I Fully Support Sarah McBride's Decision

Today, Congresswoman-elect Sarah McBride shared a statement in response to a rule proposed by House Republicans, which will certainly pass, that requires trans people only use restrooms aligned with our sex assigned at birth.

This is her full statement:

I’m not here to fight about bathrooms. I’m here to fight for Delawareans and to bring down costs facing families. Like all members, I will follow the rules as outlined by Speaker Johnson, even if I disagree with them.

This effort to distract from the real issues facing this country hasn’t distracted me over the last several days, as I’ve remained hard at work preparing to represent the greatest state in the union come January.

Serving in the 119th Congress will be the honor of a lifetime — and I continue to look forward to getting to know my future colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Each of us were sent here because voters saw something in us that they value. I have loved getting to see those qualities in the future colleagues that I’ve met and I look forward to seeing those qualities in every member come January. I hope all my colleagues will seek to do the same with me.

I deeply admire Congresswoman-elect Sarah McBride for her courage and character in navigating an impossible situation solely manufactured by cruel, cynical, and hypocritical people who care far more about building their hateful personal brands than helping their constituents.

No matter what Congresswoman-elect McBride does in this situation, she will be unfairly criticized. If she were to fight this asinine, distracting bathroom rule, her ability to help her constituents across the wide spectrum of issues would be horribly compromised before she's even sworn-in.

Yet, by not fighting this entirely performative bigotry, she will be unfairly accused of giving up on trans rights and enabling the anti-trans attacks to come, which, by the way, were coming regardless.

Because Mike Johnson and his GOP colleagues lack the high character embodied by Sarah McBride, always giving into the lowest common denominator over their own consciences, this was never a fight Democrats were going to win.

Instead, the Congresswoman-elect and her Democratic colleagues would have been drawn into an inevitably losing battle against a GOP majority backed up by a shameless far-right media ecosystem and a largely impotent mainstream media structure, which would completely overshadow every other reason Democrats came to Washington.

Congresswoman-elect McBride chose to focus on the big picture and prioritize every other issue affecting all her constituents above what it clearly a losing battle against a shameless outrage machine driven by the worst people in American politics and enabled by everyone else who should know better.

What I find most interesting about all this is that trans women have been using women's restrooms in the Capitol and the House and Senate office buildings and the White House and the Pentagon for many years now, including during all four years of the Trump Administration.

Under Donald Trump's leadership, trans women were permitted to use women's restrooms in federal buildings in D.C. and there was never any issue. In fact, Donald Trump is on record in the past supporting trans women using women's restrooms.

I have attended hundreds of political events in D.C. over the years and used the women's restroom at many of them, including in all the buildings listed above.

I have washed my hands countless times at the sink next to conservative and Republican women and had pleasant and brief conversations with many of them.

There’s never been an issue.

Because the whole point of going to the restroom is to do your business in a private stall and then wash your hands and maybe touch up your make-up and, on occasion, with friends, there might be conversations at the sink.

That’s it. I’m sorry there’s no mystery here. It’s pretty straightforward and banal.

In the four years that Rep. Nancy Mace has been in Congress, she's known that trans women use women's restrooms in federal buildings in D.C. and it's never been an issue for her. Not once. In all this time.

Until the first trans woman was elected to Congress. Then it suddenly became an issue.

In fact, Rep. Mace was on record "strongly supporting" trans rights before her rebrand in the past few years to pander to the far-right.

Rather than sharply interrogate this hypocrisy, most of political media is more inclined to preserve their access and mollify extremists within the Republican Party.

Again: this is manufactured outrage over something that hasn't been a problem in D.C. pushed by people who didn't have an issue until they saw an opportunity to divide Americans and distract from their long history of policy failures for working class families, all enabled by political reporters who would much rather the other way.

If you think Congresswoman-elect McBride was somehow going to win this fight, against all odds, much less preserve the necessary bandwidth to effectively represent the people of Delaware, either you haven't been paying attention or you prefer that ineffective purity be prioritized, at all costs, over realistic progress.

I am heartbroken and frustrated in this moment. It is demoralizing to watch extremists shamelessly weaponize bigotry while so many non-trans adults in politics and media act as silent bystanders to the hatred unfolding before them.

But that is not Congresswoman-elect McBride's fault, and I will not accept from anyone the absurd claim that she should bear responsibility for a political ecosystem that has been relentlessly cruel and oblivious to the plight of trans people in this country.

I am proud of the Congresswoman-elect, I recognize her courage in negotiating the ludicrous expectations of her, and I admire her conviction in refusing to permit hateful people to keep her from doing the job she came to do.

History will be generous and warm to Sarah McBride and understand that she chose the long trajectory of progress for all Americans over short-term outrage that helps no one.

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