Newly elected lawmaker Sarah McBride says she will stick to a new House policy on transgender bathrooms — and keep her focus on the kitchen table issues that brought her to Congress.
“I’m not here to argue about bathrooms. I am here to fight for Delawareans and lower costs for families,” she wrote after House Republicans imposed the ban weeks before she was to be sworn in.
The first openly transgender lawmaker will have to use the men’s restroom after being sworn in in January.
That could include the busy and conveniently located men’s room just off the Speaker’s Lobby, where male lawmakers in dark suits sometimes duck in to relieve themselves between votes.
“Like all members, I will follow the rules set out by Chairman Johnson, even if I disagree with them,” she wrote in a statement obtained by DailyMail.com and later posted online.
“This attempt to distract from the real issues facing this country has not distracted me in recent days as I have remained hard at work preparing to represent the largest state in the union in January.” , she continued.
She said serving in Congress will be the “honor of a lifetime” and looks forward to getting to know future colleagues on both sides of the aisle, after previously calling the ban a distraction.
It follows a week of outrage from Greene and Mace, who have called McBride a “man” and a predator and accused her of being “mentally ill.”
Congresswoman Sarah McBride becomes the first transgender member of Congress. On Wednesday, Speaker Johnson announced that single-sex facilities in the U.S. Capitol would be reserved for that biological gender and banned her from using the women’s room on Capitol Hill.
The statement reflects the above-the-battle attitude she entered her race telling voters in her home state that “too many politicians want to divide us” and calling for “blocking out the noise and focusing on what really matters isn’t easy.”
She is stepping in to fill incoming Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester’s seat in President Biden’s home state.
His new colleague was supported by Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania (D-Pa.).
He posted on Twitter: “There isn’t a job I’m afraid of losing if it means demoting someone. If that is a defining issue for a voter, there will be another candidate. We have a bathroom in my office that everyone can use, including Representative-elect Sarah McBride.”
McBride will also have a bathroom in her congressional office.
South Carolina Representative Nancy Mace submitted a bill prohibit transgender stopped women from using the female restrooms on Capitol Hill and acknowledged that it was about McBride.
She called McBride a “man,” a predator, and accused her of being “mentally ill.”
McBride posted on the issue, saying she’s ‘not here to fight about bathrooms’
As Greene emerged from Tuesday’s private meeting with Republican leadership, she confronted a reporter with questions about her opposition to Rep.-elect Sarah McBride using the women’s restroom in the Capitol.
Speaker Mike Johnson was asked during a news conference on Nov. 19 whether freshman Sarah McBride, who is transgender, is a man or a woman. He replied that he ‘will not comment on this’ and that all new members are welcome. He said “concerns about the use of toilet facilities” will be addressed in a purposeful manner, with consensus among members’
Johnson, the Trump-aligned Speaker of the House of Representatives who presides over a razor-thin majority, weighed in on the controversy Wednesday in a statement saying McBride should use the restroom of her biological gender.
“All sex facilities in the Capitol and House of Representatives office buildings – such as restrooms, locker rooms and locker rooms – are reserved for persons of that biological sex,” Johnson said in his statement.
The Georgia Rep. Urging her on was Marjorie Taylor Greene, who spoke out against “mentally ill men masquerading as women invading our spaces.”
‘Yes, he is mentally ill. He is a biological man pretending to be a woman,” she said of her future colleague.
Trump has promised to end taxpayer funding for gender reassignment treatments, ban transgender people from joining the military and ban trans athletes from women’s sports.
That last policy position was one of the biggest applause lines at his campaign rallies, and was featured in wall-to-wall TV ads during his campaign.