First trans Congress member from Delaware hit with proposed bathroom ban

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Congresswoman-elect Sarah McBride is already the target of anti-trans bias just days after Delaware voters sent her to the U.S. House.

A resolution introduced by GOP South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace would add a bathroom ban to the rules package House members will vote on next month. McBride will be the first openly transgender person to serve in Congress when she’s sworn in in January.

The bill would restrict members, staff and others from using single-sex facilities such as bathrooms, locker rooms and changing rooms “other than those corresponding to their biological sex.”

The ban would apply to the U.S. Capitol and House office buildings and require the House sergeant at arms to enforce it.

Conservative Republican Georgia Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene said she also supported a bathroom ban rule.

McBride did not respond Tuesday to an emailed request for comment, but wrote on social media yesterday in apparent response to Mace that “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.”

McBride called the effort “a blatant attempt from far right-wing extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing.” She said lawmakers should focus instead on issues like the cost of products and services, including housing, health care and child care.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson would not say Tuesday if he would entertain Mace’s legislation, but he did say all people would be treated with dignity and respect.

“This is an issue that Congress has never had to address before, and we’re going to do that in deliberate fashion with member consensus on it, and we will accommodate the needs of every single person,” he said. “That’s all I’m going to say about that.”

Mace told reporters Monday that McBride, who she misgendered during her comments, didn’t “belong in women’s spaces, bathrooms and locker rooms.”