Lisa Jarvis: ‘Tampon Tim’ Walz is a weird meme behind a real problem

Within hours of Vice President Kamala Harris announcing her running mate, certain corners of the internet had exploded with “Tampon Tim” memes, a reference to a bill that Tim Walz signed ensuring free period products in Minnesota public schools.

Republicans gleefully used the policy to take another jab at trans kids. The object of their ire? The bill’s inclusive language, which requires period products to 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.”

But neither the policy nor its language meaningfully diverge from the many other state laws related to period products in schools. There are similar policies in 28 states and the District of Columbia.

Nevertheless, in an interview with Fox News, Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokesperson, suggested something nefarious was afoot. “As a woman,” she said, “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.”

As a woman myself – and also someone who’s spent over 20 years reporting on U.S. health care – let me tell you why free tampons are in fact no threat to public health at all, regardless of where they are provided.

On the contrary, an inclusive period product policy is a model for good health care for children everywhere.

Let’s start with affordability. According to the Alliance for Period Supplies, 1 in 4 students in the U.S. does not have access to period products because of their cost. Experts call this “period poverty.”

Period poverty makes it harder to learn. A recent survey of high school students in St. Louis found that 64% of girls experienced some form of period product insecurity, and 33% of participants said they had missed school because they lacked a period product. Two-thirds of all students surveyed said they had at some point relied on their school for access to menstrual products.

Other studies have found that when women can’t afford pads or tampons, they resort to unsafe or unhygienic practices, like using products for much longer than recommended. Some made do with rags or paper towels, which are not as effective.

No politician should want to be associated with unhygienic rags. And yet some Republicans governors are actively preventing efforts to help kids getting appropriate products. Most recently, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed funding that would have established a pilot program providing free pads and tampons in the state’s public schools.

These programs don’t only help the neediest students. They make puberty less awkward for all girls. Periods can start at inopportune times – say, in the middle of social studies class, when even the most prepared can be caught without a needed product.

Menstruation is also starting earlier for some kids; some data suggests a rise in the number of girls beginning to menstruate at age 8 or younger, when the transition might catch them by surprise.

And while we’re long past the point where the taboo around periods should be shed, the truth is, adolescence is just an embarrassing time. Even the most body-positive kids might not want to ask their math teacher for permission to grab a pad from their locker or if he has any spare tampons in his desk.

Most of us have just those types of memories from puberty. Ask anyone about their first period, and I guarantee they will have a story. It’s not only a rite of passage, but the start of a yearslong adjustment to an unpredictable body.

Having these products available in restrooms just makes it easier – one less thing for kids to worry about as they navigate their changing bodies. As for trans students, periods can exacerbate the dysphoria experienced by some transgender kids. Why not minimize that stress for a tiny group of kids who are already disproportionately likely to be bullied?

To answer that question, we have to ask why having period products in boys’ bathrooms strikes some as such a threat. Surely many boys already see these products in the bathroom at home.

Instead of the colossal dunk Republicans hoped for with their “Tampon Tim” nickname, they instead pointed to a real problem faced by adolescents around the country. Policymakers should be thinking broadly about ways to make adolescence healthier and happier. That includes normalizing and easing the body transitions all kids experience.

Making puberty less awkward? I’d vote for that.

Lisa Jarvis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering biotech, health care and the pharmaceutical industry. Previously, she was executive editor of Chemical & Engineering News.