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

League of Legends players can’t seem to let go of the concept that women have a menstrual cycle. Most recently, an apparent coach claimed he tracks his duo partner’s menstrual cycle to see when she plays better.

In the controversial — and hopefully satirical — post, Tony Chau broke down performance statistics from 147 ranked games. Based on the collected data, Chau concluded that his duo parter, yuulu, plays better when she’s not on her period.

“Tracking the period cycles of your league duos can lead to increased win rates,” he tweeted. “We’re not just playing League. We’re playing League around her hormonal cycles.”

According to his alleged data, yuulu has a win rate of 55.1% overall, but this can decline to 52% when she’s menstruating and can go up to as high as 57.5% when she’s not.

While yuulu reacted with humor to the very strange tweet, it feels invasive and full of harmful generalizations to those on the outside. While Chau claims it’s just about gathering data for strategic play, it reads as a bit on the sexist side since this is strangely a topic that has already been brought up before.

I say “strangely” because why are male League of Legends players discussing this? Multiple times?

Back in September 2025, FlyQuest top laner Gabriel “Bwipo” Rau was suspended from a few games after he went on a tangent about women’s menstrual cycles on stream. Instead of discussing how periods can make women play more aggressively, however, he straight-up said that it makes them unable to compete at a high level at all.

While on Twitch, Bwipo felt that it was appropriate and normal to talk about women’s periods and how they make them unable to play League of Legends on stage. He pointed out how women don’t have a lot of support in esports, which apparently means that nobody is creating competitive schedules around their periods.

FlyQuest, which has an all-female LoL team, called the comments “anti-ethical” to the organization’s core values. The org went on to say that these kinds of comments could discourage women from “pursuing her dream of becoming a pro player.”

This was a sentiment shared by other people throughout the esports scene, pointing out that this kind of rhetoric about women’s periods is dangerous, since it’s an argument often used to bar women from other male-dominated fields and hobbies as well.

Esports personality Eefje “Sjokz” Depoortere pointed out in a TikTok: “Women are on their period, bleeding, having extreme pains, extremely tired, [but still] running Olympic records, putting in 24-hour nurse shifts, being a provider for four kids, caring for the elderly, being an executive for a huge company, being lawyers! But a game of League of Legends? Hold the phone!”

Not understanding women’s anatomy in the big 2020s is quite concerning. It’s the continued ignorance towards women and the continued sexist views, rather than, well, just asking women their own experiences and respecting the answers, that continues to create these hostile environments in esports and other predominantly male spaces.

Chau’s strange obsession with monitoring his duo partner’s menstrual cycle is nowhere near as rooted in hostile sexism, but it still continues to put a spotlight on negative stereotypes associated with women’s periods. One response even stated: “Bwipo was right all along.”

Joke or not, the narrative that women become aggressive and uncontrollable during their period is harmful. While some responses pointed out the absurdity of the post in a humorous way, and even pointed out that there should be a real study on the subject to improve performance and strategy, others took the opportunity to spew more sexist rhetoric, empowered by Chau’s talking points.

“This is part of the reason why males have an upper hand in esports,” wrote one weirdo on X. “It’s not transphobic, it’s not misogyny. It’s biological mechanisms that impact mental competitiveness, can come with brain fog, and higher neuroticism.”

While it may feel like a silly tweet at first, it clearly continues to exacerbate the existing sexism in the esports space. It makes me cringe personally, especially seeing women finding it to be harmless fun. But whatever, I’m not the League of Legends police and I can’t expect everyone to understand depth, nuance, and layered situations. So yeah, period tweet weird and funny.