House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., announced a new bathroom policy for the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday in response to controversy related to transgender Rep.-elect Sarah McBride, D-Del.
“All single-sex facilities in the Capitol and House Office Buildings — such as restrooms, changing rooms, and locker rooms — are reserved for individuals of that biological sex,” Johnson said in a statement obtained by Fox News Digital. “It is important to note that each Member office has its own private restroom, and unisex restrooms are available throughout the Capitol.”
“Women deserve women’s only spaces,” he added.
“Like all policies, it is enforceable,” Johnson later told reporters. “But we have single-sex facilities for a reason, and women deserve women’s only spaces. And we’re not anti anyone. We’re pro-women, and I think it’s an important policy for us to continue. It’s always been the, I guess, an unwritten policy, but now it’s in writing.”
SPEAKER JOHNSON MAKES CLARIFICATION AFTER STATEMENT REGARDING TRANSGENDER HOUSE MEMBER
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., departs a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., earlier this week introduced a resolution that moves to prohibit members, officers and employees of the House from using “single-sex facilities other than those corresponding to their biological sex.”
Mace, who is a rape survivor, was derided by Democrats, including McBride, as a “right-wing extremist” over the resolution, but the South Carolina congresswoman doubled down on Wednesday.
She introduced another new bill to “ban biological men from using women’s private, protected facilities — such as bathrooms and locker rooms — on all federal property” across the country.
Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., talks with reporters before a meeting of the House Republican Conference in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“The radical Left would rather call me an extremist than admit they are wrong. The radical Left says I’m a ‘threat.’ You better believe it,” Mace said in a statement. “And I will shamelessly call you out for putting women and girls in harm’s way. Women fought for these spaces, and I will not let them be erased to score political points with a small but loud activist class.”
Mace’s office added that “the vast majority of Americans recognize the importance of protecting women’s rights and privacy,” while “the woke mob manufactures outrage.”
“Women and girls shouldn’t have to give up their safety or privacy just because the Left wants to win points with their activist base,” Mace continued. “This isn’t controversial — it’s common sense. I’m going to continue defending women and girls from these harmful, out-of-touch, and straight-up weird policies.”
Rep.-elect Sarah McBride, left, joins other newly elected House members for a freshman class photo on the U.S. Capitol steps in Washington, D.C., on Friday. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Mace had said she received death threats for bringing the first resolution, sharing to X one social media video of a transgender individual threatening to beat and kill her.
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Johnson, who initially declined to respond to a question Tuesday on whether McBride was a man or a woman, made a definitive clarification later that day, telling reporters, “Let me be unequivocally clear: A man is a man, and a woman is a woman. And a man cannot become a woman.”
The speaker added: “I also believe that we treat everybody with dignity, and so we can do and believe all those things at the same time.”