A trans bathroom controversy in Congress.

I’m Isaac Saul, and this is Tangle: an independent, nonpartisan, subscriber-supported politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from across the political spectrum on the news of the day — then “my take.”

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Today's read: 14 minutes.

Two corrections.

Last week, readers flagged errors in our editions on Biden’s decision to authorize Ukraine to use long-range weapons in Russia and the Matt Gaetz ethics report. 

Toward the end of the “My take” section of the Ukraine edition, we wrote, “What we've done instead is create exactly the kind of war of attrition Russia is built to win, spent exorbitant amounts of money on weapons, and allowed a million Ukrainians and Russians to die.” The linked article in this sentence was highlighted in our Numbers section, where we correctly noted that one million was the number of Ukrainians and Russians killed or wounded in the war. Unfortunately, when we used this figure in the take, we inadvertently missed copying over the “or wounded” part of the sentence from Numbers. 

In the “My take” section of the Matt Gaetz edition, we mistakenly wrote that former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) had become the mayor of Houston after he resigned from Congress. This was a classic case of getting your wires crossed — in the process of writing about former Congressmen who resigned amid ethics scandals, we mixed up Foley and former Rep. Bill Boner (D-TN), as well as the city in question. In reality, Boner was the one who retired and then became mayor, and the city was Nashville, not Houston. 

We’ve found that errors like these tend to come in bunches, so here’s hoping that we’ve got them out of our system and will now start a multi-month streak without a correction. 

These are our 120th and 121st corrections in Tangle's 277-week history and our first corrections since November 13. We track corrections and place them at the top of the newsletter in an effort to maximize transparency with readers.

A special week.

Quick hits.

1. Former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) withdrew from consideration for attorney general, stating that his nomination had become a distraction for President-elect Donald Trump’s transition. (The withdrawal) Shortly after Gaetz’s announcement, Trump said he would nominate former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi (R) for attorney general. (The nomination) 
2. Sen. Bob Casey (D) conceded to Dave McCormick (R) in Pennsylvania’s Senate race. After the concession, Pennsylvania’s secretary of the commonwealth announced the state was stopping its recount at Casey’s request. (The concession)
3. President-elect Trump made his final picks for his Cabinet advisers requiring Senate confirmation, announcing investor Scott Bessent as his nominee for Treasury secretary. (The nomination) Additionally, Trump chose Brooke Rollins, head of the America First Policy Institute, for Agriculture secretary. (The nomination) Trump also nominated former Texas lawmaker Scott Turner for Housing and Urban Development secretary. (The nomination) Finally, Trump selected outgoing Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (D-WA) for Labor secretary. (The nomination)
4. Judge Juan Merchan indefinitely postponed President-elect Trump’s sentencing for his conviction in the “hush money” case in New York. Merchan set a Dec. 2 deadline for Trump’s lawyers to file a motion seeking to dismiss the case outright. (The delay)
5. Israel carried out an airstrike on a building in Beirut reportedly targeting top Hezbollah commander Muhammad Haydar. The strike killed at least 29 people, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. (The strike) Separately, Hezbollah fired an estimated 250 rockets and other projectiles into Israel, with some rockets reaching the Tel Aviv area. Seven people were wounded in one of the militant group’s heaviest barrages in months. (The attacks)

Today's topic.

The transgender bathroom bill in Congress. Last Monday, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) introduced a resolution requiring Members, officers, and employees of the House of Representatives to use bathrooms corresponding to their biological sex at the Capitol and in House office buildings. Then, on Wednesday, Mace released the text of a bill that would establish the same rule for all individuals in federal buildings. Mace said she introduced the bill in response to Sarah McBride’s (D-DE) election to the House. McBride is the first transgender person elected to Congress. 

Note: You can read our editorial standards for trans issues and pronoun use here. 

Shortly after Mace unveiled her bill, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) announced new policies for facilities in the Capitol. "All single-sex facilities in the Capitol and House Office Buildings — such as restrooms, changing rooms, and locker rooms — are reserved for individuals of that biological sex," Johnson said in a statement. 

In response to the policy, McBride said she would “follow the rules as outlined by Speaker Johnson, even if I disagree with them,” adding, “I’m not here to fight about bathrooms. I’m here to fight for Delawareans, and to bring down costs facing families.” 

Mace said the issue was a question of women’s rights and safety. “I'm a victim of abuse myself. I'm a rape survivor," she said. "I have PTSD from the abuse I've suffered at the hands of a man, and I know how vulnerable women and girls are in private spaces, so I'm absolutely 100% going to stand in the way of any man who wants to be in a women's restroom, in our locker rooms, in our changing rooms.” 

