WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) – Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is instituting a ban on biological males using the U.S. House of Representatives’ female restrooms, a previously unnecessary gesture sparked by the election of the first “transgender” member of Congress.

This month saw the election of Democrat Sarah McBride, a male LGBT activist and Delaware state legislator who “identifies” as a woman, to Delaware’s At-Large Congressional District, in a “historic” victory left-wing activists took as a bright spot amid 2024’s overwhelming repudiation of the Democrat Party and its fixation on identity politics. 

Asked Tuesday about the implications of McBride joining the chamber, Johnson initially declined to answer whether the new lawmaker was a man or a woman. “Look, I’m not going to get into this,” he said. “We welcome all new members with open arms who are duly elected representatives of the people.”

“I believe it’s a command that we treat all persons with dignity and respect, and we will, and I’m not going to engage in silly debates about this,” he added. “There’s a concern about the uses of restroom facilities and locker rooms and all that. This is an issue that Congress has never had to address before and we’re going to do that in deliberate fashion with a member consensus on it; and we will accommodate the needs of every single person. That’s all I’m going to say about that.”

Later in the day, after conservatives criticized Johnson for not taking a clear stand right away, the Speaker amended his remarks. “Let me be unequivocally clear: a man is a man, and a woman is a woman, and a man cannot become a woman,” he said. “But I also believe that we treat everybody with dignity. We can believe all those things at the same time.”

The next day, Johnson confirmed that “all single-sex facilities in the Capitol and House Office Buildings (like restrooms, changing rooms, and locker rooms) are reserved only for individuals of that biological sex,” including a proposal to that effect by Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina in the official rules for the next House session, Axios reported.

“Like all policies, it’s enforceable. We have single-sex facilities for a reason. Women deserve women’s only spaces,” he added. “We’re not anti-anyone. We’re pro-woman. I think it’s an important policy for us to continue. It’s always been, I guess, an unwritten policy, but now it’s in writing.”

Many left-wing activists are excoriating the move as an act of “intolerance,” but for the time being, McBride himself is taking it in stride, calling it a distraction from “the real issues” and declaring he is “not here to fight about bathrooms. I’m here to fight for Delawareans and to bring down costs facing families.”

McBride’s lack of outrage may also be due to recognition that the American people are broadly uninterested in the transgender agenda. Exit polling by the pro-Democrat firm Blueprint found that the statement that outgoing Vice President “Kamala Harris is focused more on cultural issues like transgender issues rather than helping the middle class” was the third biggest reason for why overall voters chose not to vote for her, and the number one reason why swing voters rejected her and voted for former President Donald Trump instead.