Newsom Signs Bill Requiring Free Tampons in California Public Schools — Including Boys’ Bathrooms

California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed a bill requiring public schools and colleges to stock free menstrual products — including boys’ restrooms.

The bill expands on one signed in 2017 that required free pads and tampons in schools for low-income areas.

“This bill would enact the Menstrual Equity for All Act of 2021, which would require a public school, as provided, maintaining any combination of classes from grades 6 to 12, inclusive, to stock the school’s restrooms with an adequate supply of free menstrual products, as defined, available and accessible, free of cost, in all women’s restrooms and all-gender restrooms, and in at least one men’s restroom, at all times, and to post a designated notice, on or before the start of the 2022–23 school year, as prescribed,” the bill states.

California also previously repealed a tax on menstrual products.

“Our biology doesn’t always send an advanced warning when we’re about to start menstruating, which often means we need to stop whatever we’re doing and deal with a period,” Democratic Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia said of her legislation. “Just as toilet paper and paper towels are provided in virtually every public bathrooms, so should menstrual products.”

 

Thanks for sharing!