Why are trans people so sexually excluded? A case study in South Carolina involving the Capitol’s sexism legislator, Senator Nancy Mace, and Speaker Mike Johnson

On Monday an exhausting Republican from South Carolina, Representative Nancy Mace, announced plans to introduce a measure that would bar McBride and any other trans women working in the Capitol from using women’s restrooms there. On Wednesday, Speaker Mike Johnson announced that the House would prohibit anyone from using single-sex facilities on the Capitol’s side and in House office buildings that match their gender identity.

Mace builds political capital by tying gossip about people’s privates to the assumption that men will commit sexual violence. Demagogues cast trans women as criminals so as to scare Americans who have not yet figured out how to take care of their identities.

Johnson explained in his explanation of his decision that women deserve women’s only spaces. It doesn’t matter to him that one woman will be excluded from them.

Women of the right are able to drape themselves in pseudofeminist cloth while avoiding any work of feminism if they are cast as others instead of targeting men who have been accused of perpetrating sexual violence.

There is no evidence that trans women cause sexual violence in the women’s restroom. These sort of policies are about cultural posturing and have the effect of fomenting division between straight women and L.G.B.T.Q. people.

Today’s patriarchal systems need amateur experts such as Phyllis Schlaflys to spread traditional gender ideas that distract women from their pursuit of dignity and freedom. In exchange for loudly playing that role, legislators like Mace and Johnson get to break through a noisy political environment and capture a cascade of public attention; one need only look at Mace’s latest dog-whistle-filled social media tirade and the scrutiny it has provoked to see this particular culture warrior’s grift in action.

Mace should consider the slippery slope she treads if she believes that a climate of fear that targets trans people is expedient. When it comes to sex,biological essentialism was used to justify the exclusion of women from public spaces and full citizenship. When the right has excluded trans women from public life, they will need new fuel for their outrage. I think that whoever is left will be high on their list of targets.

Speaker Mike Johnson and the House Minority Whip’s Project: A GOP Lawmaker introduces a Capitol bathroom rule before her trans colleague arrives

“What they are talking about there on day one is where one member out of 435… is going to use the bathroom,” said Rep. Katherine Clark, D-Mass., who serves as House minority whip. “That is their focus.”

A number of prominent House Democrats have spoken out about Mace’s proposal and several party leaders criticized it during their press conference on Tuesday.

Trump has repeatedly addressed transgender rights, saying that under his tenure public schools, hospitals and health care providers will no longer receive federal funding if they promote ideas about gender transitioning or perform gender-affirming surgeries or care to minors (which 25 states have passed laws barring).

While voters consistently listed immigration and the economy as their top concerns this election season, Republican candidates — from President-elect Donald Trump to House and Senate hopefuls — spent a lot of time and money focusing on trans issues and seeking to portray Democrats as too extreme.

“I’m not getting involved in a bathroom debate. Cole told me that it’s not what he came to Congress for. “We ought to be doing disaster relief and appropriations bills.”

We don’t pay attention to anyone. Johnson said that they treated everybody with dignity and respect. Appropriate accommodations will be provided for every member of Congress.

During a press conference with House Republican leadership, Johnson did not confirm whether or not he would include it in the rules package.

Mace pushed to get the measure passed without a vote in order to put it in the House rules package, which Speaker Mike Johnson agreed with.

A bill that regulates access to facilities in the House needs a simple majority within the house for it to take effect. However, Republicans hold a razor thin majority in the House and will narrowly control the chamber again next year – meaning they can’t afford to lose many votes in order to get bills passed.

Source: A GOP lawmaker introduces a Capitol bathroom rule before her trans colleague arrives

“Making the American Dream a Better World,” says Ms. McBride, the lone house candidate for Delaware’s Senate seat

“America is fed up with the trans ideology being shoved into our face,” he told reporters on Tuesday. Women have been victims of this garbage for a long time.

“I know that’s going to be more difficult in D.C. than it has been in Dover, but I truly believe that when we give up on that openness to collaborate, we ultimately give up on our ability to have a democracy,” McBride added.

She spoke toNPR about her plans to cross the aisle, which she said started by moving past issues that are in the headlines that are happening on social media.

McBride, who won Delaware’s lone house seat earlier this month, said in her victory speech that she “ran not to make history but to make a difference.”

“We should be focused on bringing down the cost of housing, health care, and child care, not manufacturing culture wars,” McBride wrote. I’m focused on making the American dream more accessible and affordable because Delawareans sent me here to do that.

“I know how vulnerable women and girls are in private spaces,” she said. “So I’m absolutely, 100 percent, 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.”