Trans Congresswoman Sarah McBride Responds to Capitol Hill’s Bathroom Ban | House of Representatives

Sarah McBride, the incoming congresswoman and the first openly transgender person elected to the US House of Representatives, shared a statement on social media Wednesday in response to the House banning transgender people from using single-sex bathrooms on Capitol Hill that match their gender identity.

Earlier in the day, House Speaker Louisiana Republican Mike Johnson issued a statement “on facilities throughout the US Capitol complex.”

Johnson said, “All single-sex facilities in the Capitol and House Office Buildings — such as restrooms, locker rooms and changing rooms — are reserved for individuals of that biological sex.”

He added: “It is important to note that each member’s office has its own private restroom and unisex restrooms are available throughout the Capitol. Women deserve women’s only spaces.”

McBride is due to be sworn in in January to represent Delaware after winning the seat in the election earlier this month, having been the first openly transgender person elected to the state Senate seat there in 2020.

She had initially pushed back on proposed restrictions, saying the argument was a right-wing distraction from issues like housing, health care and child care.

But on Wednesday, after Johnson’s announcement, McBride responded with one post on X: “I’m not here to fight for bathrooms, I’m here to fight for Delawareans and to lower costs for families. Like all members, I will follow the rules as outlined by Chairman Johnson, even if I disagree with them … that serving in the 119th Congress will be the honor of a lifetime, and I continue to look forward to getting to know both sides of the aisle with my future colleagues.”

On Monday, Nancy Mace, the Republican representative of South Carolina, introduced a bill that would prohibit transgender people, including members of Congress, officers and staff, from using single-sex bathrooms and other facilities on Capitol Hill that correspond to their gender identity.

Mace told reporters that McBride “doesn’t belong in women’s rooms, women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms, period, period” and called her a biological male, insisting that McBride “gets no say,” CNN reported.

Mace’s bill comes as Republicans have attacked transgender people as part of a broader political culture-war strategy that limits which bathrooms they can use and the youth sports teams they can play on. Fourteen states currently have laws that prohibit transgender people from using the bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity, according to the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ rights group.

Donald Trump leaned heavily into such politics during the presidential campaign.