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“I’m here to fight for Delawareans and to bring down costs facing families,” McBride said. “Like all members, I will follow the rules as outlined by Speaker Johnson 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.”
I could never fathom being this graceful against people literally trying to deny me the right to exist
I worry if it’s the best strategy. She decided to take the high road, but members of vilified minority groups don’t really have that as an option.
McBride ran as a very milquetoast centrist Democrat. She ran on helping Delwareans with real kitchen-table issues, she didn’t run on her identity at all. Her whole message is, “look, trans people are just ordinary people. I’m running as an ordinary person. I promise not to make a big stink about being trans. I just want to help my neighbors.” And of course, like any centrist Democrat, she immediately stated she was willing to work across the aisle. She’s centrist Democrat to the core, fetishistic bipartisanship and all.
But here is the problem. Republicans DO NOT WANT and WILL NOT LET a trans person simply be “ordinary.” They want every trans person to have to be a radical bomb thrower. They portray trans people as blue-haired bomb-throwing radicals, and having a very assimilationist trans person just acting like a normal person isn’t something they can tolerate. They NEED her to be a radical. And they are going to force her, one way or another, to speak up for trans rights.
It starts with bathrooms, but it doesn’t end there. The House has a gendered dress code. Are they going to make her wear a men’s suit? Are they going to require that all colleagues refer to her as he/him? Are they going to deadname her on the House floor? What level of humiliation is she willing to put up with before she finally starts speaking up for herself?
Even if she is willing to personally put up with any level of humiliation, is she willing to sacrifice her own constituents for the sake of respectability politics? She is willing to abide by the House Speaker’s ruling, but would she herself be willing to vote for a federal law that prohibits trans people from using restrooms on all federal property? How about any of the hundred other anti-trans laws Republicans would want to pass?
Eventually, if she wants to stick with this, “they go low, we go high” approach, she will end up having to vote for overtly Fascist policies. They will deliberately put her in situations where she has to vote to materially harm herself and other trans people. And at that point, it becomes much harder to actually stand up for your principles.
What argument could she make to oppose a federal nationwide bathroom ban? She already agreed to abide by the principle that trans women should use men’s restrooms. If she tries to object now, she will seem like a hypocrite.
This is ultimately the problem that assimilationists always run into. You can try to be one of the good ones. You can tell everyone that your minority status simply shouldn’t be an issue at all. The problem is that, however much you try, bullies MAKE your minority status an issue. McBride tried to simply take the high road and ignore her trans status entirely, but ultimately that’s unlikely to work. Republicans have already taken advantage of her timidity to humiliate her. And they won’t stop until she is forced one way or another to vocally stand up for trans rights. And unless she is willing to actively vote for her own community’s destruction, at some point, her hand will be forced.
It’s a trap, and she’s seemed to have walked right into it.
She’s going to get harassed and possibly assaulted in the men’s room. I guarantee it.
MAGA told us creepy men and male rapists wanted to use the law to be able to use the same bathrooms as women
The maga people were the creeps and rapists and they got their wish
Damn, Republicans are obsessed with genitals.
That’s quite easy to explain; they are mostly sexually frustrated after all.
all they have to do is invite like 30 trans men to the capital for a week and you will see a quick repeal of this policy.
Okay, I hope Democrats legit physically block men from going in the bathroom while she’s in the men’s bathroom.
Everyone in the house with morals rises to follow her to the bathroom and stands guard. Epic.
Both of them
Hmm… AOC and Bernie?
Fortunately for her there are gender neutral bathrooms available so she won’t have to
Edit: I am a trans woman and would never be willing to step into a men’s room. Leave it to Lemmy to interpret my original comment in such a backwards bad faith interpretation.
And there were plenty of “colored only” water fountains.
The truth is that, here in the real world, gender-neutral bathrooms are always few and far between. And even when they can be found, they’re usually single stall. And people use them for all sorts of purposes. Sometimes they’re used as lactation rooms when proper facilities aren’t available. Sometimes they’re randomly locked. Or you might just get caught behind some asshole who decides to play on the phone for an hour. In a normal restroom, one person hogging the pot doesn’t interrupt things. If there’s only one stall, it does.
Separate but equal is never equal. It is never equal, because the majority never bothers to make the alternative ghetto they reserved for the minority truly equal in kind, quality, and character to that which the majority uses.
There is, however, a simple solution. Trans people can simply use the restroom that they feel the most comfortable in. If someone simply doesn’t feel safe with the possibility of sharing a bathroom with a trans person, we have an option for them. They can use the single stall restrooms we’ve positioned throughout the building.
And really, this approach just makes more sense. The people who don’t want to share bathrooms tend to tilt older and with more wealth and influence behind them. Thus, the bigots have a lot more political capital than trans people do. As such, if we require bigots to use the separate but equal restroom, the bigots actually have the better shot of insuring the restroom that corresponds to their needs is properly funded.
And finally, is this not the approach with anyone who has bigotries around bathrooms? There are still some racists out there who don’t like sharing restrooms with people of color. And they cite the exact same vague irrational safety fears as bigots do. And we should tell both of them that if you have a problem using the common shared space, that you can go ahead and use the single-user restroom.
They need to just hire a bunch of trans men for their staff. Hundreds of men using the women’s bathroom on the orders of Johnson would be fun.
He’s such a fucking creep.
Democrats should go all in. Add an amendment for genital inspectors to access the bathroom.
“Ah Mr Cruz. Little below average, but it is technically a penis. Carry on.”
Or one of those airport scanners that can see under your clothes.
Given how much trans porn keeps finding its way on conservative computers (and there’s nothing wrong with that if you aren’t a bigot) i seriously worry she’s going to be sexually assaulted in there. I trust her to not let it stop her, I’m sure she knew it was a likely possibility, but yeah she’s not safe in there
Look at him with his rosy cheeks and old grandma’s glasses.
I swear this guy’s closeted and just projecting. Like many conservative Christians.
He kinda looks like Stephen Colbert if he had been dead for a week.
