A conservative strategy to knock Minnesota Governor Tim Walz down a peg drastically backfired on Friday when it turned out the entire scheme was, actually, not true at all.
The day after Vice President Kamala Harris announced Walz as her running mate, conservatives threw their first major punch at the Midwesterner, labeling him “Tampon Tim” in reference to a 2023 Minnesota state law that conservatives criticized for providing menstrual products in school bathrooms. That included—according to the right-wing media pundits that amplified the rumor—a mandate to also put them in boys’ bathrooms.
Former Fox News host Megyn Kelly amplified the nickname, as did Chaiya Raichik, who posted a photo to her X account, Libs of Tiktok, of a tampon dispenser in the toilet, captioned, “This happened in the boy’s bathroom in an Oregon school after Oregon passed similar laws to Tampon Tim requiring tampons in boy’s bathrooms.” Donald Trump’s campaign also got in on the gossip, with campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt telling Fox News that “there is no greater threat to a woman’s health than leaders ... who support putting tampons in men’s bathrooms in public schools.”
But as it turns out, no one had actually done their research before blasting the transphobic conspiracy into the world—not even a simple Google search of the law’s actual text. In reality, the wording of Minnesota’s law offers “considerable flexibility” in its implementation and doesn’t specify which bathrooms the product should be placed in, reported the Star Tribune. “That might mean making these products available for free in various locations for all who need them, such as unisex bathrooms, girls’ bathrooms, the school nurse or the front office, but not necessarily in boys’ bathrooms.”
Minnesota is far from the only state to offer such assistance in an effort to thwart an economic phenomenon known as “period poverty,” which forces young girls to skip or leave school when they or their families can’t afford to buy period products. Under Republican Governor Mike DeWine, Ohio has set aside $5 million in funding for a near-identical program to Minnesota’s in its schools. Alabama and Georgia have created grants for menstrual product accessibility, while other states like Washington, Nevada, Illinois, and Utah still mandate that their schools provide the products even with zero state funding, according to the Tribune.
“If we don’t talk about it, it’ll never be fixed,” 18-year-old Elif Ozturk of Golden Valley, Minnesota, told the Tribune. “These people who are in power, predominantly old men, have no clue what young girls go through every single day.”
