South Carolina U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace wants to ban transgender people from using bathrooms of their choice in the U.S. Capitol just weeks before the first transgender member of Congress is set to be sworn into office.
The two-page resolution, which Mace made public Nov. 18, would prohibit House members and staff from “using single-sex facilities other than those corresponding to their biological sex.” Her measure does not appear to apply to public restrooms used by visitors, but Mace later said she plans to introduce similar measures that would seek to apply the restrictions to all federal property.
In an emailed statement, the Daniel Island Republican defended her proposal as being about protecting women’s rights.
“The sanctity of protecting women and standing up against the Left’s systematic erasure of biological women starts here in the nation’s Capitol,” Mace said. “We are standing up for women, protecting their spaces, and restoring a bit of sanity to Capitol Hill.”
She added, “The Left screams TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) politics, we call it putting women first.”
The proposed resolution comes weeks before the nation’s first transgender lawmaker, U.S. Rep.-elect Sarah McBride, D-Del., is set to join Congress in January.
McBride on social media blasted Mace’s efforts as “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 added, “We should be focused on bringing down the cost of housing, health care, and child care, not manufacturing culture wars.”
The measure introduced by Mace is a simple resolution, which are used to set rules or deal with internal matters in either the House or Senate. They do not carry the force of law. Mace, however, has pledged to file legislation on the matter in the next congressional session.
Closer to home, Mace’s push in Washington comes as a 13-year-old transgender boy is suing Berkeley County Schools and the state for refusing to allow him to use the bathroom that aligns with the gender to which he identifies in order to comply with a new state rule. Berkeley County is in the 1st Congressional District that Mace represents.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
