U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Wednesday that all single-sex facilities on the House side of the U.S. Capitol building would be reserved for “individuals of that biological sex,” weeks after the election of the first transgender member of Congress.
The policy would apply to the House side of the Capitol building, as the Senate has jurisdiction over its side of the complex.
The issue became a flashpoint after Republican Representative Nancy Mace filed a resolution to impose that requirement, which targeted U.S. Representative-elect Sarah McBride.
“Women deserve women’s only spaces,” Johnson said in a statement. He said members could use bathrooms in their private offices, which can be a 10-minute walk from the House floor where voting and debate take place, or unisex bathrooms in the Capitol.
McBride, a 34-year-old Delaware lawmaker-elect, said she would comply with Johnson’s order but called it a distraction from more substantive issues.
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“I’m not here to fight about bathrooms. I’m here to fight for all Delawareans and to bring down costs facing families,” she said in a statement.
Many House offices are a 10-minute walk from the House floor where voting and debate take place.
Democrats immediately decried the effort on Tuesday. Top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries called the bill “bullying,” and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer described it as “mean and cruel.”
McBride focused her successful election campaign on economic issues, including protections for unions and affordable healthcare and childcare.
Transgender rights have become a political rallying cry for right-wing politicians in the U.S. Lawmakers in 37 states introduced at least 142 bills to restrict gender-affirming healthcare for transgender and gender-expansive people in 2023, Reuters reported, nearly three times as many as the previous year.
—Reporting by Moira Warburton, additional reporting by Andy Sullivan and Rami Ayyub; Editing by Scott Malone, Bill Berkrot and Jonathan Oatis
