GOP effort to police trans bathroom use could extend to D.C. schools, agencies

By Emily Davies, Lauren Lumpkin · The Washington Post (c) 2024

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-South Carolina) on Wednesday introduced a bill to ban transgender people from using bathrooms that align with their gender identity in buildings owned by the federal or D.C. governments – thrusting the nation’s progressive capital onto the front lines of a conservative culture war.

The bill – cast by Mace as a safety issue – arose from a GOP backlash to the election of Sarah McBride (D) of Delaware as the first openly trans person in Congress. The measure appears to extend tothe District’slibraries, recreation centers and, potentially, D.C. Public Schools, which educates half the children in the city and has been at the forefront of advocacy for LGBTQ+ students.

A spokesperson for D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) declined to comment on the bill or how her administration would respond. Mace’s office did not respond to requests for comment about how the bill would be enforced. The move came asHouse Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) announced Wednesday that transgender individuals would not be allowed into restroom facilities in the Capitol and House office buildings that do not correspond with their sex assigned at birth, saying in a statement that “women deserve women’s only spaces.”

“Why the Congress of the United States of America needs to legislate bathrooms in the District of Columbia is beyond me,” said D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D). He said he expects to talk to the mayor about the bill this week and advocate for federal lawmakers to remove D.C. from the legislation. “We don’t want it, we didn’t ask for it.”

The bill is unlikely to overcome the Senate filibuster, which requires 60 votes for legislation to advance, and also seeks to override Title IX, the federal civil rights law expanded by President Joe Biden that prevents sex discrimination in schools and education programs with government funding. President-Elect Donald Trump has promised to roll back transgender student protections – one of several pronouncements foreshadowing how Republicans assuming control of the federal government could seek to unwind Biden’s legacy.

Mace’s proposal comes as D.C. gears up for World Pride in 2025, when organizers expect more than 2 million people to convene for the 50th anniversary of Pride celebrations in the city. If it advances, the effort could pose a test of a Bowser administration strategy to seek areas of alignment with the incoming administration. Because the District is not a state, Trump and a Republican Congress stand to wield significant influence over D.C.’s affairs.

Monica Hopkins, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of D.C., called the bill unconstitutional, saying it violates guarantees of equal protection.

“This is another attempt by Congress to interfere in the self-governance and lives of D.C. residents,” she said.

D.C. law requires facility managers and personnel to allow people to use bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity, explicitly banning gender-based discrimination. Mace’s bill would override District code and make it illegal for buildings owned, leased or occupied by the local or federal governments to allow transgender women to use female bathrooms and transgender men to use male bathrooms.

The District’s public school system was among the first in the country to allow families to indicate their children are nonbinary on enrollment forms and says students have the right to be called by the names and pronouns that align with their gender identity. When the city’s school board adopted new social studies standards last year, the updates included a greater emphasis on LGBTQ+ history. Marking Pride Month last year, Bowser proudly proclaimed D.C. “the gayest city in the world.”

Mace proposed the bill days after she introduced a resolution that would ban transgender women from female bathrooms in the Capitol, saying that “it’s 100 percent because of McBride” and that it was “about women and our right to privacy, our right to safety.”In the days since, she has taken to social media to defend her posture, posting a constant stream of messages about bathroom access.

In unveiling the legislation Wednesday, she wrote: “Oh you thought threatening me would silence me? No. I just doubled down and filed a new bill to protect women and girls across the entire country on all federal property everywhere.”

Her focus on the issue, one of the most divisive in the presidential race,has split members of Congress along party lines – with Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vermont), among others, decrying the legislation as “attacks on someone’s basic human dignity” and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) and other Republicans heralding the effort as a defense of women.

“There’s no job I’m afraid to lose if it requires me to degrade anyone,” Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pennsylvania) wrote on X. “ … We have a bathroom in my office that anybody is welcome to use, including Representative-elect Sarah McBride.”

Johnson on Wednesday told reporters that “like all House policies,” the Capitol bathroom rule is “enforceable.” When The Washington Post contacted the speaker’s office Wednesday for details on how the rule would be enforced, it declined to elaborate.

“It is important to note that each Member office has its own private restroom, and unisex restrooms are available throughout the Capitol,” Johnson said in his statement Wednesday.

McBride said she would follow the rules outlined by Johnson “even if I disagree with them.”

“This effort to distract from the real issues facing this country hasn’t distracted me over the last several days, as I’ve remained hard at work preparing to represent the greatest state in the union come January,” she said in a statement.

McBride won a decisive victory against her Republican opponent, a former Delaware State Police officer who campaigned on stopping illegal immigration and reducing federal debt. McBride focused on making child care, housing and health care more affordable.

She will join a reshaped Congress poised for bitter debates over tax cuts and immigration, among other issues, when it convenes in January.

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Meagan Flynn, Maegan Vazquez and Mariana Alfaro contributed to this report.