House Republicans target Delaware Congresswoman-elect Sarah McBride with proposed anti-trans bathroom ban

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This story was supported by a statehouse coverage grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Congresswoman-elect Sarah McBride is already the target of anti-trans bias just days after Delaware voters sent her to the U.S. House.

A resolution introduced by GOP South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace would add a bathroom ban to the rules package House members will vote on next month. McBride will be the first openly transgender person to serve in Congress when she’s sworn in in January.

The bill would restrict members, staff and others from using single-sex facilities such as bathrooms, locker rooms and changing rooms “other than those corresponding to their biological sex.”

The ban would apply to the U.S. Capitol and House office buildings and require the House sergeant at arms to enforce it.

Conservative Republican Georgia Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene said she also supported a bathroom ban rule.

McBride did not respond Tuesday to an emailed request for comment, but wrote on social media yesterday in apparent response to Mace that “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 called the effort “a blatant attempt from far right-wing extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing.” She said lawmakers should focus instead on issues like the cost of products and services, including housing, health care and child care.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson would not say Tuesday if he would entertain Mace’s legislation, but he did say all people would be treated with dignity and respect.

“This is an issue that Congress has never had to address before, and we’re going to do that in deliberate fashion with member consensus on it, and we will accommodate the needs of every single person,” he said. “That’s all I’m going to say about that.”

Mace told reporters Monday that McBride, who she misgendered during her comments, didn’t “belong in women’s spaces, bathrooms and locker rooms.”

Human Rights Campaign spokesperson Laurel Powell said in a statement Mace was “cruelly discriminating” against McBride.

“Her resolution would also target trans people who have worked and served in the Capitol long before this month’s elections,” Powell said. “More proof this is merely a political charade by a grown-up bully.”

McBride won Lisa Blunt Rochester’s House seat earlier this month. Blunt Rochester was elected to replace longtime Sen. Tom Carper in her own historic race. McBride’s run for national office comes at a time when anti-trans rhetoric has been on the rise across the country.

Republican legislatures in several states passed bills to ban transgender students using the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity.  President-elect Donald Trump and other politicians have promised to roll back LGBTQ protections.

McBride didn’t campaign on making history as the first transgender person elected to Congress, preferring instead to focus on her accomplishments in the state Senate and promises to bring down costs for families.

When she cast her ballot earlier this month, McBride said she expected some conservatives to deliberately try to stir up controversy if she were elected.

“Those are Republican members of Congress who can’t work with any Democrat and can barely work with their own Republican colleagues,” she said. “So I will find the Republicans who are willing and able to roll up their sleeves and work with anyone and I’m ready to work with them.”