In the previous post, I wrote about how Sarah McBride has been elected as the first transgender person in the US House of Representatives, a piece of good news in an otherwise dismal election.
But something occurred to me later and that is there is going to be an issue when she starts her tenure on January 3rd. Trump and the GOP have made much of the bathroom issue as a way to wage the culture war by attacking the transgender community, saying that people should only be allowed use bathrooms that correspond to the gender assigned to them at birth.
So will they demand that she use the men’s bathroom in every building that makes up the US Congress? What about when she visits the White House? What about the places she goes to as part of her official duties? Which members of Congress will support her right to use the women’s bathroom everywhere?
While using divisive and incendiary rhetoric is easy when you do not have to personally deal with the consequences, this is one issue that is going be very close to home.
On one level I’m looking forward to finding out how this pans out, but mainly I just hope McBride is OK and I hope the issue isn’t one that causes her any more harassment and upset than she’s already definitely put herself in the firing line for. There are some pretty terrible people using the women’s bathrooms at Congress, and you can bet that at least one of them is going to have a field day with this.
she’s basically in the “receive hate speech directly to your face every single time you go to work” job. i couldn’t do it.
BTW what does the balance in the house look like? I know it takes time to count, but what do we know so far?
Karl Random @ 2
Just seeing MAGA people on a daily basis…
Trying to explain ” no, tariffs do not mean the *foreigners* have to pay us anything”… “Medicare IS a government program”… “the inflation right now is the lowest since COVID began”.
@birgerjohansson
House is 211 (R) to 199. The R’s have gained 2 so far and leading in 11 -- Searching “election results” in Google gives a link for the house and map.
Offtopic but this is the kind of response that gets Democrats in trouble. Everyone knows that prices are high (I can attest my grocery bill is twice what it was pre-pandemic).So telling someone who is paying twice as much for necessities but has not seen the same increase in salary that the GDP is great , Unemployment is low , Inflation is low is sort of pointless -- it makes Democrats appear to be detached from reality. Explaining why it is so is also no good (you are in charge, fix it!).
I wish they had someone in the Harris campaign who was a good attack dog + populist who wasnt afraid to bend the truth a little.
The problem is that the CPI doesn’t really handle housing or rental costs well at all. Sure, maybe inflation is at its lowest in years…but we just had two years of massive increases in rental prices…which vastly impact the young disproportionately.
I’ve been looking for good sites that have up to date house projections, but have had no luck. The NYTimes needle is so good, I was hoping they’d have something similar for the house, but no luck. We’re just waiting for CA to count votes at their typical casual pace. My general impression is that it leans R at the moment, but it’s too early to be confident about anything. It’s actually quite important. Trump literally can’t pass a single piece of legislation with a D house.
And what BS from Marjorie Taylor Greene is she going to have to deal with, who’s pulls all sorts of toxic anti LGBT stunts?… McBride is far braver than I can imagine.
Since I am petty and am allowed to dream: Next time, vote for a bearded, muscular transgender man, who would be forced to use the women’s restroom, and monitor the reaction.
#3 bjerger
Here is the latest
So much this. Wanna sound like an unaccountable out of touch elite? Talk about GDP and inflation. It’s incredible that in 2024 we’re still sitting around this virtual campfire wishing the people who’s JOB it is to get power to do stuff we broadly agree with still don’t get this.
Holms @ 10
Thanks.
.
OT, but you all deserve a bit of schadenfreude!
Farron Cousins:
“Trump Loses BILLIONS As Stock Crashes Following Election?”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=J2hFDFxysZo
Oh, dear. Rich people speculate on worthless stocks and then MAGA rubes lose their money. It is a perfect metaphor of the Trump era.
While in general the topic of whether the pettiness of republicans will extend to bathroom policies in the capitol building is a newsworthy and reasonable topic for reporting and conversation, it feels really yucky to personalize it in this way.
IMO it shouldn’t be about McBride. The focus should be on Republicans.
@Crip Dyke, 13: that’s the sentiment I was struggling to articulate in #1.
Thankyou, Crip Dyke.
Sarah could indeed have a problem. Perhaps porta-pottys might be of some use in the near term?
What in the hell?
No. We’re not sending a congresswoman outside to pee in a porta-potty. And no one is keeping a porta-potty indoors.
I thought Mano’s post wasn’t great because of the way the headline (especially) but also some of the main content forced the focus on McBride. I did not mention it at the time, but the post comes across as naive, as if there aren’t already trans people working in the capitol building and thus peeing there. (Of course there are.) Even so, singling out McBride and asking where she’s going to pee wasn’t nearly as bad as suggesting she use a porta-potty.
Ugh.