In footage of the interaction, Thomas seemed to laugh off the joke; however, after the photos started to go viral on Friday, some chimed in online that the joke seemed to imply that menstruating people are weaker than non-menstruating people.
Jennifer Gunter, author of The Vagina Bible and an outspoken social media user on false health information, tweeted that it was a “stale joke.”
“Positioning menstruation as weakness is the patriarchy and this is a puerile, stale joke,” Gunter tweeted. “Let’s put the menstrual cramp machine on Tiger Woods so he can have some more data about menstruation.”
In a follow-up tweet, Gunter said, “Those of you rushing to defend this are exposing your misogyny.”
Another user tweeted on Friday, “if tiger spent three months a year bleeding and coping with period pain, they’d make a whole-ass documentary about how champions overcome insurmountable obstacles.”
“Call me woke,” a Twitter user tweeted. “Call me a snowflake. Call me “offended”. Whatever. But handing another male golfer a tampon is objectively not funny. It shows the sophistication of a 14 year old schoolboy.”
