Since being elected to the House of Representatives at the start of November, Sarah McBride has been lauded as a groundbreaking first and then castigated for her response to Republican attacks. Had the power in the House, Senate, or the Presidency not gone to the Republicans, the atmosphere she entered might have been different. But with the situation as it is, McBride now finds herself in a no-win situation where she’ll be attacked no matter what she does, and it’s important that we remember who the real villain is here.
The Republicans made short work of pushing through rules to ban McBride and all trans people from using the correct restrooms on Capitol Hill. Spearheaded by Nancy Mace, with the support of Marjorie Taylor Greene and House Speaker Mike Johnson, the attacks have been rife with misgendering and even included threats of violence.
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Marjorie Taylor Greene vows to also fight to ban McBride from women’s facilities, saying, “I’m sick of this sh*t.”
Sarah McBride herself now finds herself being attacked for her own role in the situation. In response to Johnson’s decree that people in the Capitol must use the restrooms that align with their gender assigned at birth, McBride put out a statement, disagreeing with the idea but saying she will follow the rules. She went on to call focus on her bathroom access an “attempt to distract from what they are actually doing.”
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It’s easy to see why many are upset by McBride seeming to cave quickly on the issue. Letting the Republicans have this win so easily quickly emboldened them. On the same day that McBride issued her statement, Mace released plans to push a bathroom bill across all federal buildings, which would extend to airports and national parks. If the highest-ranking trans politician in the United States is giving in to bathroom bans, what hope does that leave for trans youth across the country who are facing the same prejudice, and what message does it send to their oppressors?
Much has been made of McBride’s assertion that these bathroom ban issues are a distraction from the real problems facing people in the United States. On the one hand, that can be read as being extremely dismissive of a massive problem that is affecting a huge number of trans people across the country. When trans people can’t access bathrooms, sports, or healthcare, and when trans people are attacked in the streets, that’s not just a distraction, it’s a critical problem that needs to be addressed.
On the other hand, McBride is absolutely right that this is a distraction tactic, and the election proved how dangerous it is as a distraction. Not only does it put trans people at risk, but by making people worry about trans people rather than, for example, the economy, it becomes that much easier for the Republicans to seize control and then claim that they have a mandate to do whatever they want. And that includes continuing to codify discrimination against trans people as a further way to make people look away from the things they’re doing to line their own pockets. These attacks on McBride combine with all of the other anti-trans legislation as a means for the new Republican government to control the conversation, and that’s what McBride’s fuller comment is really about:
Every single time we hear them say the word trans, look what they’re doing with their right hand. Look at what they’re doing to pick the pocket of American workers, to fleece seniors by privatizing Social Security and Medicare. Look what they’re doing undermining workers…. Every bit of time and energy that is used to divert the attention of federal government to go after trans people is time and energy that is not focused on addressing the cost of living for our constituents…. There is a real cost for the American worker every time they focus on this.
There are opportunities for us to find common ground, but it’s also clear that this administration, as it begins to fill its appointments with Project 2025 authors, that a lot of the policies that this president will pursue will likely hurt my constituents and raise prices. And so where I need to fight back, I will. But where I can find common ground, I will certainly seek it.
The fact that these actions are a distraction doesn’t mean that they don’t need to be stopped. Would it have been nice to see McBride fight back virulently against Mace, Greene, and Johnson and yell Rage Against the Machine lyrics at them? Absolutely. But playing that out proves how much of a no-win situation this really is for McBride. She is in an unenviable position where all the powers of her new workspace are marshaled against her. If she had stood up to this, undoubtedly the response would have been a transphobic claim that Mace & Co were right, that she is really an aggressive and angry man who just wants to assault women. And that would have become fodder for the next pitch just as easily. On top of all of that, it would likely end up losing her any re-election bids as it would make it easy for opponents to spin her resistance as her championing “her own interests” rather than working on the issues she was elected to represent. Opening herself up to such attacks wouldn’t just risk Republicans drumming her our by discrediting her with her constituents. It would also discourage other trans people from running because of this treatment and discourage voters from supporting trans legislators for fear that whatever their platform they’ll really only focus on trans rights.
Was McBride’s response perfect here? No. It would have been nice to see her find a middle ground, perhaps agreeing to acquiesce for the moment, but pushing the matter through due process. In the meantime, it would be good to see her use this platform to highlight the way that trans people are being abused across the country and to call out those who are at fault. We didn’t see that, and sure, that’s disappointing.
The issue surrounding McBride’s response to these attacks is the larger problem we find ourselves in here. Across the country, trans youth are being forced into activism, forced to fight for basic rights and making transness their whole public identity. They should be able to just be the people they are, the gender they are, without having to be defined by their transness. That’s what Sarah McBride wants for herself: she has always run on platforms focused on matters of healthcare, reproductive freedom, workers’ rights, and family concerns. LGBTQ+ issues have never been her main focus, but she is pigeon-holed into them because of her own identity. She has notably said “I didn’t run to be a first. I didn’t run to make history. I ran to serve this state that I love and to deliver for Delawareans.” Is this a time when someone can choose not to focus on bathroom access? Do we want to let Republicans dictate where her focus can be as a legislator? Do we force a trans representative to be trans and nothing more? It’s a hard line to work out and one that has more nuance than most discussion has allowed.
Ultimately, yelling at McBride and throwing her under the bus for this response doesn’t help anyone other than the Republicans who created this situation. Those are the people that deserve our vitriol and that we need to fight back against. McBride needs our community’s support against these Republicans that are attacking her. She is just as much a victim of this system, and just as entitled to live her life without it being defined by her gender identity as the 12-year-old who isn’t allowed to use the bathroom at school.
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With such a catastrophic election, the Democrats were always going to start playing the blame game. And now the loss is trans people’s fault, apparently.
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