‘Obsessive and unhinged’: Trans Rep. Zooey Zephyr slams Capitol bathroom ban
When Sarah McBride was elected as the first transgender member of Congress, she was greeted by a tirade of bigotry. Republican Nancy Mace decided she didn’t get to use the women’s bathrooms, and no transgender person would be able to use the right bathroom on her watch.
On Wednesday, November 20, which so happened to be Transgender Day of Remembrance, Speaker Mike Johnson declared, “All single-sex facilities in the Capitol and House Office Buildings—such as restrooms, changing rooms, and locker rooms—are reserved for individuals of that biological sex. Women deserve women’s only spaces.” So now, transgender men will be restricted to the women’s bathroom. Furthermore, how is someone expected to prove they’re not transgender? Genital inspections?
One of the people most angry about this is Zooey Zephyr. In 2022, she became the first trans person elected to the Montana legislature, and she’s likewise faced rampant transphobia. The bathroom ban affects her too, and she’s defying it, as she wrote in an impassioned series of posts on X.
Quoting Mike Johnson’s statement, she said, “I literally just got out of meetings with members of Congress and used the bathroom on my way out. Trans women are women—full stop. We’re every bit as “biologically female” as cis women and @SpeakerJohnson’s statement doesn’t change the fact that women’s spaces include trans women.”
She went on, “This rage-baiting is so detached from the day-to-day reality of being trans. It’s obsessive and unhinged and an endless reminder that these folks have nothing to offer but fear and rage.”
And she had more to say. After that, she reposted a clip of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticizing the bathroom ban. The politician, colloquially known as AOC, said:
“What Nancy Mace and what Speaker Johnson are doing are endangering all women and girls. Because if you ask them, ‘What is your plan on how to enforce this?’ they won’t come up with an answer. And what it inevitably results in are women and girls, who are primed for assault, because people are gonna want to check their private parts … The idea that Nancy Mace wants little girls and women to drop trou in front of who? An investigator? Who would that be?”
Zephyr said in her quote repost, “Well said! Every attack on trans people is an effort to both manufacture rage for distraction/fundraising purposes [and] drive trans people out of public life[.] And the logistics of the policies always boil down to Republicans making cis women less safe while blaming trans people.”
Sarah McBride herself has been handling all this very well. She put out a statement on November 20 saying that she was “not here to fight about bathrooms” but instead for “Delawareans and to bring down costs facing families.” Let’s hope she gets the chance to continue her good work, and that Zooey Zephyr does too. Unfortunately, prominent TERF J.K. Rowling has already noticed Zephyr and launched a rant at her. Here’s hoping this storm will be over soon, people like Nancy Mace will retreat into their hate-filled holes, and no one will need to have their private parts inspected before entering a bathroom.
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