Performative Bigotry in the House
Nancy Mace edition.
Via NBC News: Rep. Nancy Mace says her anti-trans bathroom bill ‘absolutely’ targets Rep.-elect Sarah McBride.
Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., said Tuesday that her effort to ban transgender women from using female bathrooms at the U.S. Capitol is a direct response to the election of Sarah McBride, who is set to be the first openly transgender person in Congress.
Mace introduced a resolution Monday to prohibit any lawmakers and House employees from “using single-sex facilities other than those corresponding to their biological sex.” She was asked by reporters Tuesday if the move was in response to McBride.
“Yes and absolutely, and then some,” Mace told reporters, adding, “I’m absolutely 100% gonna stand in the way of any man who wants to be in a women’s restroom, in our locker rooms, in our changing rooms. I will be there fighting you every step of the way.”
Ok, so I will start off by stating that I have long found these bathroom bills to be utterly performative. Apart from genital inspections pre-entry, these things are not enforceable. Moreover, the notion that trans persons are sexual predators waiting for the opportunity to use restrooms to assault people is just gross fearmongering. It goes along with tropes that homosexual men are pedophiles and the like. It is all just a way to justify bigotry and discrimination.
None of this is based in reality.
In this case, however, the thin reed of protection isn’t even the issue. Mace is not sponsoring this bill out of some general fear, however nonexistent the actual threat may be, but instead because of a single person. It is, as the title of the post notes, performative bigotry.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said Mace’s legislation “doesn’t go far enough.” Greene also suggested she’d be willing to get into a physical altercation if McBride uses women’s restrooms.
The threat of violence is just another signal to the other bigots. It is also bullying behavior and utterly uncalled for.
All of this is just victimhood and sexual anxiety on display. It is also unkind and violates the dictum to do unto others as you would have done unto you.
What’s even more galling (and telling) is that Mace and Greene’s party has a sexual predator for a leader, a SecDef appointee accused of paying to cover up a rape, and an AG appointee credibly accused of sex with a minor.
But, you know, Representative McBride is the threat.
I think that this is what Republicans want. Official crotch inspectors.
Arkansas Republican state Sen. Matt McKee has already auditioned for the position and it looks like Representative Mace wants the title too. I think that she should be stationed at the entrance to the men’s restroom in the Capitol building and demand that everyone going in drop their pants and pull down their skivvies so she can be sure all who enter have the appropriate genitalia.
In my vast experience with women’s rest rooms here in the U.S.A. and elsewhere, they all have stalls for privacy. What is the issue here?
Doing so would be bad politics, and I expect Sarah McBride to be a better politician than I am, but OMFG do I want to see MTG get messed up. Let’s see how tough you really are, honey.
We’re going to see how good a politician McBride is. This will focus attention on her, and on trans people, and that gives her an opportunity. I have no idea how she will use it, but I expect her to use it.
This is ugly to the core, and heartbreaking in its lack of humanity.
Shitty people with shitty values.
Everything I have read about McBride indicates that she is a lovely person.
I sincerely hope rep. Mcbride has been practicing her right cross – and, if necessary, her Philly shell.
mtg has always struck me as one of those people who has never done one second of full-contact sparring.. and will fold like the all-talk Republican [but I repeat myself] she is when decked in the nose.
As always, the Democratic party is the only one supporting personal freedoms. Republicans just want to control everything about you.
@CSK:
What was the issue when whites and blacks had to use different bathrooms? Asserting power over others.
It seems like there is an obvious solution to this “issue”. If Rep. Mace isn’t comfortable using the restroom no one is forcing her to. She can hold it in, wear diapers to work, or go across the street to the gas station.
@Lucysfootball: Or, an alternative solution: Rep. Mace can share an office with MTG, and her office can be remodeled into a bathroom for the exclusive use of trans members of Congress.
I am so done with these hateful, performative bell-ends.
Aren’t these the same people who complain about women’s sports being sullied? So maybe threatening a trans colleague isn’t the best of ideas?
But the right’s power is shamelessness, so …
@Lucysfootball:
@Jen:
I’ve a used litter box I could donate to Mr. Mace.
” It goes along with tropes that homosexual men are pedophiles and the like. It is all just a way to justify bigotry and discrimination.”
OK. This is personal. I have two brothers. All three of us were serially molested by our homosexual/pedophile father for years. Its not simply a trope.
I am not in any way saying all homosexuals are pedophiles. Don’t go there. I have or have had many gay and lesbian friends. I really couldn’t care less about what people do behind closed doors, if consensual. But the issue you cited has more prevalence than you seem to want to admit. Look at the Catholic Church.
