U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has barred transgender women from using women’s restrooms on the House side of the U.S. Capitol and the House office buildings, his office announced in a statement on Wednesday.
The move comes on Transgender Day of Remembrance, which memorializes those who have been murdered as a consequence of transphobia.
“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.
The speaker 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.”
Asked how the measure would be enforced, Johnson declined to specify, telling reporters that “like all House policies, it’s enforceable.”
Wednesday’s announcement comes two days after U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) introduced a proposal to exclude trans women from women’s restrooms on Capitol Hill.
The congresswoman said her policy was partially designed to target incoming Delaware Congresswoman Sarah McBride, who will be the first trans member of Congress when she is seated in January.
Mace and other House Republicans who endorsed her proposal, like U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) used transphobic language when discussing McBride and deliberately misgendered her.
McBride responded on X that the effort is a distraction from the more pressing work in which Congress should be engaged.
Several House Democrats leapt to her defense, from the openly gay and lesbian members of the Congressional Equality Caucus to the Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), with the latter two calling the bill “bullying.”
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