DELAWARE - Less than two months before Delaware’s U.S. Representative-elect Sarah McBride is set to make history as America’s first openly transgender person in Congress, a House Republican has introduced a resolution to ban transgender women from women’s bathrooms at the Capitol.
Rep. Nancy Mace, of South Carolina, introduced the resolution Monday to amend the U.S. House of Representatives rules to institute the ban.
“Sarah McBride doesn’t get a say. I mean, this is a biological man,” Mace said Monday, adding that McBride “does not belong in women’s spaces, women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms, period, full stop.”
McBride, who defeated Republican opponent John Whalen III in the race for Delaware’s single House seat, will be the first openly transgender person to serve in Congress when sworn in on January 3rd.
“This is a blatant attempt from far right-wing extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing,” McBride said in an apparent response on X on November 18. “We should be focused on bringing down the cost of housing, health care, and child care, not manufacturing culture wars.”
“Delawareans sent me here to make the American dream more affordable and accessible and that’s what I’m focused on,” McBride continued.
Bans against transgender people using bathrooms aligned with their gender identities have recently generated heated controversy, especially in schools. Mace’s call for a resolution on Capitol Hill now brings that debate to the forefront on the federal level.
“This is an issue that congress has never had to address before,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday. “We’re going to do that in deliberate fashion with member consensus on it, and we will accommodate the needs of every single person.”
Maryland's first district Representative Andy Harris, Chair of the House Freedom Caucus told WBOC "I strongly agree that biological men should not be allowed to use women or girl's bathrooms but how we resolve that issue that now exists in the Capitol remains to be seen."
We also reached out to Representative Jen Kiggans, a Republican representing Virginia's Eastern Shore, but did not hear back.
