Nancy Mace’s proposal to cut bathroom access for trans women in the Capitol is the latest in the building’s long history of excluding women lawmakers.

It would take 75 years for congresswomen to have any restrooms adjacent to the Senate floor. And in 2011, nearly a century after Jeannette Rankin became the first woman in Congress, women lawmakers got their first bathroom near the House chamber.

In recent years, women lawmakers have had to use the private quarters of the Speaker of the House just to find a restroom that reliably stocks tampons and pads. Banning trans women from women’s restrooms would continue a long history at the U.S. Capitol of women lawmakers being forced to find alternate ways to simply do their job.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOP
    11·
    20 hours ago

    At the very least, the speaker’s office does, I believe, have a chair behind the desk and if a trans congresswoman can’t go to the bathroom, I’m guessing it’s easy access.

    • IninewCrow@lemmy.caEnglish
      10·
      20 hours ago

      It’s so stupid for a country as wealthy as America though … why don’t they just have 50 private bathrooms that anyone can use of any gender or identity one at a time in private. For politicians as wealthy as these idiots, it’s a joke to think that they would prefer communal toilets like common people use.

      • Nollij@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        2·
        2 hours ago

        You’re solving a very different problem. You’re addressing how to make restrooms better for all members of Congress.

        The bill in question is about how to publicly hurt a minority group, in order to galvanize their supporters.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOP
        11·
        20 hours ago

        I don’t get it either. I really don’t care who is in a bathroom with me anyway. I don’t go in there to make friends. I don’t even know what they think she’s going to do in there.

        • IninewCrow@lemmy.caEnglish
          7·
          20 hours ago

          I’m completely open and accepting of anyone of any identity. I’d enter and use a public bathroom with anyone as long as we were all safe.

          But if I had the choice or the wealth, I would much rather prefer to just go to the toilet alone with no one else around of any gender, identity, religion, race, age, colour, species, terrestrial or extraterrestrial. I really don’t like doing those things around other people.

          If I had that much wealth and control, I’d want to pee or poop in peace and never sit or stand next to anyone while I was doing my business.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOP
            12·
            20 hours ago

            Really, I don’t see a reason why stalls couldn’t be more like walled cubicles that would ensure total privacy.