Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday said single-sex facilities in the Capitol and House office buildings would be available only to those of that biological sex, backing a move from a far-right member to target the first openly transgender person elected to Congress.
The new restrictions, which apply to restrooms, changing rooms and locker rooms, were first proposed by Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina but quickly gained the support of other Republican women. Ms. Mace made it clear that her efforts were designed to target one individual, Representative-elect Sarah McBride, a Delaware Democrat who this month became the first openly transgender person elected to Congress.
“Women deserve women’s only spaces,” Mr. Johnson said in a statement, giving his unequivocal backing to Ms. Mace’s resolution. On Tuesday, Mr. Johnson had appeared noncommittal about any rules he might impose on use of the Capitol and House facilities.
When Ms. McBride won her seat earlier this month, she knew she would face attacks from hard-right Republicans over her identity. But she did not expect they would start before she had even been sworn in.
In Washington this week, Ms. McBride was plodding through mundane orientation activities such as cybersecurity training and learning how to introduce a bill when Ms. Mace announced she would try to bar transgender women from using women’s restrooms and changing rooms in the Capitol complex. The proposal would apply to all employees and officers of the House.
“Sarah McBride doesn’t get a say,” Ms. Mace told reporters on Monday. “I mean, this is a biological man.” Ms. McBride, she added, “does not belong in women’s spaces, women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms — period, full stop.”
The move by Ms. Mace, one of the more attention-seeking members in the House, was straight out of the political playbook Republicans have employed on transgender issues, which they see as an effective wedge to divide Democrats.
House Republicans in the last two years have routinely proposed legislation seeking to roll back transgender rights. And Republican-led state legislatures across the country have tried to pass laws requiring people in government buildings to use bathrooms associated with their sex assigned at birth.
In the final days of the campaign, President-elect Donald J. Trump hammered Vice President Kamala Harris on her stance on transgender rights. And in the days since Democrats lost the White House and both chambers of Congress, there has been much hand-wringing among them about whether their position on the issue cost them with voters.
With Ms. McBride’s arrival in Washington, House Republicans for the first time have a transgender colleague to target in their own workplace.
On Wednesday, Ms. McBride said she would “follow the rules” laid out by Mr. Johnson, “even if I disagree with them.” In a statement, she said she was “not here to fight about bathrooms” and called the controversy an “effort to distract from the real issues facing this country.”
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