"Not all students who menstruate are female"

Rep. Dean Urdahl, R-Grove City, proposed an amendment to clarify that the menstrual products should be available in restrooms used by “female” students.

“This is just about practicality. I believe that these products should be most available to those that would use them, girls. This amendment makes that more likely,” he said during a Jan. 11 House Education Committee meeting.

Bill sponsor Rep. Sandra Feist, DFL-New Brighton, urged legislators to reject the amendment.

“There are a lot of schools that are moving towards gender-neutral bathrooms, and if we add ‘female,’ we might become obsolete very quickly,” she explained.

“Second, not all students who menstruate are female,” Feist continued. “We need to make sure all students have access to these products. There are obviously less non-female menstruating students and therefore their usage will be much lower. That was actually calculated into the cost of this.”

According to Feist, non-female menstruators “face a greater stigma and barrier to asking for these products.”

[First, all humans who menstruate are biologically female. Second, those products are widely available in stores, plus stocked up in bathrooms for females, regardless of how they perceive their gender. This is an idiotic argument in service to an idiotic policy. — Ed]