One of the first times I went into a student union at my university, I went to use the bathroom on the third floor. As soon as I walked in, I saw a fully stocked dispenser for tampons and pads and immediately dashed out because I thought I was in the wrong place. I checked the sign again, re-entered, and saw that the tampon machine was next to the urinals. Then it dawned on me — men have periods, too!
That is the belief of our cultural betters in the higher education and media systems. The country is seeing the beginning of a shortage in menstrual products, which could prove a serious difficulty for American women. In covering the shortage, NPR reported that “people who menstruate are saying it’s hard to find tampons on store shelves across the U.S. right now.” Take note: It’s not women who are saying that it is hard for them to find tampons; it is “people who menstruate.”
Even the companies that make these products are on board. Tampax tweeted in 2020 that “not all people with periods are women.” Another company, Aunt Flow, creates dispensers and advocates for tampons and pads to be given out for free to “all menstruators” and recognizes that “not all people with periods are women.”
If a biological woman transitions, “he” is now a man, according to progressives. But because that decision does not magically take away that person’s reproductive processes, she will menstruate and be in need of sanitary products.
This is the philosophy behind the presence of tampons and pads inside men’s bathrooms. At my school, at least, most of them go unused and just sit there, seldom needing to be restocked. This policy is a waste of products that are currently in a limited supply, and it is another example of how pandering to transgenderism hurts women.
Many have argued that putting feminine products in men’s bathrooms feeds into delusion, which is true. But it is also unwise from a purely utilitarian standpoint. There are certainly a number of transgender men at most large institutions, but they are statistically few and far between. Approximately 1.3 percent of adults in America aged 18–24 identify as transgender, and the number drops from 0.45 percent for those aged 25–64. This is why the tampon machines sit full at many of these institutions. They are inconveniencing the vast majority of women for the sake of a few individuals.
To be fair, if these men’s menstrual machines are sitting fully stocked and unused, they are not guzzling tampons or driving the shortage, and taking the products from them and giving them to women at the institution would not be a cure-all for the current difficulties.
Still, that would provide some relief, and it would make much better use of the menstrual products that sit idle among the urinals. Women have a serious grievance here, and constructing policy around a small group of individuals exacerbates waste in a time of need.