Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hilariously thanked conservatives for attacking Vice President Kamala Harris's running mate Tim Walz as "Tampon Tim," pointing out that the criticism actually helps Walz more than it hurts him.
Conservatives have dubbed Walz "Tampon Tim" following his approval of a bill last year that requires schools to provide free menstrual products in all public school bathrooms.
The Minnesota law, which took effect on January 1, mandates that menstrual products — including pads, tampons, and other items — “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.”
Shortly after Harris announced Walz as her running mate, former President Donald Trump's campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt criticized him for supporting the law and repeated common GOP talking points and transphobic tropes about gender-affirming care:
“As a woman, I think there is no greater threat to our health than leaders who support gender-transition surgeries for young minors, who support putting tampons in men’s bathrooms in public schools. Those are radical policies that Tim Walz supports. He actually signed a bill to do that.”
Similarly, the Make America Great Again Inc. super PAC itself issued a statement questioning, “What could be weirder than signing a bill requiring schools to stock tampons in boys’ bathrooms?” in response to the news of Walz's selection.
One of the memes that's spread since the hashtag #TamponTim took off in conservative circles shows Walz's likeness on a box of Tampax with the words "Tampon Tim" in capital letters just beneath, and Clinton ran with it, writing a cheeky thank you to Trump's team:
"How nice of the Trump camp to help publicize Gov. Tim Walz's compassionate and common-sense policy of providing free menstrual products to students in Minnesota public schools! Let's do this everywhere."
You can see her post and the meme below.
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It was a deliciously shady response to conservatives who've lashed out at Walz for his "radical" policies—and many agreed with Clinton's remark.
Minnesota State Representative Sandra Feist, a Democrat and the chief author of HF 2497, the bill mandating schools provide free menstrual products in all public school bathrooms, told The New York Times that it was important to make menstrual products available to transgender students so they wouldn't have to ask for them.
She said:
“I actually received emails. From trans students, parents, teachers, librarians, custodians from across the country, talking about how they were — or that they knew — trans students who faced these barriers and needed these products, and how much it meant to them that they would have that access, and also that we were standing up for them.”
Harris' selection of Walz as her running mate has received wide praise from LGBTQ+ rights groups who've noted his record as an early supporter of gay rights during his time as a high school teacher in the 1990s.
Walz garnered attention last year by signing an executive order that protects the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals from Minnesota and other states to access gender-affirming health care. In doing so, he criticized the wave of states rolling back transgender rights.
At the time, he emphasized that "protecting and supporting access to gender-affirming health care is essential to being a welcoming and supportive state.”
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