U.S. Rep.-elect Sarah McBride, a Democrat from Delaware and the first out transgender woman elected to Congress, will not be able to use women’s restrooms, changing rooms, or locker rooms in the Capitol because of a ban implemented by Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson.
Johnson said Wednesday he is banning people who are transgender from accessing bathrooms on the House side of the Capitol complex that correspond to their gender identity, according to published reports.
“All single-sex facilities in the Capitol and House Office Buildings (like restrooms, changing rooms, and locker rooms) are reserved only for individuals of that biological sex,” Johnson said in a statement.
In a post on X on Wednesday, McBride said she will honor whatever rules are introduced. “I’m not here to fight about bathrooms. I’m here to fight for Delawareans and to bring down costs facing families. Like all members, I will follow the rules as outlined by Speaker Johnson, even if I disagree with them,” she wrote.
Reporters questioned Johnson on whether the policy was enforceable. “Like all policies, it’s enforceable,” he responded. “We have single-sex facilities for a reason. Women deserve women-only spaces. We’re not anti-anyone. We’re pro-woman. I think it’s an important policy for us to continue. It’s always been, I guess, an unwritten policy, but now it’s in writing,” Johnson added.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, along with other Democratic leadership, ripped House Republicans for focusing on anti-transgender sentiment and culture wars by targeting McBride instead of prioritizing legislative matters, CNN reported. “The notion that this incoming small House Republican Conference majority is beginning to transition to the new Congress by bullying a member of Congress, this is what we’re doing? This is the lesson that you’ve drawn from the election in November?” Jeffries said.
Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina said she’d “stand in the way” of McBride using women’s bathrooms in the Capitol. Mace pushed Johnson to include the policy, which charges the sergeant-at-arms with enforcing the ban, according to the news website Axios.
Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia told colleagues at a closed-door GOP conference meeting that she might get into a “physical altercation” if forced to share a bathroom with trans women, Axios reported, citing unnamed sources in the room. Johnson said in his statement that every House member’s office has its own private bathroom and that “unisex restrooms are available throughout the Capitol.”
Calls by Out In Jersey to McBride’s and Johnson’s offices were not returned late Wednesday.
