Transgender activists staged a protest on Capitol Hill Thursday after Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) said that she opposed allowing a new colleague access to the ladies' restroom, Huffington Post reporter Jen Bendery posted on X.
Deleware Congresswoman-elect Sarah McBride, a Democrat, will be the first transgender member in Congress, and Mace is fighting her access to bathrooms in the Capitol. There are a number of gender-neutral bathrooms in the buildings on Capitol Hill, however.
The activists include Chelsea Manning, the former U.S. Army soldier who was convicted by court-martial for leaking classified information to the website Wikileaks, Bendery said.
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Holding signs reading "Flush Bathroom Bigotry" and "Congress Stop Pissing on Our Rights," the protesters filled the bathroom in the Cannon office building, which happened to be next to Speaker Mike Johnson's office.
"Trans rights are under attack! What do we do? Act up! Fight back!" they chanted, according to one video uploaded to X by, Jason Rosenberg, a communications staffer of AVAC, an advocacy and information organization that does HIV prevention.
Teen Vogue news and politics editor Lex McMenamin posted that the activists were also chanting, "Speaker Johnson, Nancy Mace: Our Bodies are not a debate!"
DailyMail political reporter Jon Michael Raasch posted on X that the Capitol Police were dealing with the situation and breaking up the protest.
Bendery captured the moment with a photo showing a single officer walking up to the group.
