There’s a nationwide shortage of tampons due to supply chain problems, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene knows exactly who to blame for that: transgender men.
After NPR referred to tampon users as “people who menstruate” in a story about the shortage, the chilling tale of inclusive phrasing eventually made its way to Greene, who in the past has fantasized about her husband violently beating a trans woman and repeatedly mocked the transgender daughter of her colleague Democratic Rep. Marie Newman.
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“Has anyone checked the warehouses at the border where all the baby formula is stocked floor to ceiling on shelves?” Greene tweeted Monday, a reference to the also-wrong claim from the right that immigrants were responsible for the formula shortage at the border. (Greene and 191 other House Republicans later voted against a bill intended to speed up the FDA’s approval process for formula manufacturers.)
“Or maybe some men’s restrooms? Apparently they are available there.”
Earlier, Greene had tweeted, in response to a Fox News clip highlighting the shortage: “Democrat’s war on women continues.”
Like other goods and commodities, tampons are in a shortage because of global supply chain issues stemming from the pandemic as well as rising costs of materials, NPR reported.
Time magazine, which reported on the shortage last week, also noted that the executives at the companies that dominate the tampon market—including Procter & Gamble, Unilever, and Edgewell—are men, and suggested that solving the tampon shortage hasn’t been a priority.
After the shortage hit the national media, however, tampon makers and stores that carry the products promised they’re working on it, and that the shortage won’t last much longer.
Procter & Gamble, which makes the Tampax brand of tampons, said it’s “working hard to ramp up production” and that the shortage was a “temporary situation,” in a statement to the BBC.
Edgewell, which manufactures Playtex tampons, said it’s been “impacted due to extensive workforce shortages caused by two separate Omicron surges in the US and Canada in late 2021 and early 2022, respectively,” in another statement to the BBC.
“We have been operating our manufacturing facilities around the clock to build back inventory and anticipate returning to normal levels in the coming weeks,” a spokesperson told the network.
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