WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Mike Johnson signaled support Tuesday for a Republican effort to ban Democrat Sarah McBride — the first transgender person to be elected to Congress — from using women’s restrooms in the Capitol once she’s sworn into office next year.
“We’re not going to have men in women’s bathrooms,” Johnson told The Associated Press. “I’ve been consistent about that with anyone I’ve talked to about this.”
Johnson earlier in the day emphasized the need to “treat all persons with dignity and respect,” adding, “This is an issue that Congress has never had to address before, and we’re going to do that in deliberate fashion with member consensus on it.”
A resolution proposed Monday by GOP Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina would prohibit any lawmakers and House employees from “using single-sex facilities other than those corresponding to their biological sex.” Mace said the bill is aimed specifically at McBride, who was elected to the House this month from Delaware.
The debate over whether transgender people should be allowed to use the bathrooms that align with their gender identity has been prevalent across the U.S. and was a focal point of President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign. At least 11 states have adopted laws barring transgender girls and women from girls and women’s bathrooms at public schools, and in some cases other government facilities.
“I’m absolutely, 100% gonna stand in the way of any man who wants to be in a women’s restroom, in our locker rooms, in our changing rooms,” Mace said told reporters Tuesday. The second-term congresswoman added that Johnson assured her the bathroom provision would be included in any changes to House rules for the next Congress.
“If it’s not,” she said. “I’ll be ready to pick up the mantle.”
Democrats, including McBride, denounced the GOP effort as “bullying” and a “distraction.”
“This is a blatant attempt from far right-wing extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing,” McBride said. “We should be focused on bringing down the cost of housing, health care, and child care, not manufacturing culture wars.”
Rep. Katherine Clark, the No. 2 Democrat in the House, quipped that House Republicans are already “off to a great start.”
“What are they talking about there, on day one, is where one member out of 435 is going, where she is going to use the bathroom?” the Massachusetts lawmaker said during a press conference Tuesday. “That is their focus?”
McBride was elected to the House this month after building a national profile as an LGBTQ+ activist and raising more than $3 million in campaign contributions from around the country. She became the first openly transgender person to address a major party convention in the United States in 2016, when she spoke at the Democratic National Convention.
After her election win earlier this month, McBride said that her victory was “a testament to Delawareans that we have shown time and time again that in this state of neighbors, we judge candidates based on their ideas and not their identities.”
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Associated Press writers Kevin Freking and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.