A House Republican is attempting to prevent transgender women from using women’s toilets at the US Capitol, just two weeks after America’s first openly transgender person was elected to Congress.
South Carolina Representative Nancy Mace presented a resolution on Monday to change the rules of the United States House of Representatives, less than two months before Democratic Rep.-elect Sarah McBride, a Delaware state senator, is sworn in in January.
“Sarah McBride does not get a say. “I mean, this is a biological man,” the South Carolina Republican told reporters Monday, adding that the legislator “does not belong in women’s spaces, women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms, period, full stop.”
Later Monday, McBride wrote in an apparent reaction on X that “every day, Americans go to work with people who have different life journeys than their own and engage with them respectfully; I hope members of Congress can muster the same kindness.”
The congresswoman-elect went on to say in another post, “This is a blatant attempt by 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,” she claimed. “Delawareans sent me here to make the American dream more affordable and accessible and that’s what I’m focused on.”
Mace, when questioned by reporters earlier on the evening about whether she was targeting a marginalized person, told HEADLINESFOREVER, “This is a biological man trying to force himself into women’s spaces, and I’m not going to tolerate it.”
She went on to say, “I am the first woman to graduate from the Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina.” If a guy in a skirt walked up and said, ‘No, that’s my accomplishment.’ I’m going to stand in the way and say, ‘Hell no.’ I will not allow men to remove women or their rights.”
In the aftermath of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022 and her party’s efforts to retain female voters, Mace – the first woman to graduate from the Citadel’s Corps of Cadets – has frequently stated that she is searching for methods to demonstrate that the GOP is “pro-women.”
McBride did not rely on the historic aspect of her campaign when she ran in the solidly blue state to replace the seat vacated by Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, who went on to seek for Senate. She emphasized her work leading a bipartisan push to pass paid family and medical leave in the state and touted support from unions and her work to raise the state minimum wage. However, on the campaign trail, she alluded to a broader theme of respect, namely that everyone deserves a member of Congress who respects them and their families.
Similar bans on trans persons using toilets corresponding with their gender identities, notably in schools, have caused debate in recent years, with advocates claiming that the regulations safeguard pupils and detractors calling them degrading and unnecessary.
In 2023, Republican-led legislatures in numerous states approved measures prohibiting transgender students from using locker rooms and toilets corresponding with their gender identities, in what the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ advocacy group in the United States, dubbed the “bathroom bill year.” The Ohio Senate approved its similar proposal last week, and it now needs the Republican governor’s signature.