House Speaker Mike Johnson showed his support for a Republican plan on Tuesday to stop Democrat Sarah McBride, who is the first transgender person to be elected to Congress, from using the women’s restrooms in the Capitol after she takes office next year.
Johnson told The Associated Press, “We’re not going to let men use the bathrooms for women.” “I’ve always said that to everyone I’ve talked to about this.”
Earlier in the day, Johnson used his Christian faith to stress the need to “treat all persons with dignity and respect.” He also said, “This is an issue that Congress has never had to address before, and we’re going to do that in a deliberate way with member consensus on it.”
A resolution put forward by South Carolina GOP Rep. Nancy Mace on Monday would stop lawmakers and House employees from “using single-sex facilities other than those corresponding to their biological sex.” Mace said the bill is aimed directly at McBride, who was recently elected to the House from Delaware.
There has been a lot of discussion in the U.S. about whether transgender people should be able to use the bathrooms that match their gender identity. It was also a big part of President-elect Trump’s campaign.
Transgender girls and women are not allowed to use the girls’ and women’s bathrooms at public schools and sometimes other government buildings in at least 11 states.
According to Mace, any man who wants to be in a women’s bathroom, our locker rooms, or our changing rooms will be stopped.
He told reporters this on Tuesday. The congresswoman in her second term also said that Johnson told her that the bathroom rule would be part of any changes to House rules for the next Congress.
She said, “If it’s not.” “I’m going to be ready to take over.”
The GOP’s plan was called “bullying” and a “distraction” by Democrats like McBride.
McBride said, “This is a clear attempt by far-right extremists to take attention away from the fact that they have no real solutions to the problems Americans are facing.” It’s more important to lower the costs of housing, health care, and child care than to start culture wars.
The second-ranking Democrat in the House, Rep. Katherine Clark, joked that the Republicans are already “off to a great start.”
During a press conference Tuesday, the Massachusetts lawmaker asked, “What are they talking about there on day one? Where one member out of 435 is going to use the bathroom?” “Is that what they’re after?”
This month, McBride was elected to the House. As an LGBTQ activist, she became well-known across the country and raised more than $3 million for her campaign from people all over the country.
In 2016, she spoke at the Democratic National Convention and was the first openly transgender person to address a major party convention in the United States.
McBride said that her election win earlier this month was “a testament to Delawareans that we have shown time and time again that in this state of neighbors, we judge candidates based on their ideas and not their identities.”
