House Speaker Mike Johnson signaled support for banning incoming Rep. Tim McBride, who identifies as a woman and wishes to be called Sarah, from women’s spaces in the Capitol, in comments Wednesday.
“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 said in a statement.
Johnson, R-La., who had commented Tuesday that he wanted to “treat everybody with dignity” even as he believes that “a man cannot become a woman,” stressed in his remarks that McBride would have options besides using the men’s bathrooms.
“It is important to note that each member office has its own private restroom, and unisex [single occupancy] restrooms are available throughout the Capitol,” the speaker added.
“Women deserve women’s only spaces,” the Louisiana lawmaker concluded.
Johnson’s remarks come after Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., had announced a resolution that would have limited House members and staffers to using restrooms matching their birth sex.
McBride posted on X that he will abide by Johnson’s rules.
McBride, D-Del., has previously posted a photograph of himself in a women’s bathroom in 2016 amid a North Carolina political fight over bathrooms and transgender people’s access to single-sex spaces of the opposite sex.
“If someone with a penis is in a women’s locker room, that’s not OK,” Mace told reporters earlier this week. “I’m a victim of abuse myself. I’m a rape survivor. I have [post-traumatic stress disorder] from the abuse I’ve suffered at the hands of a man, and I know how vulnerable women and girls are in private spaces.”
“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,” the South Carolina congresswoman added.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., has also spoken out against McBride’s access to women’s spaces.
“He’s a man,” Greene said, according to The New York Times. “He’s a biological male. So, he is not allowed to use our women’s restrooms, our women’s gym, our locker rooms. He’s a biological male. He has plenty of places he can go.”
A 2022 Pew Research Center survey found that 41% of Americans agreed that trans people should use the bathroom that matched their birth sex, while 31% opposed. Twenty-eight percent of Americans were undecided on the issue.
Democrats continue to advocate for McBride to have access to women’s restrooms in the Capitol.
“The notion that this incoming small House Republican Conference majority is beginning to transition to the new Congress by bullying a member of Congress, this is what we’re doing? This is the lesson that you’ve drawn from the election in November?” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said, according to CNN.