US House Speaker Mike Johnson has backed plans to ban transgender women from using female bathrooms on Capitol Hill.
“Women deserve women’s only spaces,” Johnson said in a statement on Wednesday. He said the new rule would be enforceable in the Capitol and in House office buildings.
It comes after his Republican colleague, Representative Nancy Mace, introduced a bill to enact a ban following the election of Sarah McBride, the first-ever openly transgender lawmaker.
In a statement, McBride said she was not elected "to fight about bathrooms".
"I'm here to fight for Delawareans and to bring down costs facing families," McBride said, adding that she would follow the new regulations from Speaker Johnson, "even if I disagree with them".
"This effort to distract from the real issues facing this country hasn't distracted me," the incoming Democratic representative said.
Many of McBride's fellow Democrats issued sharper rebukes of the change, including Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman.
"There’s no job I’m afraid to lose if it requires me to degrade anyone," Fetterman wrote on X.
Others have accused Mace of bullying a fellow member of Congress.
"This is your priority, that you want to bully a member of Congress, as opposed to welcoming her to join this body so all of us can work together to get things done and deliver real results for the American people?" Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said.
The new rule will apply to all single-sex facilities in Capitol and House office facilities, including changing rooms and locker rooms. House representatives all have their own bathrooms and unisex bathrooms are available in parts of the Capitol Hill complex.
The House Speaker, Johnson in this case, has control of facilities within the chamber and therefore has the authority to issue the policy surrounding bathrooms.
“This is about women and our right to privacy, our right to safety,” she said. “I’m not going to allow biological men into women’s private spaces."
On Wednesday Mace introduced an additional bill that would bar transgender women from "women's private spaces" across all federal property.
Mace, first elected in 2020, first campaigned as a moderate Republican in a competitive South Carolina district.
In a 2021 article in the Washington Examiner, which is still available on her official website, Mace said she "strongly supports LGBTQ rights and equality".
“No one should be discriminated against," she wrote.
She has faced criticism from the socially conservative wing of her party for her moderation on abortion, and her push to increase contraception access nationwide.
Asked about any contradiction between Mace's present actions and her past statements, her spokeswoman Gabrielle Lipsky reiterated support for the ban and said: "We support gay marriage, voted for the respect for marriage act twice. If you think protecting women is discrimination, you are the problem.”
Over the past two years, Republicans in Washington DC and across state capitols have focused on transgender issues, including seeking to limit access to gender-related surgery for minors and to bar transgender athletes from female-only sports categories.
During his 2016 campaign, Donald Trump said transgender students should be allowed to use whichever bathroom "they feel is appropriate", but he reversed his stance after facing Republican criticism.
In the last stretch of his most recent campaign, Trump and his fellow Republicans narrowed in on opposing transgender rights, spending $215m (£170m) on related advertising, according to tracking firm AdImpact.
According to AP VoteCast, a survey of some 120,000 people who cast ballots in November's election, more than half of voters said support for transgender rights had gone too far.
But it is unclear to what extent the issue actually drove voters to cast their ballot, as polls suggest it ranked lower among voter priorities than the economy, immigration, democracy and other key policy areas.
