Posted on August 10, 2024 by Scott Johnson in 2024 Election, Gender Follies, Law, Media, Minnesota, Tim Walz

Of Tim and the tampons [With Comment by John]

The reporters and editors at the Star Tribune serve as the public relations arm of Minnesota’s DFL and the national Democratic ticket. They would anyway, but with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz on board they have expanded their efforts. The tweet below depicts Star Tribune publisher Steve Grove, Walz’s janissary at the paper.

Unfriendly observers of the Democratic ticket have taken to calling Governor Walz “Tampon Tim.” The moniker derives from a statute passed last year by the DFL-controlled “Let’s Go Crazy” legislature. Governor Walz proudly signed the bill.

This is how the Star Tribune described the law in a straight news story when the bill passed in 2023:

Free menstrual products

Schools will be required to stock bathrooms with pads, tampons and other menstrual products to curb what Rep. Sandra Feist, DFL-New Brighton, calls “period poverty.” She asked lawmakers to earmark $2 per pupil, about $2 million per year, for the measure.

Feist began working on the legislation two years ago when a freshman at Hopkins High School told her about classmates who routinely stayed home when they’re running low on pads and tampons. That student, Elif Ozturk, is now a junior and testified in support of the provision.

“We cannot learn when we are leaking,” Ozturk said.

The links in the description are embedded in the quoted story and are illustrative of the Star Tribune’s public relations work. The first of the linked stories reports:

Pads and tampons are as necessary in school bathrooms as toilet paper and soap, say the backers of a legislative proposal to provide such products to students from fourth grade on up.

The bill, reviewed Wednesday by a House education committee, would require school districts to supply bathrooms with menstrual products by the start of the academic year this fall.

Now that Walz has been named to the Democratic ticket there is renewed interest in the bill that has become law and the Star Tribune has picked up where it left off with a long editorial performing “A reality check on the ‘Tampon Tim’ meme.” Subhead: “A smart, compassionate new state law is spurring misinformed attacks on Minnesota’s latest vice presidential contender: Gov. Tim Walz.”

I take it that Star Tribune editorial board member Jill Burcum wrote the editorial. Yesterday Burcum took after Megyn Kelly on X for supporting the “Tampon Tim” meme. Burcum linked to her own editorial:

The “thing called journalism” refers to “the law’s actual language,” it doesn’t quote the statute, either on X or in the long Star Tribune editorial. It only links to it. The “thing called journalism” doesn’t involve quoting a lawyer or two on the statute either. Rather the editorial quotes the executive director of the Minnesota Association of School Administrators:

A specific but ill-informed attack on the new Minnesota law is in dire need of a reality check. Critics contend, wrongly, that it mandates menstrual products in boys’ bathrooms. This has unfortunately been used to stoke ongoing culture wars over transgender individuals.

But the law’s actual language provides considerable flexibility for school districts to implement it, according to Deb Henton, the executive director of the Minnesota Association of School Administrators.

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. Henton, in an interview, lauded the “local control” the law provides for implementation, and said she’s fielded no concerns about its rollout.

Here is the statute that the Star Tribune declines to quote:

121A.212 ACCESS TO MENSTRUAL PRODUCTS.
A school district or charter school must provide students with access to menstrual products at no charge. The products must be available to all menstruating students in restrooms regularly used by students in grades 4 to 12 according to a plan developed by the school district. For purposes of this section, “menstrual products” means pads, tampons, or other similar products used in connection with the menstrual cycle.

The key language is not a model of clarity. “The products must be available to all menstruating students in restrooms regularly used by students in grades 4 to 12[.]” The language seems to me intentionally ambiguous at best. You can see why the Star Tribune might have neglected to quote it.

Every school district in the state is required to implement a plan in accord with the mandate. The editorial to the contrary notwithstanding, I don’t see “considerable flexibility” in the law. If a “menstruating student” might use the boys’ bathroom, the school district had better have a plan for tampons in the bathroom. If you want to stay on the safe side of a lawsuit, you would be well advised to err on the side of caution and place menstrual products “in restrooms regularly used by students” — period, so to speak.

What did the legislature have in mind when it passed the bill? Republican legislators who opposed the bill in committee noted that the issue disputed by the Star Tribune was expressly addressed in committee. The Star Tribune of course omits any mention of the legislative history.

The Star Tribune editorial concludes with a flourish that gives new meaning to a “thing called journalism.” Be assured, you peons: “There’s nothing radical about Minnesota’s new law. Instead it’s a smart, low-cost measure to address educational achievement gaps, one that many states are embracing. Weaponizing this measure is laughably out of touch and likely to backfire not only with women, but all who care about them.”

The “laughable” bit seems like a case of left-wing projection. You be the judge. Kira Davis added a “reality check” to Jill Burcum’s “reality check” in a thread that can be accessed via the tweet below.

JOHN adds: I was astonished when Democrats tried to claim that they hadn’t mandated tampons in boys’ bathrooms. At the time the bill passed, my understanding was that advancing “trans” ideology was the principal point of the legislation. They were proud of it then, but now the Democrats are trying to get Tim Walz elected as vice president.

One entertaining aspect of this controversy is Hillary Clinton’s offering what may be the ultimate in gaslighting:


“Students.” Not girls, but students. Because you never know. Even when lying, Hillary can’t keep the truth from seeping in.

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