Sarah McBride, the first-ever openly transgender person to be elected to Congress, won’t be allowed to use women’s restrooms in the U.S. Capitol when she’s sworn in after Republican representatives launched a targeted attack through new rules barring anyone from using the single-sex restroom that doesn’t align with their biological sex at birth.
Key Facts
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Wednesday said all single-sex restrooms in the Capitol and House Office Buildings can only be used by “individuals of that biological sex.”
He said anyone not wishing to use their corresponding bathroom can use the buildings’ unisex restrooms or, in the case of House members like McBride, their private restrooms.
“Women deserve women’s only spaces,” Johnson said Wednesday.
The statement from Johnson comes days after Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., introduced a resolution seeking to ban all transgender people from using bathrooms that don’t correspond with their biological sex at birth, and said the move was “absolutely” a response to McBride’s election.
Mace was supported by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who on Tuesday called McBride a “biological man” and said the resolution “doesn’t go far enough.”
McBride addressed the resolution on social media on Monday, calling it a “blatant attempt from far right-wing extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing,” but has not yet responded to Johnson’s statement and did not respond to Forbes’ request for comment Wednesday.
