Michael Hobbes: Washington: Required Without Funding should be the state license plate allianceforperiodsupplies.org/period-produ...

"They're giving tampons to kindergarteners due to trans ideology!" please listen to yourself www.nytimes.com/2024/06/15/o...

Kristof is echoing a right-wing panic based on Oregon's law that all schools have to provide tampons in the restrooms. Considering that trans kids do, um, exist it would be really weird and cruel to exclude them. No one is giving tampons to kindergarteners oregoncapitalchronicle.com/2023/03/04/p...

Proposal would remove requirement that boys' bathrooms have tampons, sanitary pads • Oregon Capital Chronicleoregoncapitalchronicle.com Senate Bill 246 would remove the requirement that charter schools and bathrooms designated for males have menstrual products.

Washington: Required Without Funding should be the state license plate allianceforperiodsupplies.org/period-produ...

Kristof invokes this as an example of wasteful performativity but it's actually the kind of data-backed policymaking he claims liberal states have abandoned. Giving poor kids access to menstruation products is a no-brainer both empirically and morally. bsky.app/profile/saba...

This is almost an unbelievably efficient dollar-to-benefit payoff for free menstrual products

Seems like giving trans kids, who are already at risk of absenteeism for all sorts of reasons, access to these things in men’s bathrooms is a huge policy win. Shame we can’t have it because it makes some adults uncomfortable.

There’s also the alternate uses, like how a tampon’s probably a pretty good tool for nosebleeds, something kids get a lot of

If nothing else it gets cis boys used to the idea of menstruation and menstrual products so they aren't squeamish and weird about them as adults.

Yes!

Also, one thing I really like about providing products in all restrooms, even at a young age-- it normalizes menstrual products as just an everyday part of bodily life. Maybe those K boys won't freak out when they're teens someday and they see a girl pull a pad out of her backpack or whatever.

And gunshot wounds

Tampons are a notoriously bad thing to use for gunshot wounds. This is like recommending people roll their own cryptography. Explicitly do not do that

I was being sardonic, not serious

It's probably going to be more sanitary and absorbent than anything in an elementary school. The paper towels used in every school I have been in seem to be engineered for maximum hydrophobia.

I carry two tampons with me all the time. 1: A woman might need one (not that I expect random women to approach me, but I do have female friends). 2: I might need to stuff a gunshot wound. The Army taught me many useful things.

Oof

A kindergarten teacher or aide is presumably going to have an emergency once in a while…

Don't do this with ones that have an anticoagulant in them. Not speaking from experience.

The absolute best for nosebleeds.

Tampons are great for nosebleeds, speaking from long experience.

I was raised pretty conservative, and I experienced a certain pervasive attitude of “let me prove how smart I am by extrapolating a logic chain from minimal data” that I think might explain or inform a lot of these wild flights of fancy.

More of this please: coloradosun.com/2024/06/07/c...

Colorado middle and high schools must provide free menstruation products to students by 2028coloradosun.com House Bill 1164 requires Colorado middle and high schools to stock restrooms with free pads and tampons by 2028.

Kristof doesn't personally need them, therefore no one does. So much of public policy is decided by idiots without empathy.

What the fuck happened to Kristof??

He's still mad no one in Oregon wanted him to be their governor

he is mad but he was like this before he ran too

It is try that the biggest liability of being a so called moderate or centrists is that you are probobly a moron.

The Second Minnesota Miracle (2023) was all written with as much data as possible to provide as much positive feedback to taxpayers as possible. The data says make it woke and pretty, and the workers will come. Both red and moderately blue (e.g. New York) malaise was part of the data. #mnleg

Kristof has kind lost a credibility he ever had. His writings have become more and more indefensible with facts.

Wow. Look at that woke dystopia of … Utah.

Utah has very big community supportive of the LGBTQ community. And the ironic thing is that a lot started with LDS parents of LGBTQ kids. I have so much admiration for those parents.

That's awesome.

Utah is a very weird state.

It is very conservative but in a very principled way that makes it impossible to pigeonhole.

seriously dude. the way public schools here have to cobble money together from county levies for capital projects and whatever meager funding the state provides for everything else has me dreaming of paying state income tax just to provide my kindergartener with fucking art class

I’m a little confused. Doesn’t “required without funding” mean that the state requires it but provides no funds to actually make those things available? In which case, wouldn’t “required WITH funding” be better?? Bc the 1st leaves it to schools to try to pay for it, right? Or am I misunderstanding?

You're interpreting correctly! WA has a history of saying the right things but failing to put our money where our mouths are

Despite literally having a law against unfunded mandates.

All because the state Supreme Court ruled in the 1930s that they can’t have a state income tax

“Required without funding” God I love you, Washington state. Boast how progressive you are but half ass everything

This is a cool site thanks for the link. I was in Dallas Love Field airport and it had free period supplies with a little feisty propaganda on the dispenser.

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