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.
