The Bathrooms of the Capitol Are Now Unsafe Spaces

The New York Times ^ | Nov. 20, 2024 | Anna Marks

[E. Pluribus Unum]

It only took two weeks after Election Day for House Republicans to bully Representative-elect Sarah McBride of Delaware, who will become the first openly transgender member of Congress in January.

On Monday an exhausting Republican from South Carolina, Representative Nancy Mace, announced plans to introduce a measure that would bar McBride and any other trans women working in the Capitol from using women’s restrooms there. On Wednesday in response, Speaker Mike Johnson announced a move that would prohibit transgender people from using “single-sex facilities” on the House side of the Capitol and in House office buildings, including restrooms, changing rooms and locker rooms, that match their gender identity.

While abhorrent, this move is straight out of a longtime reactionary playbook. A decade ago, after their attempts to exclude gay people from public life finally failed, Republicans began to use bathroom bills to stir up a culture war targeting transgender Americans, a smaller group with fewer legal protections. Their attempt succeeded; now debates over trans existence have become a feature of everyday political discourse.

Provocateurs like Mace build political capital by tying the juvenile urge to gossip about people’s privates to the assumption that “men” set loose in women’s bathrooms will commit sexual violence. Demagogues prey on many Americans’ inexperience with transgender identity and women’s very real fears about being assaulted, cynically casting trans women as others who invade otherwise safe spaces.

That approach was evident in Johnson’s explanation of his decision: “Women deserve women’s-only spaces.” It evidently does not matter to him that one woman — McBride — will be excluded from them.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

We have reached peak pervert-supremacist.

[doorgunner69]

The New Yawk Slimes is sure in a panic modew tih the blizzard of hate-Trump and everything about him.

There should be some thorazine on hand with all the anxiety they display since the election.

[PeterPrinciple]

It evidently does not matter to him that one woman — McBride — will be excluded from them.

---

The ONE woman can use a porcelain pot it its office and the rest of the women can carry on as usual.

[NFHale]

Their team lost.

They need to embrace the suck.

Or get run over.

[ifinnegan]

Misogyny.

New York Times hate woman, has a war on them.

Calls protecting them unsafe.

180° off.

[Steely Tom]

Let’s re-define fundamental concepts like “man”and “woman,” and then call anyone who doesn’t agree a “bully” and a “bigot.” Think of all the fun we can have with that.

[Buttons12]

Ukraine is an unsafe space. Israel is an unsafe space. The Texas border.
A restroom in the Capitol, ehh...
NYT, no longer a serious publication.

[Karliner]

Someone finally fought back on Obama’s last FU to America and turning the bathrooms dangerously gay.

[BookmanTheJanitor]

The author.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Looks like it has a mustache.

[TornadoAlley3]

https://x.com/EricLDaugh/status/1859413992453640601

Trump won!

[calljack]

Unsafe for who. One freak or 1000 women. You chose. It’s one or 1000. Easy.

[mmichaels1970]

It only took two weeks after Election Day for House Republicans to bully Representative-elect Sarah McBride of Delaware

It only took two weeks for the New York Times to forget why they freaking lost.

[DarrellZero]

He has a taxpayer-supplied bathroom in his office.

Use it.

[dowcaet]

If Democrats were smart, and we know they aren’t, this is a fight they back away from. It looks like they’re going to double down on the insanity.

[Sarcazmo]

The entity that wrote this piece is a lunatic.

And that is best case.

Worst case, an exorcism is in order.

[Steely Tom]

If Democrats were smart, and we know they aren’t, this is a fight they back away from. It looks like they’re going to double down on the insanity.

"It's the economy, stupid!"

— James Carville.

[BookmanTheJanitor]

Yep - I had to downsize the original to lessen the scare...but the facial hair is there.

[1malumprohibitum]

Never occurs to them that maybe McBride is the bully.

[cgbg]

The “progressive” mindset is to never back down in their quest for eternal “progress” towards a Utopian future.

The Democrats are stuck with this issue—eternally.

We may have to learn how to keep winning—for a long long time.