The Guardian, Gavin Newsom Falsely Accuse Glenn Youngkin of Special Interest in Menstrual Histories

“Virginia governor clears path for ‘extreme’ bill allowing police to seek menstrual histories.” That false claim about Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin was tweeted out by The Guardian from four separate accounts to a total of 15 million followers this week.

The allegation traveled even further and wider than that, too. Comedienne Samantha Bee declared that she “would love nothing more than to take the Governor of Virginia through my menstrual history in the most vivid detail.” California governor Gavin Newsom mocked Youngkin as “a totally middle of the road guy that is fighting for access to your menstrual cycle information.”

But Youngkin never cleared any path for a bill to allow authorities to comb through women’s menstrual histories. In fact, no such bill was ever proposed in Old Dominion’s legislature, because it’s already allowed in all 50 states.

What the Guardian was attempting to describe was Youngkin’s opposition to legislation that would specifically bar police from accessing data about menstrual histories (usually stored on phone apps) that are presently obtainable through search warrants — a bill with no direct precedent in the United States.

In the nearest approximation of the Virginia legislation, California law prohibits out-of-state law enforcement entities from accessing the menstrual history of women using a search warrant, but only if they fail to attest to the fact that their search is not related to an investigation of an abortion that would be legal under California law, in which case they may access the same information available to law enforcement in all 50 states. California police are not restricted by the legislation signed by Newsom.

Maggie Cleary, deputy secretary of public safety and homeland security in Youngkin’s administration noted that the Virginia bill “would be the very first of its kind that I’m aware of, in Virginia or anywhere, that would set a limit on what search warrants can do”

“Currently, any health information or any app information is available via search warrant. We believe that should continue to be the case,” said Cleary.

Since publication, The Guardian has shadow-edited its headline to better reflect the truth, but has notably failed to affix an editor’s to either the article or its tweets about the story — all of which remain up.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.