Future Tense

Why Did My Period-Tracking App Send Me an Anti-Brexit Email?

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Wait, what does a period-tracking app have to do with the Brexit vote?

m-imagephotography/Thinkstock

Five days after Britain voted to leave the European Union, I received a message from Clue, a menstrual health app, with the subject line “Better together” followed by a peace sign emoji and a message about unity. This is the age we now live in, a time in which the app that tracks my menstrual cycle and reminds me to take my daily birth control pill wanted to belatedly share its viewpoint on the issue with me.

“I think my period tracking app just sent me an anti-Brexit email?” I texted a friend. Apparently this seems so de rigueur in 2016 that all I got was a paltry “lol” in response.

What a time to be alive, I thought, when I can record observations about my shedding uterine lining on my mobile device and in turn receive input on important matters of foreign affairs!

To be clear, I am decidedly pro–period tracking and pro-Bremain. But even I wasn’t sure how I felt about my reproductive health and views on international politics intersecting in this particular way. I grew up in a feminist family that ran an abortion clinic in Texas, and I was raised with the belief that the personal is always political—but also with a deep suspicion of the political invading the personal, especially when it comes to my health.

Although the link between the Brexit and the “blood coming out of [my] wherever,” as Donald Trump likes to say, may have seemed tenuous at first, it actually makes sense that an app to track the latter would want to educate its users about the consequences of the former. Initiatives like Clue and Planned Parenthood’s new Spot On aim to give medically accurate information to a generation raised with science-optional, abstinence-only sex education. Similarly, Team Bremain fought to spread its message as its opponents misled the public with factually inaccurate information—not unlike the Republican Party’s never-ending attack on facts with the dubious motive of “protecting women.”

Unsurprisingly, younger voters overwhelmingly flocked to Team Bremain’s message of inclusion and unity, just as they have embraced technology to take control of their bodies and health. So while I may have scoffed a bit at first, I actually appreciate Clue’s effort to make the personal political and vice versa, and I hope my generation will continue to embrace it. We know that just as one missed birth control pill can have consequences, our votes do, too.

And that is why even though Britain may not remain, my period tracking app will. Because—like the U.K. and the EU—I believe we’re better together.