Sarah McBride is the first openly transgender person elected to the US Congress, but she’s not the first trans politician to be barred from using the bathroom of her choice by a hostile congressional colleague.
Back in 2006, when Vladimir Luxuria, newly elected in Italy, was sitting in the parliament, he was banned from using the ladies’ room for a short time. He said his heart breaks for McBride, a Democrat from Delaware.
“They did it to me,” Luxuria, 59, told NBC News by phone from her home in Rome. “What happened to Sarah McBride is class politics.”
The question of which bathroom McBride could use in the next Congress came up last week with Nancy Mays, a South Carolina Republican and staunch supporter of President-elect Donald Trump. presented a resolution to prohibit lawmakers and House staff from “using single-sex facilities other than those corresponding to their biological sex.”
When asked if the move was specifically in response to McBride, Mace said, “yes and definitely, and then some.” Not long after, House Speaker Mike Johnson, also a Republican and Trump supporter, said he supported limiting “single-sex facilities,” including restrooms, to “persons of that biological sex” in the Capitol.
McBride, a Type in Xresponded: “Every day Americans go to work with people who have different life journeys than their own and deal with them with respect, and I hope that members of Congress will also muster that kind of kindness.”
Luxuria, an actress and activist who left parliament in 2008, followed in the footsteps of the late Georgina Beyer, a New Zealander who became the world’s first openly transgender member of parliament when she was elected in 1999.
The only transgender woman to serve in the national parliament is Poland’s Anna Grodzka, who was elected in 2011 and served a four-year term.
Luxuria said she endured a lifetime of “cruelty” but was still shocked when she confronted Elisabetta Gardini, an Italian lawmaker who was a supporter of then-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, “outside the women’s toilet”.
“I always went to the women’s bathroom because if I tried to use the men’s bathroom, they would be embarrassed and demand to know what I was doing in there,” Luxuria said. “So when I got out, I was surprised when Gardini started shouting at me: ‘What were you doing here! You’re a man!”
Luxuria said Gardini was “very angry” but was determined not to back down.
She told Guardini: “Well, I’m a trans woman. But if you don’t want to see me here, go, you have to use the men’s room.”
Luxuria said that Gardini left in a panic and soon “the question of where I can go to the toilet became a debate in Parliament”.
“I was lucky because in the end the MPs decided I could use the women’s bathroom,” she said. “But it was a shame that it became an issue.”
Luxuria said she had doubts about why Gardini, who was a well-known actress and TV personality before entering politics, was after her.
“I suspect that Berlusconi’s party wanted to turn this into an issue to attack my opposition party. “So I have a lot of sympathy for Sarah McBride.”
Gardini did not respond to an email seeking comment.
It should be noted that Mace once described himself as such LGBT supporterQ social moderate, Luxuria said she believes Mays’ attack on McBride is part of a larger plan to divide Democrats and force them to defend an issue that still “concerns” many Americans.
“The goal here is to create hatred for political purposes,” Luxuria said.
McBride and Mace did not respond to NBC News’ request for comment.
After Vice President Kamala Harris lost to Trump, some Democrats and experts of the Biden administration support for transgender rights As one reason why the Republicans won.
They noted that Republicans have spent more than $200 million on repeated network television ads highlighting Harris’ past support for taxpayer-funded gender-affirming care treatments. During NFL and college football games.
During his four years in the Polish parliament, Grodzka also faced verbal attacks repeatedly the wrong gender Polish MP Krystyna Pawlowicz. one Interview with Pink NewsIn 2013, Grodzka, a UK-based LGBTQ digital news outlet, largely rejected transphobic comments.
“Krystyna is a very conservative person, so I’m probably a bit too much for her,” Grodza said. [perfect] the person who has to go to church, etc… In that case, I’m spoiling his image, so that’s a reason for him to attack me.”
In recent years – nearly a decade after he left parliament – Grodzka still visits occasionally to end personal attacks From Polish MPs, because the country’s right wing embraces anti-LGBTQ sentiments.
In a 2002 documentary about Beyer called Georgie Girl, Beyer said she often faced questions about her gender identity that other politicians didn’t have to endure.
“I am asked questions that no politician should answer” he said. “As for the operation, you know. “Did it hurt? or, ‘Is it different when you have sex as a woman now than when you have sex as a man?’ Well, honey, it’s clear.”