You can look up a place called Sierra Tucson. I went there as part of the catharsis. I signed a confidentiality agreement that forbids me from ever saying anything, any name, of people who were there or had been there. But the names would knock your sox off. Everyone on this blogsite would recognize most of them. Its a prominent place.
I am sad to report that I was exposed to true evil while there. People who’s lives were shattered. The issues of sex trafficking, child abuse/pedophilia etc are not to be casually cast aside as tropes in a political argument. Its as real as can be, and far more prevalent, than you may think. I have to ask if your political leanings cause you to discount it.
You may decide to cast this as anecdotal. Please don’t. Its real. It is far too prevalent. In fact its part of the immigration issue. Its not political. Its not just bigotry. That is so wrong.
You have hectored me this past week about being fact based. There simply is no book where you can go look up statistics about this issue. No professional in the field doesn’t know its wildly underreported. Just think about it.
As I noted in another comment, sometimes experience and judgment rule. Avoidance in debate by appealing to “facts” that just confirm biases is just that, avoidance.
Regards
@Lucysfootball: “She can hold it in, wear diapers to work, or go across the street to the gas station.”
I do love the visual of the gas station across the street from the capitol. I see it being like the one in Back to the Future. Thanks for the rare shot of pleasure!
@Jack: Look, I am sorry to hear about your personal experience, That is truly awful.
But, I don’t think you understand what “trope” means.
That X kind of person did Y does not mean you can generalize about X kinds of persons.
I don’t have the energy to go beyond pointing that out at the moment.
@Jack: since hastertt screwed little boys it must be logically inferred that all Republican speakers are molesters. Wonderful logic that I will use in the future, sir.
Johnson does have that weird smirk all the time too.
@CSK: As far as I can tell, it’s that she wants to make a hostile work environment for one of her co-workers. Isn’t that pretty much what she said?
@Jack: That’s horrible and I’m very sorry for your experience. I can understand any amount of lasting anger or other feelings that you’ve dealt with.
I’m out of my depth as to the statistical overlap between various sexual proclivities. But one would have to produce an impossibly detailed study before claiming the Catholic church problems are predominantly because of men who are both gay and pedophiles. The rule against priests marrying causes a massive self-selection problem with any such study, right off the bat. Disallowing a basic human need is profoundly stupid, and people falter when their needs aren’t met.
@Jack:
Was he trans? If not, WTF does this have to do with trans people?
There are known elected predators on Capital Hill, but none of them are trans.
@DrDaveT: @Jack: You had a terrible experience. What does that have to do with Rep. McBride? And it is surprising that you support a self-admitted predator like Trump. The Access Hollywood tape showed the whole world who he is. Unfortunately half the country, including many people who should know better such as yourself, decided that it would be a good idea to have a sexual predator as our POTUS.
Isn’t the obvious solution a third bathroom? They do this in schools, businesses etc. Mace just wants to pick a fight with the trans community she knows she can politically exploit. In her district it makes sense to deny gender preference. She is a self promoting c—-T
Dems gain no points in being goaded into a fight over this. Trans issues are poison to the party as we found out two weeks ago.
If McBride plays this right, she can label this as disgusting discrimination and bullying and turn the politics in her favor.
If she insists on using the women’s room, it just reinforces the trans stereotypes that unfortunately the GOP uses to their advantage.
Simple solution. Put a port o potty inside Mace’s office. How about we have multiple individual bathrooms labeled Republican, Democrat and Independent? Did she make a stink on sharing a restroom with lesbian lawmakers? What’s funny is at some point a transgender woman has probably used the restroom Mace seeks to police, she just didn’t know, maybe was a guest or visitor.
@The Q:
You said, “Trans issues are poison to the party as we found out two weeks ago.”
Did we find that out? Or was it inflation? Or was it that Harris wasn’t a good candidate? Or that she didn’t go on Joe Rogan? Or was it the death-cloud of disinformation?
How is it that you are sure it was trans issues? Which of course, had its own death-cloud of disinformation.
Well, we certainly should not let the welfare of people like my daughter get in the way of you know, more important political goals.
@The Q:
Please explain to me which bathroom she should use?
And trans issues are such poison that McBride got herself elected. You know what’s actual poison? Not standing up for people. I can guarantee you Allred and Brown lost votes because they caved to this shit. By saying that McBride (and me) shouldn’t use the bathroom you are agreeing with them that we are inherently a threat.
You want to know what’s scarier than using the women’s bathroom? Being forced to use the men’s and getting raped and getting my face kicked in? Will you be the one to pick my shattered teeth off the floor? Or will you tut tut that I (or McBride) deserved it?
