Menstrual cycles are back in esports conversation after League of Legends coach claims to track his duo partner’s period

League of Legends gamers can’t appear to let go of the idea that ladies have a menstrual cycle. Most not too long ago, an obvious coach claimed he tracks his duo accomplice’s menstrual cycle to see when she performs higher.

Within the controversial — and hopefully satirical — put up, Tony Chau broke down efficiency statistics from 147 ranked video games. Based mostly on the collected knowledge, Chau concluded that his duo parter, yuulu, performs higher when she’s not on her interval.

“Monitoring the interval cycles of your league duos can result in elevated win charges,” he tweeted. “We’re not simply taking part in League. We’re taking part in League round her hormonal cycles.”

In response to his alleged knowledge, yuulu has a win fee of 55.1% total, however this will decline to 52% when she’s menstruating and might go as much as as excessive as 57.5% when she’s not.

Whereas yuulu reacted with humor to the very unusual tweet, it feels invasive and stuffed with dangerous generalizations to these on the skin. Whereas Chau claims it’s nearly gathering knowledge for strategic play, it reads as a bit on the sexist aspect since that is unusually a subject that has already been introduced up earlier than.

I say “unusually” as a result of why are male League of Legends gamers discussing this? A number of occasions?

Again in September 2025, FlyQuest high laner Gabriel “Bwipo” Rau was suspended from a couple of video games after he went on a tangent about ladies’s menstrual cycles on stream. As a substitute of discussing how durations could make ladies play extra aggressively, nonetheless, he straight-up stated that it makes them unable to compete at a high level in any respect.

Whereas on Twitch, Bwipo felt that it was acceptable and regular to speak about ladies’s durations and the way they make them unable to play League of Legends on stage. He identified how ladies don’t have quite a lot of assist in esports, which apparently signifies that no one is creating aggressive schedules round their durations.

FlyQuest, which has an all-female LoL group, known as the feedback “anti-ethical” to the group’s core values. The org went on to say that these sorts of feedback might discourage ladies from “pursuing her dream of changing into a professional participant.”

This was a sentiment shared by different folks all through the esports scene, declaring that this type of rhetoric about ladies’s durations is harmful, because it’s an argument usually used to bar ladies from different male-dominated fields and hobbies as nicely.

Esports character Eefje “Sjokz” Depoortere identified in a TikTok: “Girls are on their interval, bleeding, having excessive pains, extraordinarily drained, [but still] working Olympic data, placing in 24-hour nurse shifts, being a supplier for 4 children, caring for the aged, being an govt for an enormous firm, being attorneys! However a recreation of League of Legends? Maintain the cellphone!”

Not understanding ladies’s anatomy within the huge 2020s is sort of regarding. It’s the continued ignorance in the direction of ladies and the continued sexist views, moderately than, nicely, simply asking ladies their very own experiences and respecting the solutions, that continues to create these hostile environments in esports and different predominantly male areas.

Chau’s unusual obsession with monitoring his duo accomplice’s menstrual cycle is nowhere close to as rooted in hostile sexism, nevertheless it nonetheless continues to place a highlight on unfavourable stereotypes related to ladies’s durations. One response even acknowledged: “Bwipo was proper all alongside.”

Joke or not, the narrative that ladies develop into aggressive and uncontrollable throughout their interval is dangerous. Whereas some responses identified the absurdity of the put up in a humorous method, and even identified that there must be an actual research on the topic to enhance efficiency and technique, others took the chance to spew extra sexist rhetoric, empowered by Chau’s speaking factors.

“That is a part of the explanation why males have an higher hand in esports,” wrote one weirdo on X. “It’s not transphobic, it’s not misogyny. It’s organic mechanisms that affect psychological competitiveness, can include mind fog, and better neuroticism.”

Whereas it might really feel like a foolish tweet at first, it clearly continues to exacerbate the present sexism within the esports area. It makes me cringe personally, particularly seeing ladies discovering it to be innocent enjoyable. However no matter, I’m not the League of Legends police and I can’t count on everybody to know depth, nuance, and layered conditions. So yeah, interval tweet bizarre and humorous.