Republican House Speaker says Capitol bathrooms restricted by 'biological sex'

By Moira Warburton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Wednesday that all single-sex bathrooms in the U.S. Capitol building would be reserved for "individuals of that biological sex," weeks after the election of the first transgender member of Congress.

The issue became a flashpoint after Republican Representative Nancy Mace filed a resolution to impose that requirement, which targeted U.S. Representative-elect Sarah McBride.

“Women deserve women’s only spaces," Johnson said in a statement. He said members could use bathrooms in their private offices, which can be a 10-minute walk from the House floor where voting and debate take place, or unisex bathrooms in the Capitol.

McBride, a 34-year-old Delaware lawmaker-elect, said she would comply with Johnson's order but called it a distraction from more substantive issues.

"I'm not here to fight about bathrooms. I'm here to fight for all Delawareans and to bring down costs facing families," she said in a statement.

Other Democrats have said the effort to exclude transgender people from single-sex bathrooms amounts to bullying. 

McBride focused her successful election campaign on economic issues, including protections for unions and affordable healthcare and childcare. 

Transgender rights have become a political rallying cry for right-wing politicians 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.

(Reporting by Moira Warburton, additional reporting by Andy Sullivan and Rami Ayyub; Editing by Scott Malone, Bill Berkrot and Jonathan Oatis)