Menstrual cycles are again in esports dialog after League of Legends coach claims to trace his duo accomplice’s interval

League of Legends gamers can’t appear to let go of the idea that girls have a menstrual cycle. Most just lately, 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. Primarily based 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 may 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 surface. Whereas Chau claims it’s nearly gathering knowledge for strategic play, it reads as a bit on the sexist facet since that is surprisingly a subject that has already been introduced up earlier than.

I say “surprisingly” 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 number of video games after he went on a tangent about girls’s menstrual cycles on stream. As a substitute of discussing how durations could make girls play extra aggressively, nonetheless, he straight-up mentioned that it makes them unable to compete at a excessive degree in any respect.

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

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

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

Esports persona Eefje “Sjokz” Depoortere identified in a TikTok: “Ladies 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 government for an enormous firm, being legal professionals! However a sport of League of Legends? Maintain the cellphone!”

Not understanding girls’s anatomy within the large 2020s is kind of regarding. It’s the continued ignorance in direction of girls and the continued sexist views, slightly than, nicely, simply asking girls 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 adverse stereotypes related to girls’s durations. One response even said: “Bwipo was proper all alongside.”

Joke or not, the narrative that girls turn out to be aggressive and uncontrollable throughout their interval is dangerous. Whereas some responses identified the absurdity of the put up in a humorous means, and even identified that there ought to be an actual examine 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 influence 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 house. It makes me cringe personally, particularly seeing girls discovering it to be innocent enjoyable. However no matter, I’m not the League of Legends police and I can’t anticipate everybody to know depth, nuance, and layered conditions. So yeah, interval tweet bizarre and humorous.