GOP's '#TamponTim' attack will backfire
Nancy KafferA word on tampons, if you have a moment.
When I was in high school, back in the dim mists of the 1990s, getting your period at school was a mortifying ordeal that occurred more frequently than anyone wanted it to. If you were lucky, you’d remembered to put tampons or pads in your backpack. If you were even luckier, your teacher allowed you to go to the bathroom when you needed to. But honestly, all of that was a roll of the dice.
One particular day, a male teacher granted me permission to go to the bathroom, but would not let me take my purse — which was sort of the point of the whole operation. Because I’ve always been a little bit of a jackass, I grabbed a tampon from my bag, brandished it in front of me like a torch, and marched out of the classroom.
But it was degrading and humiliating — for me, and for the millions of American women and girls who have had similar experiences.
And none of it needed to happen.
Everyone's talking about Project 2025.Here's what they're missing.
As governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, now Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ running mate, signed a bill into law requiring school districts to place tampons and pads in bathrooms in schools serving grades 4-12. (Yes, some people get their periods as early as fourth grade. No, it’s not fair.)
And what you’ve read is true — the law, spearheaded by a group of students, required tampons to be placed in all school bathrooms, including the boys’ room, for use by trans boys and nonbinary students. When a Republican lawmaker introduced an amendment to restrict the products only to bathrooms marked for girls and nonbinary students, it failed, and the GOP legislator voted for the bill as introduced, judging the need too important to withhold his support.
Since Harris tapped Walz for the VP slot earlier this week, some Republicans have decided this is prime fodder for political attacks, dubbing Walz “#TamponTim.” Oh, how hilarious! He’s a guy, and tampons are for girls, right?
Friends, this attack will backfire.
I was wrong about Kamala Harris.And that's a huge problem for Donald Trump.
Too many American women and girls have had the degrading experience of trying to manage menstruation in a world that, too often, still considers getting your period sort of icky. Too many of us have surreptitiously tried to squeeze a tampon or pad into a pocket, embarrassed to advertise the exact nature of our bathroom breaks, or worriedly tried to mitigate the damage when we've been caught unprepared.
The Minnesota law addressed a pragmatic need, stocking school bathrooms with products as essential as hand soap or toilet paper. But it’s doing something else: Breaking down stigma around menstruation.
Menstruation is normal, and for about half of us, inevitable. It's not something to be ashamed of, and we should be able to discuss it with the same conversational ease as any other routine health maintenance. Minnesota's law places these products in the realm of normal public use, like drinking fountains or hand sanitizer. And it’s OK for boys who don't need tampons or pads to know about, and see, these products in a school bathroom. (Surely many of them see such items in their home bathrooms?)
Here in Michigan, we only eliminated the "pink tax" in 2021; before that, tampons and pads, unlike most other health-related supplies, were subject to the state's 6% sales tax. In 2023, the state budget included funding for a pilot program to place free tampons and pads in bathrooms in eight school districts. We ought to expand it to all Michigan schools, without delay.
If my school had stocked tampons and pads in its bathrooms, I could’ve simply left the classroom that day. On the many occasions I’d come to school unprepared for my period to start, I’d have been saved the annoyance of busking my friend group for a pad, or calling my mother for an early pick-up if I couldn’t find one.
And maybe, just maybe, if periods were acknowledged, normalized and prepared for by schools, students wouldn't have to plead for the autonomy to manage them.
Nancy Kaffer is the editorial page editor of the Detroit Free Press. Contact: nkaffer@freepress.com. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters, and we may publish it online and in print.