() – Two weeks after history was made with the election of the first transgender person to the U.S. Congress, a House Republican is pushing to ban transgender women from the Capitol’s women’s bathrooms.
South Carolina Representative Nancy Mace presented a resolution on Monday to modify the rules of the US House of Representatives, less than two months before the Democratic representative-elect Sarah McBridea senator from the state of Delaware, will be sworn in in January.
“Sarah McBride has no say. I mean, this is a biological man,” the South Carolina Republican told reporters Monday, adding that the lawmaker “does not belong in women’s spaces, women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, lockers, period.”
Later Monday, McBride wrote in an apparent response in X that “every day Americans go to work with people who have life journeys different than their own and engage with them respectfully, I hope members of Congress can muster that same kindness.”
The congresswoman-elect continued in another post: “This is a blatant attempt by far-right extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing.”
“We should focus on reducing the cost of housing, healthcare and child care, not on manufacturing culture wars,” he continued. “The people of Delaware sent me here to make the American dream more affordable and accessible and that’s what I’m focused on.”
Mace, pressed by reporters earlier in the afternoon about whether she was going after a marginalized person, told : “This is a biological man trying to force his way into women’s spaces, and I’m not going to tolerate it.”
And she continued: “I am the first woman to graduate from the Citadel, the South Carolina Military College. If a guy in a skirt came to me and said, ‘No, that’s my achievement.’ I’m going to be there, stepping in and saying, ‘Hell, no.’ “I’m not going to let men erase women or women’s rights.”
Following the US Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe V. Wade in 2022 and her party’s efforts to retain female voters, Mace – the first woman to graduate from the Citadel Corps of Cadets – has often said that looks for ways to show that the Republican Party is “in favor of women”.
McBride, while campaigning in the blue state to fill the seat vacated by Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, who successfully ran for Senate, did not rely on the historic nature of her campaign. He highlighted his work leading a bipartisan effort to pass paid family and medical leave in the state and touted the support of unions and their work to increase the state minimum wage. However, during the campaign he alluded to a broader issue, respect: that everyone deserves a member of Congress who respects them and their families.
Similar bans targeting transgender people using bathrooms associated with their gender identity, particularly in schools, have sparked controversy in recent years, with supporters arguing the measures protect students, while critics say they They are dehumanizing and unnecessary.
In 2023, Republican-led legislatures in several states passed bills to ban transgender students from using locker rooms and bathrooms associated with their gender identities in what the Human Rights Campaign – the largest LGBTQ advocacy group in the US .USA – called the oldest year of “bathroom bills.” The Ohio Senate gave the green light last week to its own measurewhich now awaits the signature of the state’s Republican governor.
–’s Arit John, Jack Forrest and Karina Tsui contributed to this report.
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