Gov. Walz and Trans Equality

Gov. Walz's support of trans people has been used by Trump supporters as a target of attack. Others think his GLBTQ allyship is a good thing. 

The fear of trans people arose recently in a controversy involving an Olympic athlete that is not trans but people thought was not female enough. Chris Geidner and others also have kept track of nationwide attempts, including in litigation, to target trans people.

On a basic level, and not in a good way, this concern for trans people, including knowing if someone is trans, is weird. The latest thing is an asinine "Tampon Tim" hashtag arising from legislation he signed supplying free menstrual products in grades 4 to 12.  

The legislation arose from teen heroines who spoke about a need. I discuss a book concerning the wider issues of menstrual equity here. 

The immediate issue here was that some Republican legislators supported an amendment specifying the products would be supplied in women's and gender-neutral bathrooms. The sponsor of the failed amendment supported the final bill. Gov. Walz signed the legislation. He didn't craft it. 

The final law recognizes that trans and non-binary people menstruate. These people might not only use women's and gender-neutral bathrooms. 

Also, the legislators overall decided the amendment was not necessary. The law now, to quote one article, "requires school districts to develop plans to ensure all students who menstruate can access free tampons and pads."

(The article notes that Gov. DeSantis vetoed funding in his state.)

I did not go into the weeds here but the general principle here is that you do not need a special provision that in practice will target trans students. You should support a general policy that can be applied as needed.  

This principle can be applied to handling health care for trans people. States do not need to have laws targeting trans people, denying care, and/or putting special barriers in place. 

Sometimes, there will be some tricky line drawing, including in school locker rooms. The proper rules for men's and women's sports also will in a few cases not just be "common sense." 

Nonetheless, the anti-trans approach that currently is often the norm for Republicans (if not across the board) is offensive, bad policy, and in many ways (though the issues are pending)  unconstitutional.  

ETA: People are starting to try to have "gotchas" about Gov. Walz, including an offensive and dumb attempt to argue a guy who was in the military for over twenty years tried to resign to avoid service in Iraq. The timetable also shows it's misinformation.

People are also trying to parse what he says. A segment on voting intimidation and misinformation included a passing remark on "hate" speech. 

In context, it sounds like he was talking about hateful intimidation of voters and so forth. Any inference he supports some open-ended ban on hate speech is unfounded. But, perhaps, it is a lesson on how Walz should be somewhat careful in his remarks. 

On the general point, even a conservative-leaning free-speech scholar found his remarks reasonable.