Republican bill to restrict first transgender member of Congress draws criticism

By Moira Warburton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives introduced a bill aimed at blocking the chamber's first openly transgender member from using women's bathrooms, a move that Democrats denounced on Tuesday.

Representative Nancy Mace's bill would prohibit House members and employees from using bathrooms "other than those corresponding to their biological sex," weeks after the election of Democrat Sarah McBride to the House.

Mace on social media called her bill "common sense" and referred to transgender women as "men in a mini skirt."

Top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries called the bill "bullying."

McBride, 34, said it was a "blatant attempt" by Republicans "to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing."

Transgender rights have become a political flashpoint in the U.S. Lawmakers in 37 states introduced at least 142 bills to restrict gender-affirming healthcare for transgender and gender-expansive people in 2023, Reuters reported, nearly three times as many as the previous year.

"Every day Americans go to work with people who have life journeys different than their own and engage with them respectfully," McBride said on social media. "I hope members of Congress can muster that same kindness."

McBride was the first openly transgender person to serve as a state senator when she was elected in Delaware in 2020, first to speak at a U.S. national political party convention in 2016, and first to intern at the White House in 2012, under Democratic then-President Barack Obama.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson declined to say how he would handle the issue at a press conference on Tuesday.

"This is an issue that Congress has never had to address before," he said. "We're going to do that in a deliberate fashion with member consensus on it, and we will accommodate the needs of every single person."

(Reporting by Moira Warburton in Washington; Editing by Scott Malone and Leslie Adler)