Waitrose has reportedly acted after an internal complaint that “not all people who have periods are women”
A British supermarket chain has rebranded its ‘feminine care’ section after an internal complaint argued the term was not inclusive of transgender and non-binary customers, The Telegraph reported on Friday.
Waitrose will remove sanitary products from its ‘feminine care’ category, saying the label “no longer reflects the product range” because it now also includes incontinence products for men.
The change followed a complaint from an employee who said it was “disappointing” that the category implied the products were “exclusively for women and femininity,” arguing that “not all people who have periods are women.”
“Trans men and some non-binary people have periods,” the employee wrote, adding that “inclusion should never be conditional or performative,” according to internal documents published by gender-critical campaigner and Conservative councillor James Esses.
In an internal response, a Waitrose manager reportedly agreed that the label “does not accurately describe the products within the category” and said the retailer would update it “as soon as possible.”
Esses condemned the move as “disgraceful,” accusing the retailer of “erasing womanhood.” Waitrose, however, insisted the decision reflected changes to its product range rather than identity politics.
Fiona McAnena, director of advocacy at campaign group Sex Matters, said the retailer appeared to be yielding to a “noisy minority of gender activists.” While renaming the category to something like “sanitary products” could be reasonable, she argued, abandoning a “commonly understood term” in the name of inclusivity ignored public opinion.
She added that menstruation is exclusive to women and girls, something that “will never change, no matter how much irrational noise the trans lobby makes.”
The dispute comes amid a wider debate in Britain over sex-based language and transgender inclusion. Last year, the UK Supreme Court ruled that the legal terms ‘woman’, ‘man’ and ‘sex’ refer to biological sex, prompting public bodies, employers and businesses to review policies on single-sex spaces and terminology such as “people who menstruate.”
The latest row is not Waitrose’s first over gender-related branding. The retailer previously drew criticism after selling a gender-neutral Mother’s Day card reading “Happy You Day,” saying it was designed to be inclusive of transgender mothers and grandmothers.
