Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, pictured at a marketing campaign rally in Philadelphia on Tuesday, is getting consideration for a legislation he signed final yr requiring public colleges to offer free interval merchandise.
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Matt Rourke/AP
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Republican critics of Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz have given him a brand new nickname: “Tampon Tim.”
After Vice President Harris introduced her decide, Stephen Miller, a former adviser to former President Donald Trump, tweeted, “She truly selected Tampon Tim.” Chaya Raichik, who runs the far-right social media account Libs of TikTok, photoshopped Walz’s face onto a Tampax field.
“Tampon Tim is arms down the most effective political nickname ever,” tweeted conservative commentator Liz Wheeler. “It’s so… savagely efficient. In a single phrase tells you EVERYTHING you should find out about Tim Walz’s harmful radicalism.”
The moniker refers to a legislation that Walz, the governor of Minnesota, signed final yr, requiring public colleges to offer menstrual merchandise — together with pads and tampons — to college students in 4th by twelfth grades.
The merchandise are free for college students, with the state paying about $2 per pupil to maintain them stocked all through the college yr.
The legislation, which was the results of years of advocacy by college students and their allies, took impact on Jan. 1, although college students say the rollout has to this point been smoother in some college districts than others.
It makes Minnesota one among 28 states (and Washington D.C.) which have handed legal guidelines geared toward giving college students entry to menstrual merchandise in colleges, in line with the Alliance for Interval Provides.
The problem enjoys broad well-liked help: 30 states have eradicated state gross sales tax on menstrual merchandise, and Trump himself signed a 2018 bundle that requires federal prisons to offer them.
However Republicans look like taking problem with the wording of the laws, which says the merchandise have to be accessible “to all menstruating college students in restrooms frequently utilized by college students.”
Some Minnesota Republicans initially tried to restrict the initiative to female-assigned and gender-neutral loos, however had been unsuccessful. Even the writer of that modification in the end voted for the ultimate model of the invoice, saying his members of the family “felt prefer it was an necessary problem I ought to help.”
The invoice’s inclusive language displays that not all individuals who menstruate are girls, and never all girls get durations, which was necessary to those that lobbied for the laws.
“It should make it extra comfy for everybody … then individuals can use no matter restroom they need with out worrying,” Bramwell Lundquist, then 15, informed MPR Information final yr.
However some within the Republican Occasion — which has more and more promoted anti-transgender insurance policies and rhetoric — see that facet of the invoice as a motive to assault Walz.
“Tim Walz is a bizarre radical liberal,” the MAGA Conflict Room account posted on X, previously Twitter. “What may very well be weirder than signing a invoice requiring colleges to inventory tampons in boys’ loos?”
Trump marketing campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt made the same argument in a Tuesday look on Fox Information.
“As a girl, I feel there is no such thing as a higher menace to our well being than leaders who help gender-transition surgical procedures for younger minors, who help placing tampons in males’s loos in public colleges,” she mentioned. “These are radical insurance policies that Tim Walz helps. He truly signed a invoice to do this.”
LGBTQ rights teams have cheered Walz’s choice and praised his monitor document, which features a 2023 govt order making Minnesota one of many first states to safeguard entry to gender-affirming well being care, as dozens of states search to ban it.
Walz, who as soon as earned the title “most inspiring instructor” at the highschool the place he taught and coached soccer, hasn’t responded publicly to the “Tampon Tim” taunts. However he had robust phrases for his Republican opponents on Tuesday evening.
“I am going to simply say it: Donald Trump and JD Vance are creepy and, sure, bizarre,” he tweeted, repeating the put-down he helped popularize in current days. “We aren’t going again.”
Many on the left see “Tampon Tim” as a praise
Democratic Minnesota Rep. Sandra Feist, the chief sponsor of the invoice within the state Home, bought it as a “smart funding”, explaining to her colleagues final yr that “one out of each 10 menstruating youth miss college” as a consequence of a scarcity of entry to menstrual merchandise and assets.
She defended it once more in a tweet on Wednesday morning, saying she was grateful to have partnered with Walz to handle interval poverty.
“This legislation exemplifies what we will accomplish once we hearken to college students to handle their wants,” she wrote. “Excited to see MN illustration on the prime of the ticket!”
Feist ended the tweet with the hashtag #TamponTim.
Different Democratic figures have embraced each the hashtag and the coverage behind it.
Many social media customers responded that offering tampons in colleges isn’t the dangerous factor that Republicans are making it out to be — and in reality, they see it as the other.
Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton mentioned it was “good of the Trump camp to assist publicize Gov. Tim Walz’s compassionate and commonsense coverage,” including, “Let’s do that in every single place.”
Former Georgia State Rep. Bee Nguyen mentioned Walz, as a former instructor, understands how the dearth of entry to menstrual merchandise impacts instructional outcomes.
“This makes me a good larger fan of Tampon Tim,” she added.
Practically 1 in 4 college students have struggled to afford interval merchandise in the US, in line with a 2023 research commissioned by Thinx and PERIOD. Consultants say interval poverty is greater than only a trouble: It’s a difficulty of public and private well being, dignity and extra.
The Minnesota college students who lobbied for the invoice testified final yr about having to overlook class as a result of they had been unable to afford menstrual merchandise, being distracted from schoolwork and exams and feeling that adults didn’t take their concern critically.
“We can’t study whereas we’re leaking,” highschool pupil Elif Ozturk, then 16, informed a legislative listening to in 2023. “How can we count on our college students to hold this burden with them through the college day and nonetheless carry out nicely? The primary precedence must be to study, to not discover a pad.”
