Transgender people will be barred from using bathrooms and other single-sex facilities at the U.S. Capitol and associated offices that correspond with their gender identity, House Speaker Mike Johnson announced on Wednesday.
He said in a statement such facilities will instead be “reserved for individuals of that biological sex.”
“It is important to note that each Member office has its own private restroom, and unisex restrooms available throughout the Capitol,” Johnson wrote. “Women deserve women’s only spaces.”
The announcement comes after Republican House members pushed for the policy change, following the election of Sarah McBride of Delaware, the first transgender person sent to Congress.
On Monday, South Carolina representative Nancy Mace introduced a resolution to similar effect then unveiled a broader proposal on Tuesday that would prevent trans people from using facilities matching their gender identity across federal property.
The provosals have divided the House on party lines.
Democrats aframed the efforts as a distraction meant to stir up culture-war anger and single out McBride rather than solve any meaningful issue.
“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 posted on X. “We should be focused on bringing down the cost of housing, health care, and child care, not manufacturing culture wars.”
“This is not just bigotry, this is just plain bullying,” New York Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said, according to Axios.
Advocates argued the rules fight is a harbinger of the larger attacks on civil rights protections and healthcare for trans and LGBTQ+ people more broadly expected under the new Trump administration.
“The banning of trans people from women’s bathrooms in the Capitol represents the beginning of extreme anti-trans talking points brought to life at the federal level,” trans activist and TransLash Media founder Imara Jones told The Independent in a statement. “This process will gain steam in January and beyond, as Republicans make good on their campaign promise to target trans people and erase them from public life.”
Zooey Zephyr, the first trans person elected to the Montana legislature, who herself was at the center of a high-profile statehouse dispute centering on trans issues, said the new rules in Congress were “obsessive and unhinged.”
“I literally just got out of meetings with members of Congress & used the bathroom on my way out. Trans women are women—full stop,” she wrote on X. “We’re every bit as ‘biologically female’ as cis women & @SpeakerJohnson‘s statement doesn’t change the fact that women’s spaces include trans women.”
Republican supporters, meanwhile, have framed their efforts as a defense of women and have spoken demeaningly of trans people in general.
“Biological men do not belong in private women’s spaces,” Mace said in a recent post on X of her proposals. “Period. Full stop. End of story.”
The South Carolina lawmaker said she’s gotten death threats over her efforts, but that she won’t be intimidated.
“They’re threatening to kill me over this. Men who want to use women’s restrooms are threatening to kill me over this issue,” Mace told News Nation’s On Balance on Tuesday.
Thank you @SpeakerJohnson! https://t.co/mCFg73dRkJ
— Rep. Nancy Mace (@RepNancyMace) November 20, 2024
“Good luck,” she said, adding that she was the first woman to graduate from The Citadel Military College of South Carolina. “If we haven’t met yet, I want all the bullies online to know you will not bully me into submission.”
“He’s a man, a biological male,” Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene toldThe Independent, referring to and misgendering McBride. “So he is not allowed to use our women’s restrooms, our women’s gym, our locker rooms and our spaces that are that are specified for women.”
Some, like Texas congresswoman Jasmie Crockett, argued a more important gender-related matter was the release of a House ethics report on Attorney General candidate Matt Gaetz, in which two women reportedly testified that Gaetz paid them for sex, which he has strongly denied.
“If @HouseGOP really wanted to protect women, they’d release the Ethics Committee report on Matt Gaetz’ alleged sex trafficking - not try to ban their colleagues from using the bathroom,” she wrote on X on Tuesday. “Stop the bigotry and release the report.”
Under House rules, Speaker Johnson has “general control” of facilities in the chamber, including bathrooms.
The bathroom policy was unveiled the same day as Transgender Day of Remembrance, an annual day marking the lives of transgender people lost to violence. Trans people, especially women of color, face disproportionate levels of violence compared with the general population.
A group of House Democrats introduced a resolution on Wednesday commemorating the day.
“Too many transgender people have been killed just for living as their true, authentic selves,” Pramila Jayapal of Washington wrote in a statement accompanying the resolution. “These instances, coupled with countless other acts of discrimination, are terrifying — but we won’t waver.”
Alex Woodward contributed reporting to this story
