House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) announced plans to ban transgender individuals from using public restrooms that match their gender identity on the House side of the U.S. Capitol.
As first reported, the hillPrime Minister Boris Johnson announced the ban in a public statement. Under the rules of the House of Commons, the Speaker has “general control” over facilities in the chamber, giving Johnson the power to set policies regarding the use of toilets.
“All single-sex facilities, including restrooms, locker rooms, and locker rooms in Parliament House and the House of Commons Office Building, are reserved for the exclusive use of individuals of their biological sex,” Johnson said in a statement. “It is important to note that each member’s office has its own restroom, and unisex restrooms are available throughout Parliament House.”
According to reports AxiosJohnson told reporters that the policy is enforceable by the House Sergeant-at-Arms. “There’s a reason we have separate facilities for men and women. Women should be given their own space,” he said.
He also objected to Democrats’ accusations that the measure targets specific communities.
“We are not against anyone,” he said. “We are pro-women, and we think it’s an important policy to continue. I think it’s always been an implicit policy, but now it’s written in writing.”
Prime Minister Johnson’s statement came on Transgender Day of Remembrance, which commemorates transgender people who have lost their lives to violence, and calls for restrictions on transgender women’s access to women-only facilities in the United States. It was issued in response to a resolution introduced by Representative Nancy Mace, R.S.C. A toilet inside the National Diet Building.
In comments to reporters, Mace acknowledged that he introduced the resolution in response to the election of U.S. Representative Sarah McBride (D-Delaware), who is set to become the first transgender member of Congress. Ta.
Both Mr. Johnson and Mr. Mace require law enforcement and women’s restrooms to be used in incidents where a masculine-looking transgender man enters a women’s restroom, which is required by both Mr. Mace’s resolution and Mr. Johnson’s new rules. It does not address the question of how women should respond.
Mr. Mace had lobbied Mr. Johnson to include his resolution in the rules package for the 119th Congress, arguing that the restrictions were necessary to protect women’s safety and privacy.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who had previously criticized Mace’s resolution as being too narrow, told her colleagues in a closed Republican meeting Tuesday that she would be forced to share a bathroom with a trans woman. He said he feared a “physical altercation” would ensue. According to people in the room.
Since then, Mace I posted my video He vowed to introduce legislation that would ban transgender people from accessing all federal facilities in the United States that correspond to their gender identity.
“No men allowed in women’s spaces, period. Full stop. End of story,” Mace barks in the video.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson previously addressed the controversy on Tuesday, saying that “every new member” would be welcomed in Parliament House and that “everyone” would be treated with “dignity and respect”, adding: “While meeting their needs, We will address concerns regarding women-only spaces.” Each and every one of them. ”
he statement that resonated Mace and Green misidentify McBride as a man and state their own opinion, based on religious views, that a person cannot transition to another gender.
“Let me be clear,” he said. “A man can be a man, a woman can be a woman. And a man cannot be a woman.”
McBride and other Democrats say the Republican push for a transgender ban is “bullying” against the next member of Congress and an attempt to demonize transgender people. This tactic appeared to bear fruit for Republicans in the recent presidential election.
“This is a blatant attempt by far-right extremists to distract from the fact that we have no real solutions to the realities facing the American people,” McBride said in a statement. “We should be focused on lowering the costs of housing, health care, and child care, not manufacturing culture wars.”
Mark Pocan, chairman of the Parliamentary Equality Caucus, slammed Johnson’s new restrictions.
“Speaker Johnson’s sacred edict to prohibit transgender people from using the restrooms that align with their identity is a cruel and cruel move that puts countless staff, interns, and visitors to the Capitol at risk,” Pocan said in a statement. “It’s an unnecessary rule.” . “How will this be enforced? Will the sergeant-at-arms station police officers in the restrooms? Will everyone who works in the Capitol have to carry their birth certificate or undergo genetic testing?
“No one follows this policy, but teeth It would open the door to rampant abuse, harassment, and discrimination on Capitol Hill,” Pocan added. “Republicans cannot pass a farm bill or pass a major spending bill, so they resort to these brutal attacks to distract from their own incompetence in governance and failure to serve the American people. I’m looking to use it.”
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Source: Metro Weekly – www.metroweekly.com
