As governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz signed an education bill mandating that menstrual sanitary products be made available, free of charge, in all public middle and high schools in Minnesota — and that they be available to all students who menstruate; not just girls, but also non-binary kids, and trans boys. Walz also signed legislation that made Minnesota a “refuge” state for trans people, who would be granted access to gender-affirming care and shielded from some of the legal effects of anti-trans laws passed in other states. Now that Walz has been tapped as Kamala Harris’s running mate, Trumpers have been attacking him as “Tampon Tim.” They’re blasting him for decreeing that female products be placed in male bathrooms. (He didn’t do that.) Donald Trump and J.D. Vance are personally accusing Walz of empowering his state to steal children whose parents refuse to obtain gender-affirming care for them. (He didn’t do that, either.)

As governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz signed an education bill mandating that menstrual sanitary products be made available, free of charge, in all public middle and high schools in Minnesota — and that they be available to all students who menstruate; not just girls, but also non-binary kids, and trans boys. Walz also signed legislation that made Minnesota a “refuge” state for trans people, who would be granted access to gender-affirming care and shielded from some of the legal effects of anti-trans laws passed in other states. Now that Walz has been tapped as Kamala Harris’s running mate, Trumpers have been attacking him as “Tampon Tim.” They’re blasting him for decreeing that female products be placed in male bathrooms. (He didn’t do that.) Donald Trump and J.D. Vance are personally accusing Walz of empowering his state to steal children whose parents refuse to obtain gender-affirming care for them. (He didn’t do that, either.) In this part-one episode, host Tish Durkin examines MAGA’s narrative around trans youth accessing tampons at school in terms of MAGA’s narrative around trans youth in general — and finds that, in fact, those two narratives undermine each other.

Fresh from winning the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate, Tennessee State Representative Gloria Johnson — one of the “Tennessee Three” famously known for their protests after the Covenant School shooting in Nashville — updates host Tish Durkin on her plan to upset incumbent Senator Marsha Blackburn. That plan is to meet Blackburn where she is: on the wrong side of the issues that matter most to real voters in Tennessee.