Trump win emboldens GOP's anti-trans blitz

• Democrats, paralyzed by post-election finger-pointing, have been blindsided by the apparent potency of Republicans' anti-trans fear-mongering.
• Meanwhile, the trans community — already a historically marginalized population — has been left wondering who exactly is standing with them.

Driving the news: House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) announced Wednesday that transgender people are henceforth banned from bathrooms on the House side of the Capitol complex that correspond to their gender identity.

• Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) had introduced a bill to that effect and made clear she was targeting her soon-to-be House colleague. "Sarah McBride doesn't get a say in this," Mace said. "If you're a biological man, you shouldn't be in women's restrooms."
• Even moderate Republicans told Axios' Andrew Solender they were unlikely to oppose Mace's bill. "I mean — a presidential election may have been decided on this issue," one said.

Zoom out: This goes far beyond Washington. There was a huge spike in anti-trans legislation at the state and federal level last year, and a record 665 such bills have been introduced this year, per the Trans Legislation Tracker.

• The bills target a range of things from youth sports participation to bathrooms to pronouns in classrooms.
• Republicans introduced 32 anti-trans bills just on the first day of the pre-filing period ahead of Texas' 2025 legislative sessions, journalist Erin Reed reports.
• Ohio's legislature passed a statewide bathroom ban on college campuses on its first day back in session after the election last week.

The other side: While Democrats were appalled by Mace's bill — "This is not just bigotry, this is just plain bullying," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) told Solender — they're divided over how to handle the broader issue.

• In a closed-door meeting last week, Democratic senators lamented that they'd felt ambushed by relentless anti-trans campaign ads, Axios' Stephen Neukam reported.
• One ad targeting defeated Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said he voted for "allowing trans biological men in girls' locker rooms" and "sex change surgery for kids." Brown released an ad of his own asking voters to "reject the lies."
• Vice President Harris mostly ignored Trump's anti-trans ads, which aired on repeat in swing states in the closing weeks and hardly mentioned the word "trans" during the campaign.
• Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), meanwhile, faced calls to resign from within his own party after telling the New York Times after the election: "I have two little girls, I don't want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat I'm supposed to be afraid to say that."

Reality check: Republicans have bet on the anti-trans agenda as a winning strategy, even when the issues on the table affect a tiny share of Americans — and the population targeted by the bills is among the likeliest to suffer from anxiety and depression.

• "It's amazing how strongly people feel about this," Trump said during a 2023 event in North Carolina. "I talk about transgender, everyone goes crazy, who would have thought five years ago you didn't know what the hell it was."
• In 2021, AP reached out to lawmakers in 20 states who had proposed youth sports bans and found that almost none of them could cite any examples of transgender athletes' participation posing problems in their own states.

State of play: McBride privately counseled her Democratic colleagues to cast the fight over bathroom access as a distraction from real issues their constituents are facing, as NOTUS first reported, and said she would follow the rules Johnson laid out "even if I disagree with them."

• "It is a sad day when pointless culture wars, including gatekeeping the toilets of Capitol Hill, are more important for politicians than doing their actual jobs for the taxpayers who hired them," GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis told Axios in a statement.
• Hakeem Jeffries, the top House Democrat, scolded Republicans: "This is your priority?"

Friction point: Some in the trans community have criticized McBride, and Democratic leaders, for ceding the issue to Republicans and not pushing back harder.

• The new rules on Capitol Hill were announced on Transgender Day of Remembrance, which commemorates people who have been killed or attacked because they were trans.

Go deeper: LGBTQ+ Americans bracing for Trump's takeover