Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) is set to speak to the Delaware GOP this week about her crusade to ban trans people from using bathrooms that align with their gender at the U.S. Capitol. Delaware is represented by transgender Rep. Sarah McBride (D), who Mace has viciously bullied since her victory in November.

The party is hosting an event in Newark, Delaware, specifically to honor Mace, who the now-defunct event page called “one of Congress’s boldest conservative voices,” according to Delaware Online. While the event has been scheduled since mid-December, Axios recently obtained information on the contents of her speech.

Related

Mike Johnson may use anti-trans measures to hold onto his job as House Speaker
Johnson could use anti-trans measures to placate far-right opponents who want to replace him.

Mace spokesperson Syndey Long told the publication she will speak about her fight for bathroom bans as well as “other key women’s issues, including her Preventing Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act.”

Insights for the LGBTQ+ community

Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

Meanwhile, McBride will be in Williamsburg, Virginia, at a bipartisan event hosted by the Congressional Research Office.

“This weekend Congresswoman McBride will attend a bipartisan meeting with her colleagues from the House to discuss solutions to the most pressing issues facing her constituents,” said her spokesperson Michaela Kurinsky-Malos.

Mace has made national headlines since November for her crusade against McBride, the first transgender person elected to Congress. Mace introduced a resolution to ban McBride from using the women’s facilities at the Capitol complex, has posted hundreds of times to social media attacking transgender people, and has made numerous media appearances to promote anti-transgender policies.

Trans people have been working at the Capitol and visiting it for decades without incident, and McBride has a private restroom in her office, so Mace’s rule would mainly have the effect of making it harder for trans staffers to work at the Capitol and for trans people to visit the Capitol and participate in democracy.

While the House’s new rule package did not include a measure limiting trans people’s restroom usage at the Capitol, the rule was slipped into the January 3 edition of the Congressional Record.

The policy, mentioned on page 26 of the dense, 87-page document, says that access to all gendered facilities at the Capitol complex will be based on “biological sex.” It says that the policy will be enforced by the sergeant-at-arms but doesn’t explain how “biological sex” will be defined.

The inclusion of the policy in the Congressional Record without a vote from the House means that it was enacted with Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) own authority governing Capitol facilities, not the House’s power to pass its own rules.

“This cruel and discriminatory policy has nothing to do with helping the American people or addressing their priorities; it’s all about hurting people,” The Human Rights Campaign’s President Kelley Robinson said.

“It targets not just Congresswoman McBride, but all trans and nonbinary people who work and visit the Capitol — public servants who have been working in the Capitol for years but are now the subject of cynical political games,” Robinson added. “Speaker Johnson has proven yet again that the Republican majority is more focused on culture wars than on the needs of the country.”

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.