Congresswoman says Capitol restroom bill targeted 1st transgender member of Congress, Sarah McBride
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Republican Rep. Nancy Mace said Tuesday that the bill she introduced to ban transgender women from using women's restrooms at the U.S. Capitol was "absolutely" in response to Rep.-elect Sarah McBride's entering Congress.
"Yes, and absolutely. And then some," Mace, from South Carolina, told reporters at the Capitol.
"I'm not going to stand for a man, you know, someone with a penis, in the women's locker room," she said.
McBride, a Democrat from Delaware, didn't respond to questions on the topic as she entered the House Democratic caucus meeting Tuesday morning.
Monday night, she responded to Mace in a post on X, saying, "This is a blatant attempt from far right-wing extremists to distract from the fact they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing."
Outside the Republican conference meeting, GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia called McBride a "biological man" and said she had confronted House Speaker Mike Johnson at during the House Republican Conference meeting Tuesday morning about what "men in leadership" would do to address their concerns.
"You know, Sarah McBride ... should not be using any of our restrooms in the Capitol, in our office buildings. But Nancy Mace's resolution doesn't go far enough," Greene said.
"A resolution is just a statement by Congress saying that Congress disagrees with something we need, something more binding. And that's what I just brought up at the microphones there -- in our conference, I directly asked Speaker Johnson what the men in our leadership are going to do about this, because this this has to be stopped," Greene added.
Mace invoked her own experiences as a victim of rape as part of the reason she introduced the measure.
"That's not okay. And I'm a victim of abuse myself. I'm a rape survivor," Mace said. "I have PTSD from the abuse I've suffered at the hands of a man, and I know how vulnerable women and girls are in private spaces, so I'm absolutely 100% 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. I will be there fighting you every step of the way," she said.
Mace said she wanted to expand her efforts and push a measure that would ban transgender women from using women's bathrooms on all federal property.
"Number one, I want to see this in the House Rules package. I want to make sure that no men are in women's private spaces. And it's not going to end here. This shouldn't be going on any federal property. If you're a school or an institution that gets government funding, this kind of thing should be banned. I think it's sick. It's twisted," Mace said.
Mace said that her position was a feminist one.
"I have fought like hell for women's rights. I mean, 25 years ago, this year, I became the first woman to break the glass ceiling and graduate from a military college that was formerly all male, and to see the way that I've been attacked today and last night for fighting to protect women and girls -- it's ridiculous. So, if that -- being a feminist makes me an extremist, I'm totally here for it," she said.
During his weekly news conference Tuesday morning, Johnson declined to speak about McBride's gender when a reporter asked whether McBride was a man or a woman. Johnson also would not say if he'd support Mace's proposal to ban transgender women from women's bathrooms in the Capitol.
"Look, I'm not going to get into this," he said. We welcome all new members with open arms who are duly elected representatives of the people. I believe it's a it's a command we treat all persons with dignity and respect. We will. And I'm not going to engage in silly debates about this. There's a concern about uses of restroom facilities and locker rooms and all that. This is an issue that Congress has never had to address before. We're going to do that in deliberate fashion with every consensus on it, and we will accommodate the needs of every single person."
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Tuesday afternoon, Johnson came to news cameras to make a statement, telling reporters he wanted to be "very clear" regarding his earlier response.
"Just want to make a statement for all of you here and be very clear. I was asked a question this morning at the leadership gaggle, and I rejected the premise because the answer is, is so obvious for anybody who doesn't know my well-established record on on this issue, " he said. "Let me be unequivocally clear, a man is a man, and a woman is a woman, and a man cannot become a woman. That said, I also believe that's what Scripture teaches, what I just said, but I also believe that we treat everybody with dignity, and so we can do and believe all those things at the same time. And I wanted to make that clear for everybody, because there's lots of questions, but that's where I stand. I've stood there my whole life, and those are facts."
He then quickly walked away without taking questions.
