Starts well, and then messes it up.

When Sapna Palep was younger, she was mortified by conversations about menstruation. “It was like, ‘Let’s not talk about this, I need to leave the room,’” said the 43-year-old mother of two. The mere mention of periods evoked “pure embarrassment and fear.”

Ms. Palep’s 9-year-old daughter, Aviana Campello-Palep, in contrast, approaches the topic with zero self-consciousness or hesitation. “When my friends talk about getting their period, they just talk about it,” Aviana said. “It’s just normal in a girl’s life.”

These frank conversations have led Ms. Palep and her daughters, Aviana and Anaya, who is 8, to create Girls With Big Dreams, a line of undergarments for tweens, which includes reusable period underwear that offers an environmentally friendlier alternative to disposable pads and tampons; their brand will launch in early February and be sold online.

Cool. Good idea.

The Campello-Palep girls are representative of two emerging trends that have become clear to period advocates, and anyone who casually follows #PeriodTok: Members of Gen Z and beyond are more forthcoming about their periods than generations past, and they are more likely to care whether the products they use are environmentally sustainable. The convergence of the two ideals may signify a cultural shift in how young people are approaching menstruation.

Hmm. Getting a little wobbly there.

“This whole movement is youth-driven,” said Michela Bedard, executive director of Period Inc., a global nonprofit focused on providing access to period supplies and ending period stigma. “Young menstruators are having a completely different experience in terms of managing their periods with reusables throughout their life.”

Aaaaaaaand we’ve lost the plot.

Reusable products represent only a fraction of menstruation supplies purchased in the United States — Americans spend $1.8 billion on pads and $1 billion on tampons yearly, which dwarfs sales of all other products combined.

American women, that is. Men don’t have this particular expense.

But the market share for reusable products is expected to grow through the next decade, according to forecasters, largely fueled by the wider acceptance and availability of menstrual cups in Western countries. Still, the average menstruator can use thousands of tampons in their lifetime.

This time it’s the Times itself calling women “menstruators,” and not someone they’re quoting.

Still, some young people can’t afford reusable products, especially in communities where period poverty — or the lack of access to menstrual products — is an issue. “Even though the investment in a $25 pair of underwear or a $60 cup would save you money, a lot of people don’t have that money every month,” said Ms. Bedard, whose organization serves the economically disadvantaged.

Again, this isn’t about people, it’s about women. It’s only women who have this financial burden. It’s not good journalism to conceal that fact.

The cultural stigma that plagues menstruation also stubbornly persists, despite the best efforts of young people to normalize periods. Patriarchal taboos around virginity, purity and “dirtiness” in many cultures and religions quash conversation and can impede the use of internal menstrual products, such as tampons or cups.

And the patriarchal taboos are aimed at? Female people. Not generic people, but specifically the female ones. It’s female people who are seen as dirty contaminants.

Corporate messaging still largely emphasizes discreteness and cleanliness, which makes periods seem dirty or bad, said Chella Quint, a menstrual activist, educator and author of “Own Your Period: A Fact-filled Guide to Period Positivity.” “For a long time, the disposable menstrual product industry was hugely responsible for propagating and perpetuating the sort of negative taboos that keep people down and frightened,” she added.

Sad that Quint is too down and frightened to say “women” instead of “people.” It’s not men who are kept down and frightened by these taboos.

Menstrual health is a public health issue and has no gender, Dr. Natterson said. To combat taboos around the subject, anyone, even those who don’t menstruate, should be able to speak freely about periods too, she said. Dr. Natterson said she’s made sure her 16-year-old son knows to hand his sweatshirt to a classmate who has a blood stain on their pants, and to have a tampon or pad to share.

Her. Her pants. Hers. Get rid of the taboo on menstruation but don’t replace it with a taboo on mentioning women.