As I read Congressional Representatives Nancy Mace (R-SC) and Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) comments about transgender people, the lyrics of the song “Easy to Be Hard” from the Broadway musical Hair came to mind:
How can people be so heartless? How can people be so cruel? Easy to be hard Easy to be cold
How can people have no feelings How can they ignore their friends Easy to be proud Easy to say no
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Since the historic election of state senator, Sarah McBride (D-DE), as the first out transgender woman to win a seat in Congress, Mace announced she is proposing a resolution to amend the rules of the US House of Representatives to bar transgender women from using women’s restrooms in the Capitol.
Asked about whether such a change of rules would affect Representative-elect McBride, Mace told reporters: “Sarah McBride doesn’t get a say. I mean, this is a biological man,” adding that McBride “does not belong in women’s spaces, women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms, period, full stop.”
In front of a pool of reporters at the Capitol, Speaker Johnson stated that he is attempting to “provide accommodations for every member of Congress.” He refused to comment on any proposed actions, and he said: “This is an issue Congress has never addressed before.”
It seemed clear by his additional comments where his vote on the rule change would fall: “For anyone who doesn’t know my established record on this issue, let me be unequivocally clear,” he said with a sense of solemn reserve, “a man is a man, and a woman is a woman, and a man cannot become a woman. That said, I also believe that’s what scripture teaches, what I just said.”
The Speaker then spoke from the other side of his mouth: “But I also believe we treat everybody with dignity. We can do and believe all those things at the same time.”
Oh really? Can one ban a person from public facilities aligning with their gender identity while simultaneously treating “everybody with dignity”?
Let me see if I can articulate what they are saying.
They can support a man for the highest office in the land who publicly admitted to grabbing women’s genitals, someone who was charged and convicted of raping a woman, someone who was convicted of violating federal election laws by paying a porn star for her silence, but it’s transgender women who are the stalkers and predators of women.
They can support the nomination of a former congressman to head the Department of Justice as the Attorney General of the United States who has been credibly charged with paying an underage woman for sex, and who gloats upon the floor of the House of Representatives about his sexual exploits, but the problem is transgender women who are the stalkers and predators of women.
They can support the nomination of a former Fox “News” host to head the Department of Defense who is alleged to have paid a woman who accused him of sexual assault to remain quiet, but the problem is transgender women who are the stalkers and predators of women.
The Republicans have further marginalized, stereotyped, and demonized trans people in their march to the White House and Congress. During the past year, the Republican Party spent approximately $215 million in TV network ads, some of which they broadcast during NFL games, targeting trans people as a national threat to women’s sports and claiming they consume taxpayer funds to undergo gender affirmation procedures when incarcerated.
Is this, Mr. Speaker, treating everyone with dignity? And since you claim so often to follow “what scripture teaches,” then evidently, you have little respect for women and girls, whether trans or not.
Christian Testaments: On Women
1 Timothy 2:9
· I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes.
1 Timothy 2:11-12
· Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent.
1 Corinthians 11:3
· But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.
1 Corinthians 11:5
· And every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head – it is just as though her head were shaved.
1 Corinthians 14:33-35, 37
· As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silence in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. . . what I am writing to you is a command of the Lord.
Ephesians 5:22
· Wives, be submissive to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.
Colossians 3:18
· Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.
And so, Mike Johnson and Nancy Mace, I ask you:
How can [you] be so heartless? How can [you] be so cruel?
The only person with dignity here is Sarah McBride, who lives her life authentically with self-respect and serves as a heroic role model among people like Mace and Johnson who shame themselves, their Party, and their nation.
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