Sarah McBride says GOP is trying to “manufacture a crisis” with transgender bathroom ban at Capitol

Washington —  Rep.-elect Sarah McBride, a Delaware Democrat who is set to become the first transgender member of Congress, characterized a GOP effort to restrict bathroom use as an attempt “to get headlines.”

“Everything was fine until some members of the small Republican conference majority decided to get headlines and to manufacture a crisis,” McBride told CBS News’ Scott MacFarlane. 

The Delaware Democrat told CBS News that she anticipated an effort to “politicize my use of a restroom,” and she indicated she had not intended to use multi-stall women’s restrooms in the Capitol. But she also said “that is my choice here.” 

“If anyone had thought to ask me about what I was planning on doing, I would’ve been happy to tell them,” McBride said. “But again, this is not an issue. And this has never been an issue in this complex.”

Weeks after McBride became the first transgender person elected to Congress, a Republican-led effort to restrict restroom use in the Capitol got underway this week. Rep. Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican, introduced legislation Monday to change House rules to limit use of single-sex bathrooms in the Capitol complex to those corresponding to users’ “biological sex.”

McBride, who also made history as the first trans person ever elected to a state senate seat, has tended to stay above the fray, stressing that her priority is to work for Delawareans in the House. She told CBS News that she wants people to see her “competence in governing contrast with their chaos.”

“I would like my grace to contrast with the grandstanding that we’re seeing right now.” McBride said. “I would like my approach of respecting everyone to contrast with the disrespect that we are seeing right now.”

Mace’s two-page resolution alleges that “allowing biological males” into the facilities “jeopardizes the safety and dignity of Members, officers, and employees of the House who are female” and would task the sergeant-at-arms with enforcing the measure. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday that he supports restricting the “single-sex facilities” in the Capitol, saying in a statement that the facilities “are reserved for individuals of that biological sex.”

McBride pledged to follow the rules outlined by Johnson, “even if I disagree with them,” while asserting that she didn’t run for Congress to “fight about bathrooms.”

Anti-transgender sentiments have become a rallying cry for some Republicans in recent months, often evoked by President-elect Donald Trump and his allies on the campaign trail and over the airwaves.