Transgender people are being targeted by Republicans who are feeling empowered by the results of the general election as they begin taking over Washington, D.C. On Wednesday, Trans Day of Remembrance, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson of Louisiana announced a policy banning transgender people from using bathrooms aligned with their gender identity in the U.S. Capitol and House Office Buildings.
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The policy, announced in a statement from the speaker’s office, reserves all single-sex facilities in the Capitol complex — including restrooms, locker rooms, and changing rooms — strictly for individuals based on their gender assigned at birth.
“All single-sex facilities in the Capitol and House Office Buildings — such as restrooms, changing rooms, and locker rooms — are reserved for individuals of that biological sex,” Johnson’s statement read. He noted that unisex restrooms are available throughout the Capitol complex and that each congressional office has a private restroom.
“Women deserve women’s only spaces,” Johnson concluded.
The policy, which applies exclusively to areas under House jurisdiction, does not extend to Senate-controlled spaces within the Capitol, where Democrats remain in control until January. The new rule follows rising tensions among GOP members of Congress over the election to the House of Sarah McBride, a Democrat from Delaware, who will be the first out transgender member of Congress when she is sworn in.
Wisconsin U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, issued a blistering statement in response to Johnson’s announcement.
“Speaker Johnson’s holier-than-thou decree to ban transgender people from using bathrooms that align with their identity is a cruel and unnecessary rule that puts countless staff, interns, and visitors to the United States Capitol at risk,” Pocan said in a statement to The Advocate. “How will this even be enforced? Will the Sergeant at Arms post officers in bathrooms? Will everyone who works at the Capitol have to carry around their birth certificate or undergo a genetic test? This policy isn’t going to protect anyone—but it is going to open the door to rampant abuse, harassment, and discrimination in the Capitol. Republicans can’t even pass a Farm Bill or pass major appropriations bills, so they turn to using these cruel attacks to distract from their inability to govern and failure to deliver for the American people.”
Human Rights Campaign president Kelley Robinson also denounced the policy in a statement to The Advocate.
“This new cruel and discriminatory policy has nothing to do with helping the American people or addressing their priorities–it’s all about hurting people,” Robinson said. “It targets not just Rep.-elect McBride, but all trans and nonbinary people who work and visit the Capitol–public servants who have been working in the Capitol for years but are now suddenly the subject of cynical political games. Speaker Johnson has proven yet again that the Republican majority is more focused on culture wars than on the needs of the country.”
Related: Republicans are trying to ban transgender Congresswoman-elect Sarah McBride from using the women's bathroom
South Carolina Republican U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace has acknowledged targeting McBride with measures designed to bar transgender people from gender-affirming facilities. Mace admitted her proposed resolution, which specifically aimed to prohibit transgender women from using women’s restrooms in the Capitol, was “absolutely” in response to McBride’s election.
“I’m absolutely 100 percent going to stand in the way of any man who wants to be in a women’s restroom, in our locker rooms, in our changing rooms,” Mace told reporters, misgendering trans women in her comments.
The Advocate contacted McBride, who was unavailable to comment.
Editor’s note: This story was updated with additional reporting.
