Inflammation across "Sex" and "Stress" Hormones

The idea of a discrete “reproductive system,” particularly in women’s bodies, is a mutually shaping force within medical science, clinical practice, popular culture, and quotidian health practices. The category of “sex hormones” has been part of this conceptualization, yet is breaking down at the nexus of menstruation and inflammation. Specialist researchers are framing periods as inflammatory events, and attention to the health effects of chronic inflammation is filtering into popular wellness media discussions of menstruation. Endometriosis is associated with menstruation and conventionally treated as a gynecological disorder, yet is increasingly understood as a chronic, systemic, inflammatory condition. Drawing from ethnographic and interdisciplinary projects in the UK, this paper explores endometriosis as an increasingly visible site where the category of sex hormones breaks down and society is understood to “get under the skin” in new ways. It discusses the traditional divide between menstrual and inflammatory hormones in medical science, and how this divide is changing across patient forums, multinational research consortiums, wellness podcasts and blogs, and femtech companies’ outputs. It argues that proliferating entry points into the menstruation / inflammation nexus and the complexity of determining cause and effect are part of a broader shift in both social and scientific understandings of the molecular.