Why are you so quick to capitulate to the people that will have no problem turning on you the second they are done with me?
https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/opinion-republican-bathroom-panic
If Sarah McBride is too much, too manly, too trans to be allowed to use the correct bathroom you might well just shoot us all and skip the bullshit.
Trans issues alone didn’t cost us the election, but they certainly didn’t help. If you could only get your head out of your collective asses and realize that this is a losing proposition for us we will continue to lose to these right wing bastards. You people are so out of touch on this issue. It’s sickening.
Beth, use a third bathroom. Problem solved.
Inflation, huge issue. Border huge issue. Harris flip-flopping huge issue. Trans a marginal issue, but then elections are won on the margins.
The continual denial by some of you that this trans issue was a non-issue to the voters is maddening.
So in other words what you’re saying is if the Democrats would’ve really come out even harder for trans rights Harris would’ve won.
I really think the problem is the Democrats don’t get out of their own echo chamber and thought bubble and actually talk to people that you despise and you’d see right away, those commercials were very effective across the country.
How many of you people watch college football the SEC? the Big 12? the Big 10? Trump inundated those games with the paying for operations for prisoners, and that “they them”versus trump is for you.
If you don’t think that didn’t register with a lot of voters not as the primary reason to vote against Harris but as a reinforcement of the stale coastal stereotypes of out of touch virtue signalers, think again.
“If Sarah McBride is too much, too manly, too trans to be allowed to use the correct bathroom you might well just shoot us all and skip the bullshit.”
Really? We go from a third bathroom which seems a good compromise to shooting all you?
Just crazy friggin over reaction that the GOP eats up.
Hey people, we just lost the House, the Senate, the Presidency, wake the fu$ck up
PS McBride won an at large seat which means the whole state of Delaware voted for her. This in a state that Biden won by 19 and Harris by 15.
I wouldn’t read too much into her election as an endorsement of trans rights or participation in sports.
Saying ‘homosexual/pedophile’ and then saying ‘I am not in any way saying all homosexuals are pedophiles’ is quite a take.
@The Q:
I ask this seriously: have you been to the US Capitol building? Because this is not something that is immediately available to Representative-elect McBride. THAT’S THE POINT.
I harp a lot about Democrats needing to stick to messaging that gets them elected, because you can’t do sh!t sitting on the sidelines of power. But this–this is a human rights issue. Rep. Mace is attempting to remove bathroom access for a coworker.
The deplorable Rep. Mace has decided to bully a colleague. She should be shut down IMMEDIATELY.
ETA: This is what we should be reading: https://19thnews.org/2024/10/sarah-mcbride-congress-transgender-history/
This is a little different than the crotch inspector problem. They all know who McBride is. This is an attempt to single out, bully and threaten a particular person, a fellow legislator. That is a separate outrage.
@The Q:
Setting aside that most places don’t have a third bathroom, was that your solution to Jim Crow too? “You’re just giving racists the reaction they want! Can’t you just use the other bathrooms?”
I’ve had to stop going to movie theaters RL because I can’t sit through a three hour movie without peeing and none of them have unisex bathrooms.
Jack, thank you for sharing that. I am so sorry that you went through that.
@The Q:
Because the solution to bigotry is to give into it?
@The Q: And where, pray tell, is this third bathroom going to be built in the Capitol and who is going to pay for it?
@Assad K: Indeed.
@Jack: I would be more moved by your experience if you didn’t support a rapist as president, a rapist as Secretary of Defense, and a guy who paid to have sex with a seventeen year-old as Attorney General. What have you learned from all your trauma if you fight to put sexual predators in positions of power?
@The Q: I did not pick this fight, nor did @Beth or @StormyDragon. The right wing spent a billion dollars demeaning and ostracizing trans people, and drumming up a “threat” to “the children”.
And yet you want to describe *us* as having our heads up our asses. We don’t have the ability to walk away from this. Being trans is not some lifestyle choice. It’s not like choosing a favorite color. It’s something in your brain, and in your soul, that whispers to you, “I am a girl” or “I am a boy”.
I did not understand this until my own daughter began to transition. Actually, not until about three weeks after. In private, I cried and raged. I blamed myself for not being the sort of “man” she would want to emulate. But that was all wrong.
There’s something in my brain, and in my soul that whispers to me, “you are a boy”. I know that because I know that if I were to even attempt to transition – which is act and represent as a woman 24/7 – I would fail in short order. I can cross-dress for a couple of hours for the purpose of a costume party, sure. I’ve done that. I made a pretty mean Wicked Witch of the West.
And when that’s done I go back to being a boy, I never really let go of the thought, “I’m really a boy”.
