Fact check: Debunking Trump attack on Walz, Minnesota schools say they don’t provide tampons in boys’ bathrooms

By Daniel Dale, CNN

Washington (CNN) — A variety of Minnesota public school districts say they do not provide tampons in boys’ bathrooms — debunking a claim former President Donald Trump has been making about Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential candidate.

Trump has asserted that Walz signed a law that forces Minnesota schools to provide free tampons in boys’ bathrooms, suggesting this supposed policy is evidence of Walz’s radicalism on gender issues.

Trump said at an August 9 campaign rally in Montana: “He ordered tampons to be put into boys’ bathrooms. Do we have any children here? Please close your ears. He ordered tampons in boys’ bathrooms.” Trump said at his Thursday press conference: “He signed a bill that boys’ bathrooms — all boys’ bathrooms in Minnesota — will have tampons.”

Facts First: Trump’s claims are false.

Walz didn’t order Minnesota schools to put tampons in boys’ bathrooms or sign a bill requiring tampons to be put in all boys’ bathrooms. That’s not what the bill signed by Walz in 2023 actually says — and it’s not how the 15 Minnesota school districts that spoke to CNN on Friday say they have implemented the law.

The law, intended to make sure students of all income levels and gender identities have ready access to menstrual products, says school districts and charter schools must make menstrual products like tampons and pads available at no cost “to all menstruating students in restrooms regularly used by students in grades 4 to 12 according to a plan developed by the school district.”

The law never specifies that the menstrual products must be put in “boys’ bathrooms,” and it allows school districts to decide what counts as a bathroom “regularly used by students.” Districts are permitted to provide menstrual products in bathrooms for students of any gender, which are often single-stall rooms, rather than in their traditional multi-stall bathrooms for boys.

All 15 of the districts that responded Friday to a CNN survey of 25 districts, including the Minneapolis and St. Paul districts in the state’s two most populous cities, said they comply with the law without providing tampons in traditional boys’ bathrooms.

Kevin Burns, a spokesperson for Mankato Area Public Schools, the district where Walz was a high school teacher before entering politics, told CNN that schools there are satisfying “the letter and intent of the statute,” which Burns called “very clear,” by providing menstrual products in “traditional female and gender-neutral restrooms” as well as school nurses’ offices, not boys’ bathrooms.

“St. Cloud Area Schools provides free period products in female-only restrooms, designated gender-neutral restrooms, and from school health-care offices. Period products are not provided in male-only designated restrooms,” said Tami DeLand, a spokesperson for that district in central Minnesota.

“We have provided free tampons and pads to all in ‘nongendered’ student restrooms and girls’ restrooms for grades 4 and up. They are also available from health staffers. We do not have menstrual products in boys’ bathrooms,” said Toya Stewart Downey, a spokesperson for the Robbinsdale district in the suburbs of Minneapolis.

“The Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan Public Schools provides menstrual products in girls’ bathrooms and gender-neutral bathrooms, not boys’ bathrooms,” said Tony Taschner, a spokesperson for the Twin Cities-area suburban district. “If we are aware of transgender students who need menstrual products and use the boys’ bathrooms, school staff would work with these students individually on a case-by-case basis.”

Scott Croonquist, executive director of Minnesota’s Association of Metropolitan School Districts, which says its 52 member districts educate more than half of public school students in the state, said Friday: “Our interpretation of the law is the same as what you have heard from the people you have talked to in school districts. The law does NOT require menstrual products in boys’ bathrooms.”

School districts comply without providing tampons in boys’ bathrooms

It’s certainly possible that some Minnesota schools do provide tampons in traditional multi-stall boys’ bathrooms; the state has more than 300 school districts in all, and CNN communicated with a small fraction of them this week. But Trump’s claim is that Walz signed a law that requires all Minnesota schools to provide tampons in their boys’ bathrooms — and that’s clearly wrong.

Jim Skelly, spokesperson for the large Anoka-Hennepin school district, said, “menstrual products are not provided in male-gendered bathrooms in our school district.” Instead, he said, its schools provide the products “in alignment with the state law in single-stall, all-gender bathrooms and in female-gendered bathrooms at the middle school and high school level. These products are also available from health professionals in the building at all levels.”

“Just as with Anoka-Hennepin, the free products are not found in traditional male-only bathrooms in Osseo Area Schools,” said a spokesperson for the Osseo Area district near Minneapolis, Clay Sawatzke, said on Friday. “But they are provided free to all in girls’ bathrooms and in single stall/universal bathrooms.”

“Rochester Public Schools is fully compliant with MN Statute 121A.212. Free menstrual products are provided in our gender neutral and girls’ bathrooms, or available from health staff,” said a spokesperson for that district in the state’s third-most-populous city.

“Minneapolis Public Schools purchased and installed menstrual product dispensers in all assigned female bathrooms and near all gender-neutral bathrooms,” said district spokesperson Donnie Belcher.

“Free menstrual products are available in girls’ bathrooms, non-gendered bathrooms and in school health offices,” said Amy Parnell, spokesperson for the Wayzata Public Schools suburban district near Minneapolis.

St. Paul Public Schools spokesperson Erica Wacker said, “Locations for dispensers and receptacles for pads and tampons include non-gendered single stall toilets, such as in main offices; toilets in the health offices; group toilets for girls; and one-third of the individual toilet rooms in buildings that have inclusive restrooms.”

This story has been updated with responses from additional school districts.

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