After initially saying that he would not “engage in silly debates” about the issue, Johnson made a follow-up statement affirming his belief that “a man is a man, and a woman is a woman, and a man cannot become a woman.” He added, “I also believe that we treat everybody with dignity, and so we can do and believe all those things at the same time.”

Most House Democrats have expressed support for McBride and criticized Mace’s effort as unproductive and cruel. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) called the bill “bullying." Additionally, Mace's former communications director Natalie Johnson suggested the bill was “a ploy for media attention.” 

Today, we’ll explore perspectives from the right and left on Mace’s bill and transgender issues in the U.S. Then, my take.

What the right is saying.

• The right mostly backs Mace’s bill, framing it as commonsense policy that should be the norm in the U.S. 
• Some argue the debate over trans women and bathrooms is a sign of America’s cultural decline. 
• Others question whether Mace’s bill addresses a real issue.

In The Washington Examiner, Kimberly Ross wrote “yes, keep men out of women’s spaces — in Congress and everywhere else.”

“It’s reasonable to assume that Mace’s actions are partly political theater. Her social media posts about the issue include a video of the representative placing the word ‘biological’ above the ‘Women’ sign outside a Capitol Hill restroom and other quips such as, ‘Does the Left ever get tired of being weird?’ But the South Carolina representative is a survivor of rape, domestic violence, and abuse. This is personal,” Ross said. “It should go without saying that biological men don’t belong in bathrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms, or similar spaces with biological women. But such a reasonable declaration is met with claims of bigotry in 2024.

“You’re not standing up for the rights of women and girls; you’re actively engaging in hate, according to far too many LGBT activists who wish to co-opt traditional areas reserved for girls and women. The reaction is such that those demanding basic decency, protection, and a continuation of what has been in place for decades are treated as the ill-tempered radicals,” Ross wrote. “The issue of transgender Americans and bathrooms or similar facilities isn’t the most pressing issue of our time. But it does deserve attention when women and girls are increasingly pushed aside and dismissed, by Democrats and Republicans alike, for speaking up. It’s an issue of right and wrong. It’s also a safety issue. We deserve to feel protected from potential predators.”

In Blaze Media, Delano Squires said the attacks on Mace’s stance “underscore our ongoing descent into madness.”

“Some of the most outspoken women in our culture on abortion rights, pay equity, climate change, and politics are now scared to speak about the very thing they have built their identity around: womanhood. They spent decades trying to smash the patriarchy only to submit to the men leading the ‘theytriarchy,’” Squires wrote. “The party that spent the last few months saying it would defend women is unwilling to define a ‘woman’ publicly. The feminist movement has laid down its sword, raised the white flag of surrender, and bowed in submission to the handful of ‘impossible women’ who are society’s latest oppressed group.”

“Only time will tell whether Republicans will develop the spine to see this battle all the way through. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) tried to dodge a direct question about McBride’s sex at a press conference before affirming the sex binary in a follow-up statement. Getting Jimmy off of Jane’s field hockey team is one thing. But forcing girls to refer to hulking teenage boys as ‘she’ and ‘her’ is a sign the roots of this twisted ideology are still firmly in place,” Squires said. “It’s impossible to rebuild American families if we live in a society where people are confused about which sex has the babies.”

In MSNBC, Brad Polumbo explored Mace’s path from “LGBTQ ally to anti-trans culture warrior.”

“I, for one, am surprised to see Mace launching this culture war crusade, because when I interviewed her in 2021, shortly after she took office, she framed herself as a pro-LGBT, social moderate… Times have changed, and, evidently, Mace has, too,” Polumbo wrote. “To be fair, the congresswoman hasn’t entirely abandoned support for LGBT rights, as she broke with the majority of the Republican Party in 2022 to support the Respect for Marriage Act, which enshrined same-sex marriage protections into federal law. Still, the stance she’s taking now seems entirely devoid of the kind of nuance and empathy Mace originally branded herself around.”

“‘Protecting women and girls’ is not what Mace is actually doing, and it’s not just the ‘Radical Left’ that disagrees with her stand: Many moderate right-of-center Americans like myself also find her grandstanding disappointing, because there’s no actual ‘safety’ issue being addressed here,” Polumbo said. “Assaults by transgender women in women’s bathrooms are incredibly, incredibly rare, and there is zero reason to specifically believe that McBride is going to assault anyone in a restroom… This entire crusade is a solution in search of a problem. Whether Mace realizes it or not, she has likely shared the women’s bathroom with transgender women who work for Democratic members of Congress many times without any issue.”

What the left is saying.

