness as an essential aspect of public toilet design. Menstruation on the Move is collecting stories from people who have managed their period in any of the six cities, many of which recount experiences of having to pay for bathroom access, stuff toilet paper in their underwear, or bleed through in public, among other challenges. What was most shocking to me were not the stories themselves, but how they sound the same across languages, continents, and cultural contexts.

While undergoing this transformative learning experience, my attention turned to one of the most significant global events of the summer: the 2024 Olympic Games.

The Paris 2024 Olympic Games claimed to be “the first Olympic games to achieve full gender parity.” They had the same number of female and male athletes, the first nursery in the Olympic Village, and “prime time” scheduling balance between genders. In an effort to ease menstrual anxiety, the Olympic Village was stocked with menstrual products and Always (Proctor & Gamble) was announced as the Games’ official period product for 2024. Athletes were encouraged to talk about their periods through a variety of marketing campaigns, bringing menstruation to the forefront of sports.

But I couldn’t help but wonder: What about the millions of spectators?

Over 9.5 million tickets were sold this year and millions of others traveled to Paris for the games. Despite menstrual products being provided for Olympic athletes, none were provided for those in attendance. In the country’s largest stadium, the bathrooms of Stade de France had no menstrual bins or menstrual products and ran out of soap prior to the events even starting. Paris certainly left a legacy behind for gender equality, but overlooking a need of basic biology is an oversight we cannot afford to ignore.

With Los Angeles as the host for the 2028 Olympics, the United States has the opportunity to be a global leader on an issue the rest of the world has yet to successfully address: providing menstrual-friendly public toilets.

City-wide renovations are already underway. Over 80 venues will be used in 2028, many of which are actively undergoing renovations. While Paris has over 420 street toilet stalls, Los Angeles only has 14, despite having twice the population. With the city having committed to a car-free Olympics, there will be more people than ever on foot who will need to access a toilet. How will both athletes and spectators—city residents, travelers, women, and gender-diverse attendees, those with disabilities, and those who may get their period for the very first time—manage their menstruation during the largest sporting event in the world?

The Olympics are designed to be a catalyst for lasting improvement, offering the opportunity to invest in long-standing projects that otherwise wouldn’t be possible. We’ve seen this through the 1992 Barcelona Model that transformed the city’s development and the 2020 Tokyo Toilet Project that reimagined public toilets. The last time Los Angeles hosted the Olympics, there was an economic surplus of $230 million.

Infrastructure designed to meet basic human needs like menstruation should never be overlooked, whether in a transit station or at major events like the Olympics. When someone starts their period in public, it should not require a sudden urgency, frantic purchase, and stroke of luck to avoid bleeding through in public. The United States has an opportunity to set a long overdue global standard through the leadership we claim to embody.

As I reflect on my experience with the GATE Program, I am driven by hope for the 2028 Olympics to become a global model for ensuring that everyone who menstruates—athletes and spectators alike—can participate without barriers in public spaces where menstruation is supported as a basic function of the human experience.

Isabella Brocato is a second-year MPH student in the Department of Sociomedical Sciences earning a certificate in Sexuality, Sexual and Reproductive Health. Since her fellowship, she has continued working as a Research Assistant with the GATE Program.