Period First Aid is a non-profit founded and led by women of color. Our founder, Aria Gao, first learned about menstrual inequity through a YouTube video when she was eleven years old. The story unsettled her, stayed with her, and it showed her how powerful social media could be in breaking silences she had grown up with. Raised in China and later immigrating as a Chinese American, she learned that certain topics, especially periods, were too taboo to discuss. Even in ballet, an intimate space with a majority of women and girls, periods felt out of place, something to be managed quietly rather than named.

​

Four years later, in 2022, Aria realized that the problem she had seen as a child was still present. The silence around menstrual inequity felt even heavier as she entered more formal and professional spaces. She saw a lack of meaningful action and watched the same social media platforms that once taught her about period poverty remove or limit conversations about it. It helped shape her decision to start Period First Aid and use social media as a tool to spread information and normalize open conversations about periods.

​

Chloe Yu first learned about menstrual inequity in middle school, but at the time, she did not think very deeply about it. In high school, she met Aria through their East Asian affinity group, a small community where they were already used to showing up for one another. After joining Aria to work on Period First Aid, Chloe became much more aware of how widespread menstrual inequity is and how often it is overlooked.

​

Chloe herself had experienced the stigma around periods, often feeling embarrassed to bring them up and unsure of whom she could ask for advice or support. Working with Period First Aid helped her put words to that isolation and realize it was not just her problem, but something many others were facing too. It also gave her the chance to do something about it, turning that awareness and sense of community into concrete action for others who feel the same way.

​

Period First Aid grew out of these shared experiences. We exist to challenge the idea that menstrual care is optional. This organization recognizes that people of many genders menstruate, and that access is shaped by money, race, policy, and cultural attitudes. Our hope for Period First Aid is to help build a world where access to basic menstrual care does not depend on race, income, or zip code. We deserve a world where periods, a basic bodily function that affects about half the population, are not censored, sidelined, or treated as taboo.