Trans congresswoman Sarah McBride posts defiant response to bathroom ban

Incoming congresswoman Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender person elected to the US House of Representatives, on Wednesday made a defiant post on social media in response to the House banning trans people from using single-sex bathrooms on Capitol Hill that match their gender identity.

She posted on Bluesky a selfie taken in a women’s bathroom, saying: “We’re all just people trying to pee in peace.”

Earlier in the day, the House speaker, Louisiana Republican Mike Johnson, issued a statement “regarding facilities throughout the US Capitol complex”.

Johnson said: “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.”

He added: “It is important to note that each member office has its own private restroom, and unisex restrooms are available throughout the Capitol. Women deserve women’s only spaces.”

McBride is due to be sworn in in January to represent Delaware after handily winning the seat in the election earlier this month, having been the first openly trans person elected to the state senate seat there in 2020.

She had initially pushed back over proposed restrictions by saying the argument was a far-right-driven distraction from issues such as housing, healthcare and childcare.

But on Wednesday, after Johnson’s announcement, McBride responded on a more personal level.

Accompanying the photo of herself in front of bathroom stalls, she posted: “Here, I am using a women’s restroom in North Carolina that I’m technically barred from being in. They say I’m a pervert, they say I’m a man dressed as a woman. They say I’m a threat to their children. They say I’m confused, they say l’m dangerous. We’re all just people trying to pee in peace.”

On Monday, the South Carolina Republican representative Nancy Mace had introduced a bill to ban transgender people, including congressional members, officers and employees, from using single-sex bathrooms and other facilities on Capitol Hill that correspond to their gender identity.

Mace told reporters that McBride “does not belong in women’s spaces, women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms, period, full stop” and called her a biological man, insisting that McBride “doesn’t get a say”, CNN reported.

Mace’s bill comes as Republicans have attacked transgender people as part of a broader political culture-war strategy, limiting what bathrooms they can use and the youth sports teams they can play on. Fourteen states currently have laws that prohibit transgender people from using the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity, according to the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ rights group.

Donald Trump leaned into such politics vigorously during the presidential election campaign.