Washington state Rep. Mary Dye (R) asked a group of teenagers visiting her office in Olympia for a Teen Lobbying Day if they were virgins, according to a Tuesday report from The Seattle Times.
The students, who were accompanied by a Planned Parenthood representative, were advocating for expanded insurance coverage for birth control, according to the report.
During their meeting, the Republican lawmaker asked the half-dozen students if they were virgins before she “suggested one was not,” according to the Times. The Planned Parenthood representative, Rachel Todd, told the students they didn’t have to answer Dye’s question.
A Washington House Republicans spokesman confirmed Dye’s line of questioning to the newspaper, and Dye herself later issued an apology.
“In hindsight, a few of the thoughts I shared, while well-intended, may have come across as more motherly than what they would expect from their state representative,” Dye said, as quoted by The Seattle Times. “If anything I said offended them or made them feel uncomfortable, I apologize.”
One student, Alex Rubino, told the newspaper the comments were “kind of insane.”
“It seemed kind of insane for her to say that, especially on the record, to constituents,” Rubino told the newspaper.
