AOC speaks out against the bathroom ban, stands with Sarah McBride
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez denounced House Republicans’ efforts this week to ban trans people from using single-sex bathrooms in the U.S. Capitol building reserved for “individuals of that biological sex,” just weeks after the election of the first transgender member of Congress, Sarah McBride of Delaware.
In a video interview with Spectrum News on Wednesday, the New York progressive, known as AOC, described the policy as “disgusting.”
“If a woman doesn’t look woman enough to a Republican, they want to be able to inspect her genitals to use a bathroom?” asked Ocasio-Cortez. “No matter how you may feel about this issue, [you] should reject it completely.”
“Women deserve women’s only spaces,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, said in a statement to Reuters. 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 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.
The issue became a flashpoint after Republican Rep. Nancy Mace filed a resolution to impose that requirement, which targets the incoming lawmaker.
The South Carolina conservative posted a flurry of messages on social media saying she doesn’t “want penises in women’s spaces." She has even launched a T-shirt on the issue of bathrooms, saying proceeds will “fuel the fight to protect women and girls across America.”
In a searing review of Republican men, Ocasio-Cortez rejected the argument that transgender women using women’s restrooms poses a safety risk to women.
“Women know that men don’t scheme to ‘dress like girls’ to assault them,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on X. “They do it every day in broad daylight. And the ones in power protect each other to keep it quiet. Just ask the House Ethics Committee. Or the President-elect of the United States.”
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.
Paste BN’s Rachel Barber, Sudiksha Kochi, and Savannah Kuchar; Paste BN Network's Xerxes Wilson and Reuters contributed to this report.