I wrote earlier that when Sarah McBride was elected as a member of the House of Representatives, that her taking office on January 3rd would upset the bigots in Congress because she is a trans woman. I forgot that new members actually arrive on Capitol Hill much earlier than that so that they can go through orientation, set up their offices and staff, etc.
Already, the anti-transgender publicity hogs in the GOP like Nancy Mace and Margery Taylor Greene have decided to take action to prevent McBride from using the women’s bathrooms.
After Delaware elected the first ever openly transgender member of Congress earlier this month, a Republican introduced a bill to ban her from using the bathroom that corresponds with her gender identity.
The South Carolina Republican Nancy Mace introduced the bill, which comes a little less than two months before Sarah McBride is due to be sworn in as the first openly transgender member of Congress. The measure would charge the House sergeant at arms with enforcing the bill, though it is unclear exactly how, according to the Hill.
“Sarah McBride doesn’t get a say. I mean, this is a biological man,” Mace told reporters on Monday, according to CNN. She added that Mace “does not belong in women’s spaces, women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms, period, full stop”.
McBride has responded to this tantrum like a adult.
McBride responded on X by saying the issue was a distraction.
“Every day Americans go to work with people who have life journeys different than their own and engage with them respectfully, I hope members of Congress can muster that same kindness,” she wrote on X.
“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. 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.”
Of course, given the huge numbers of people who work in Congress, there have probably been transgender people already working in other capacities who have been quietly going about their duties for years.
Laurel Powell, a Human Rights campaign spokesperson, said the measure would also target trans people who had worked in the Capitol for years.
“Let’s call this what it is: rather than focusing on issues that matter to Americans, Representative Mace is seeking a spotlight by cruelly discriminating against her incoming colleague, the first openly transgender person to be elected to Congress,” Powell said. “This is merely a political charade by a grown-up bully. It is another warning sign that the incoming anti-equality House majority will continue to focus on targeting LGBTQ+ people rather than the cost of living, price gouging or any of the problems the American people elected them to solve.”
…Also on Monday, the Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene repeatedly misgendered McBride in a now-viral video where she was asked about Mace’s bill.
“I support a resolution that keeps all biological men out of women’s bathrooms, locker rooms and private places. Not only here in the Capitol complex, our office buildings, but all taxpayer-funded facilities,” Greene replied.
She was also asked how one would “check if someone is qualified to use the ladies’ restroom? Obviously there’s a new openly transgender member of Congress.”
“Which is a man,” said Greene. “He’s a man. He’s a biological male. So he is not allowed to use our women’s restrooms, our women’s gym, our locker rooms and spaces that are specified for women. He’s a biological male,” Greene said. “He’s got plenty of places he can go.”
“He’s got plenty of places he can go.” Really? Like where?
These people are terrible. I wonder how they would react if someone close to them told them they were transgender. There have been many cases of people, even right wingers such as former Ohio senator Rob Portman, who espoused anti-gay attitudes until a member of their family (in that case his son) came out to them as gay. The same thing happened with Dick Cheney whose daughter is gay. Then they changed their stance. But people like Mace and Greene seem much more hardline. I suspect that even a close relative or friend would be unlikely to come out to them.
Will Congress pass the bill that Mace and Greene are pushing, to make their restriction applicable to every tax-payer funded facility? The vote will reveal how many members of congress are really hardcore bigots like them.
As is so often the case with these cretins, the cruelty is the point.
My dear departed grandmother was fond of pointing out that the fundamental characteristic of Republicans in this century is that they’re basically mean people.
Don’t forget MTG’s tantrum where she threatened to urinate in an airport’s parking lot because the airport had an all-gender bathroom somewhere.
She’d probably be safer in the men’s restroom anyway. After all, Republican Congressmen only commit sexual assault in the women’s restrooms. In fact, we should probably have *everyone* switch restrooms, so those men will only ever assault each other. /s
The building I work in just completed a new wing, and it includes an all-gender restroom (4 floor-to-ceiling stalls, lockable on the inside, with a toilet and a sink each, and opening into a branch hallway rather than into a closeable room). It works fine. I can see that other people are also using them because the “occupied” flags come up on the doors, but I almost never actually encounter anyone face-to-face. It is way more private than the single-gender restrooms in the old wing, and doesn’t take up any more space for the same capacity. It also doesn’t look like the structure or the fittings are noticeably more expensive. I think all-gender restrooms are definitely the way to go in the future. They have lots of advantages, and no real downsides that I can see.
A lot of places I go to have all gender bathrooms.
It’s becoming the norm, not the exception.
What they are is single occupancy bathrooms that latch from the inside.
It’s so simple and obvious when you’ve seen one.
This includes the local hospital, the library, and the coffee shop I go to often.
How hard would it be for the US Capital, which has access to huge amounts of money, to set up a few…all gender bathrooms.
It would be trivial.
These aren’t just for Trans people and anyone can use them.
They call them All Gender/Family bathrooms at the library. Suppose a mom needs to help her male toddler with the bathroom? Or Vice Versa.
funny that the whiny republicans aren’t complaining about gay/lesbian people using bathrooms according to their biological sex. or trans men, using men’s rooms.
they only prey on trans women.
nancy mace, like many in her party, are despicables.
If Sarah McBride can’t use the restroom because she wasn’t AFAB, then they will have to build a horse stall for Margery Taylor Greene to use.
@moarscienceplz #7: Not cool. The line between dehumanization and acceptable insults is fuzzy, but most people would agree that this crosses it. There are so many ways which MTG can be made fun of -- she’s one of the US Congress’s big fools, after all -- but comparing women to livestock based on physical traits (which I assume is what you’re doing here) is about as low as you can get. We should strive to be better than that.
I know the joke was probably meant to be hypocritical humor about cruelly mistreating women. That doesn’t excuse it; good hypocritical humor is supposed to do splash damage on yourself in a self-depreciating way, not do splash damage to some women by contributing to their dehumanization.
(OT)
The House of Representatives (crossposted with PZ)
-There is actually a precedent for the House to release an investigation of a former member: There was a congressman named (I am not making this up) Bill Boner.
The Boner precedent makes it perfectly legit to release the investigation of Matt Gaetz.
“Bombshell Matt Gaetz Testimony Alleges Sex Trafficking a Minor | The Daily Show”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=2lVHumVPYgk
Apparently each Member office has its own private restroom, and unisex restrooms are available throughout the Capitol.
She’ll be OK.
It’s very easy to see this as her selling all the other trans members of congress down the river. In the most charitable interpretation possible, she is setting herself up for a lot of hard work and potentially exposing not just herself to danger.
I can sort of see a way she might be able to pull a rabbit out of the hat with weaponised passive-aggression. If she can eventually bring it to a head and force Congressperson Mace to answer, on the public record, why they imagine that being referred to in a fashion which, despite being technically grammatically legitimate, is discordant with their own professed self-identity offends them any more than it might offend any other person whom they might treat in the same way?
The problem with appealing to someone’s better nature is, that doesn’t work with people who haven’t got one.