Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina doesn't want to share women's bathrooms with men and introduced on Monday a bill that would ban biological males from using women's bathrooms in the US Capitol. Incoming Rep. Sarah McBride of Delaware claimed that Mace's bill is an attempt from "far right-wing extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing." But it's likely that McBride, the first trans rep heading to the House, has a more personal perspective. If Mace's proposal goes through, McBride would have to use the men's room.
"Playing make believe dress up doesn't mean you should be allowed in women's private spaces," the GOP congresswoman said. The bill would prevent any male with any job from using spaces that were designated for women. Under the Biden-Harris administration, the word "woman" was broadened to mean either females or men who said they were women. The incoming Trump-Vance administration has vowed to reverse that linguistic confusion, and Mace would like to get a head start with congressional bathrooms.
The ban on men in women's spaces would have to be enforced by the House sergeant-at-arms William McFarland, The Hill reports, noting that "it is unclear how the House’s chief law enforcement officer will determine who can and cannot use the Capitol’s facilities." Mace is looking for the provision to be included in the rules package for the 119th Congress, in which the GOP will maintain a slim majority.
In response to Mace, McBride attempted to deflect from the trans issue and make the bathroom thing about everyone. "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 said.
"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 continued. "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."
Earlier this year, Mace grilled former New York mayoral candidate Maya Wiley on that question it's so hard for progressives to answer, "Can you define what a woman is?"
In response, Wiley said "A woman is a person who says she is."
McBride believes that Republicans have a "bizarre obsession with trans people."
Polling shows that most Americans believe women's sports should be female only and that sex-segregated spaces for women, from bathrooms to battered women's shelters to prisons to dressing rooms, should be for women only. In recent years, as a result of executive orders signed by President Joe Biden, the concept of "gender identity" has been conflated with "women" so that there's very little way to distinguish the two in language. Those differences, however, become substantially more clear in bathrooms.
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