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Speaker of the House Mike Johnson announced a new policy on Wednesday barring transgender women from women’s bathrooms and changing facilities on Capitol Hill, apparently targeting newly elected Rep. Sarah McBride.
“All single-sex facilities in the Capitol and House Office Buildings — such as restrooms, changing rooms, and locker rooms — are reserved for individuals of that biological sex,” Johnson wrote in a statement released Wednesday, coinciding with Trans Day of Remembrance in the U.S.
Johnson added that each member of Congress has a private bathroom in their office, but that “[w]omen deserve women’s only spaces.” In remarks to the press on Tuesday, Johnson also opined that “a man cannot become a woman,” adding to his long history of anti-LGBTQ+ statements.
Johnson’s new policy — which he likely has the authority to enforce as Speaker, per analysis by The Hill — appears to specifically target Delaware Rep. McBride, who earlier this month became the first out trans woman to be elected to Congress. On Monday, South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace introduced a resolution to formally enact a bathroom ban in the House, enforced by the body’s Sergeant-at-Arms. Mace explicitly aimed her legislation at McBride, writing on social media that McBride “does not get a say in women’s private spaces” and referring to herself as “[a] Full TERF.”
McBride herself has reportedly encouraged her fellow Democrats to ignore Mace and Johnson’s anti-trans attacks. “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. We should be focused on bringing down the cost of housing, health care, and child care, not manufacturing culture wars,” McBride said in a statement obtained by Delaware Online.
In a tonally similar statement posted to social media on Wednesday afternoon, McBride wrote, “I’m not here to fight about bathrooms. I’m here to fight for Delawareans and to bering down costs facing families.”
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But some LGBTQ+ advocates say it’s not enough to simply ignore the GOP’s anti-trans discrimination, or to treat policies like these solely as a distraction. “Sarah McBride has mentioned that some of these proposals are often a distraction, and I do think that’s 100% true. But at the same time these proposals, they’re real threats,” said Jeff Main, cofounder of the trans-led mutual aid nonprofit Point of Pride, in comments to CBS News Philadelphia this week.
“As a trans person and a person doing this work, I have a lot of concerns,” Main added. “It’s more than just access to a bathroom or access to healthcare. It’s about existing. It’s about our right to live authentically, safely and with pride.”
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