House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Wednesday announced a new policy to prevent transgender women from using women's bathrooms on the House side of Capitol Hill, Politico reported.
Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., previously introduced a bill to ban transgender women from using Capitol bathrooms designated for women after Delaware Democrat Rep.-elect Sarah McBride, a transgender woman, became the first transgender person elected to Congress earlier this month.
"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 wrote in a statement. "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."
Johnson later told reporters that "like all House policies, it's enforceable. And we have single-sex facilities for a reason, and women deserve women's only spaces."
Democrat lawmakers on Wednesday introduced a resolution to mark the Transgender Day of Remembrance that would memorialize transgender people around the world who were violently killed in the past year.
In a statement Monday, McBride denounced Mace's resolution and the controversy over bathroom usage as a distraction.
"This is a blatant attempt from far right-wing extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing," McBride said. "We should be focused on bringing down the cost of housing, health care, and child care, not manufacturing culture wars."