A South Carolina congresswoman, Nancy Mace, is doubling down on her transgender bathroom bill by introducing a secondary proposal that would extend the ban to all single-sex facilities on federal property across the country. Her latest bill, titled the “Protecting Women’s Private Spaces Act,” seeks to “prohibit individuals from accessing or using single-sex facilities on federal property other than those corresponding to their biological sex.” “Oh you thought threatening me would silence me? No. I just doubled down and filed a new bill to protect women and girls across the entire country on all federal property everywhere,” Ms. Mace wrote in a post on X on Wednesday morning, attaching the text of the bill. In another post, she pledged that she “won’t be quiet because some man tells me to.”The speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, issued a statement on Wednesday morning clarifying the Capitol’s existing rules on facilities access, noting that “all single-sex facilities in the Capitol and House Office Buildings” including restrooms, changing rooms, and locker rooms, “are reserved for individuals of that biological sex.”Mr. Johnson added that each Member office contains its own private restroom, and that “unisex” restrooms are available throughout the Capitol. He signed off his statement with the message that “women deserve women’s only spaces.”Ms. Mace’s new proposal comes on the heels of a bill she proposed on Monday that would amend the rules of the House of Representatives to prevent House members, officers, and employees from using Capitol facilities designed “for the opposite biological sex.” Ms. Mace described the resolution, in a press release, as a means to “standing up for women, protecting their spaces, and restoring a bit of sanity to Capitol Hill.” The effort, according to Ms. Mace, was “absolutely” inspired by the recent election of the first trangender member of Congress, Sarah McBride, who will serve in the House beginning next year. “I’m absolutely 100 percent gonna stand in the way of any man who wants to be in a women’s restroom, in our locker rooms, in our changing rooms. I will be there fighting you every step of the way,” Ms. Mace told reporters on Tuesday. The Congresswoman has also cited her experience as a victim of sexual violence and abuse as a motivator for “unapologetically” working to “protect women in vulnerable places like our locker rooms, restrooms and sports teams.” A barrage of criticism was soon launched at Ms. Mace, who, by Tuesday evening, told reporters that “They are threatening to kill me over this. Men that want to use women’s restrooms are threatening to kill me over this issue.” Critics of the bill began to post videos of themselves unleashing violent tirades against Ms. Mace. In one recently-deleted video, an LGBTQ activist, who goes by the Instagram handle @venuspeenis, threatened to grab the congresswoman by her “ratty looking f—ing hair” and “drag” her face “down to floor while I repeatedly bash it in until the bloods everywhere” and she’s “dead.” The lawmaker at the center of the debate, Ms. McBride, responded to the resolution by denouncing it as a “blatant attempt from far right-wing extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing,” adding that, “We should be focused on bringing down the cost of housing, health care, and child care, not manufacturing culture wars.”Following Mr. Johnson’s announcement about the new rules, she said — like all other members of Congress — she would comply with them “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,” she said Wednesday in a statement. “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,” she added. “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 of my colleagues will seek to do the same with me.”Ms. Mace, however, vowed not to let her opponents “bully me into submission” telling NewsNation that “I can’t be threatened. You can’t threaten my life enough. That means I’m just gonna double and triple, quadruple down on this issue.”