That’s exactly how it works for a trans person, EXCEPT that the internal voice does not match their gonads.
We can’t walk away. The right picked a fight with us, precisely because there are so few of us, and because it isn’t easy to wrap one’s head around the reality.
Do you know what changes people’s minds about this? Knowing someone who transitions. Sometimes it drives them away, yeah. And sometimes they go, “My friend has put up with so much shit, it has to be real”. Which is what someone I know well online told me a couple of years before my own child transitioned.
There are multiple death threats from Trans Heroes against a sexual assault survivor Rep. Nancy Mace. LibsofTikTok has the videos so they will be dismissed and ignored as “Edited Videos!”.
Progressives always say that those people who get death threats have moral superiority/high ground.
@wr:
Adjudicated with no due process rapist and accusations. Please name the victims.
@The Q:
I do this constantly. This is exactly the sort of activism I engage in. I’ve also explained to two clients who told me they voted for Trump why that means they are losing their attorney and someone they respect. I could see the connections being made in their brains. It was crushing. I shouldn’t have to pimp out my life like some sort of freak show in order to make sure I don’t lose my rights.
I watch a lot of NFL football. I watched all those commercials. It got so bad I would start to cry when they came on. My spouse and I started muting the commercials. My kids asked if those commercials meant that they were going to take Tall Mom away. My family understands the threat way better than you ever will.
Those commercials were effective in part because the response from Democrats was to either ignore the issue or in the case of Allred and Brown actively supported them. I suspect that made them more effective because people went “yeah, they don’t fight for anyone.” It would have been so much better for someone like Allred to say “I don’t understand trans people, but they are good people and I protect good people. I’ll protect you cause you’re good people and don’t want others to suffer.”
Please tell me when has separate but equal worked in this country? We tried that, it worked for white people I guess, didn’t work for anyone else.
Did you read that Erin Reed piece? The first step is to block us from bathrooms and sports and cement in people’s heads that we are freaks, disgusting and threats. Once you do that it’s easy to say this was a choice and take away my meds, to block needed, necessary surgeries, and bar document changes.
@Beth:
Erin Reed
I hope the Democrats learn nothing about pushing being Trans just like banning guns.
“Denying my ability to impose my delusions on other people is extremely cruel!” – Tony Reed, Blogger
@Jack: That’s terrible. There’s no way that’s excusable or can be waved away.
And you also seem to understand the takeaway Dr. Taylor was trying to underline, which is that it’s a bad idea to generalize.
Soooooo…it’s kinda like we don’t disagree on anything at all. That’s how it seems to me, anyway.
@Paul L.:
* Trans people in one form or another have been around as long as humanity itself. In some cultures they are welcomed and celebrated as people who have knowledge that most people don’t have access to.
* Trans people recognize all the facts of their body, and also hear an internal voice, from their mind and their heart, that says, “I’m a girl” or “I’m a boy”.
* Everyone has that voice. If you (assuming you are male) had a terrible accident and lost your penis and testicles, would you stop thinking of yourself as male? I don’t think so. This sort of disorder can completely shut down testosterone emission, and this might result in skin changes or loss of body hair. Would that convince you that you were a girl, not a boy? Again, I don’t think so. Would it be fair to describe someone like that as “delusional”? No, it would not.
* The medical and psychological fields all recognize gender dysphoria as a thing, a thing for which the best treatment, and way forward known to us is transition. How is it that you think you know more than all the doctors and researchers and psychologists do? Do you take that attitude when you go to your own doctor? I’m not talking about skepticism – I’m talking about “never mind taking all that medication to reduce my cholesterol, coronary artery disease is a delusion”. To be fair, I think I have met a few people who do express thoughts like that. Is that your thought?
* What possible harm does it do to you if someone transitions? Why do you even care? Why would you think that you know better than that person, their family and their doctors? Why would you support the opposite of “freedom” on this?
@Beth:
Wait…
It was supposed to work for other people, too? I kinda have my doubts about that.
@Jay L Gischer:
Bigotry and sexism in one form or another have been around as long as humanity itself.
I don’t care trans people do with their bodies just don’t demand I “recognize all the facts of their body, and also hear their internal voice, from their mind and their heart, that says, “I’m a girl” or “I’m a boy”” and approve.
@Paul L.: It is sad to have to note that the most coherent you have been in quite some time is to directly acknowledge your anti-trans bigotry.
Perhaps you can now leave the subject alone? Mission accomplished, and all that?
The key point Paul is missing here is that he doesn’t have to approve. His approval should not be necessary for basic human decency on where one relieves oneself.
Also….these motherfuckers spend too much time scoping out other people in the restroom. It’s creepy.