• The left is critical of Mace’s bill while praising McBride for her response to it.
• Some suggest Mace is primarily driven by a desire to amplify her national profile. 
• Others say the controversy creates an opportunity for Democrats to reframe the narrative about trans issues. 

In Bloomberg, Nia-Malika Henderson wrote “Sarah McBride knows how to handle the GOP’s anti-trans bullies.”

“The GOP, full of fear-mongering and scapegoating, has shown who it is on this issue. But transgender Americans don’t represent some existential threat to the social order. Proposals like bathroom bills only serve to create us-versus-them divisions that Democrats would do well to ignore — instead, positioning themselves as the party of all Americans, no matter their identity,” Henderson said. “McBride… issued a remarkably restrained response, shunning the fight with her new colleagues and providing something of a model for how Democrats can engage.”

“President-elect Trump has made it clear that he plans to make life for transgender Americans even more difficult. The GOP party platform vowed to keep men out of women’s sports as one of the 20 promises of their legislative and governing agenda,” Henderson wrote. “Democrats shouldn’t abandon their commitment to transgender rights out of political expediency. To do so would be to undermine the party’s commitment to a country where identity doesn’t determine destiny and opportunity.”

In The Washington Post, Philip Bump said “Nancy Mace finally mastered the right-wing media universe.”

“After Mace was first elected in 2020, she positioned herself as a champion of LGBTQ issues… But that was early 2021, when there was space in the national conversation for an ambitious freshman Republican to extend grace to a marginalized community that was generally more sympathetic to politicians from the other party,” Bump wrote. “Over the course of 2021, though, with President Joe Biden in the White House, the Republican narrative shifted forcefully against efforts to build a more inclusive country… By 2024, the Republican base had been fed a steady diet of anti-trans rhetoric, making trans issues fertile ground for anyone willing to engage in the fight. Mace was willing.”

“The fervor and hostility of Mace’s rhetoric has increased over the course of the week alongside the uptick in the frequency of her media appearances… If it was a ploy, it worked. What’s more, it worked because Mace has mastered the approach that worked so well for Trump: framing an attack as a defense,” Bump said. “The issue appears to have been resolved at this point, with Mace able to claim victory. But the victory isn’t only in forcing McBride to walk farther to use the bathroom. It’s also in cracking the code to becoming the person carrying the banner for the right in the never-ending culture wars.”

In her Erin In The Morning newsletter, Erin Reed argued “Republican bathroom panic over McBride shows it was never about sports or kids.”

“The reaction to Rep. McBride makes one thing crystal clear to Democrats and pundits alike: the Republican Party’s debate over transgender Americans was never about sports or prison inmates. Time and again, when given an inch, they take everything. That they’ve already pivoted to bathrooms before Congress has even convened should speak volumes—and the fact that the first transgender person they’ve targeted nationally is a mild-mannered Democratic congresswoman representing a million Delawareans speaks even louder,” Reed wrote. “If Rep. McBride—a woman who championed and passed paid family leave for mothers on the brink of poverty—is deemed ‘unsafe for women,’ then what transgender person could ever be considered safe?”

“The truth is, the far right cannot resist targeting transgender people when they dare to step into positions of power. The mere presence of a transgender person as an equal is almost too much for them to bear, driving them to indulge their cruelest impulses,” Reed said. “Democrats have a golden chance to reframe the narrative on transgender rights… Democrats must seize this moment to stand firm, contrasting their focus on jobs, infrastructure, and middle-class support with a Republican Party consumed by cruelty that does nothing to improve people’s lives.” 

My take.

• This issue is always tough to talk about because it comes with a lot of baggage.
• The data on threats trans women and women face in spaces like bathrooms is actually quite noisy.
• Both sides of this issue are attached to realities that simply don’t exist.

So much baggage is attached to debates about trans issues that writing anything productive requires narrowing the focus.

For starters: This story is clearly about trans women, not trans men, as I haven’t seen too many people concerned about trans men using the men's restroom. That starting point can help to clarify a few useful questions: Are trans women actually a threat in women's spaces like bathrooms? Is this bill a productive way to address potential safety issues for women in public facilities? And, of course, does Rep. Nancy Mace earnestly hold these views, or is this political opportunism?

Answering the question about the threat trans women pose empirically, especially in women's spaces, is difficult — not just because trans women are such a small part of the population (different estimates put the number of all trans people above the age of 13 at somewhere around 1–3 million), but also because “transgender” means different things to different people: Are we talking about the self-assigned pronouns of teenagers? Or medically transitioned adults? Or is the dividing line somewhere else on that spectrum?

Still, the limited number of peer-reviewed studies that have been published about this issue show that permissive bathroom laws do not increase incidents of assault or harassment, and rather suggest that trans people are more often the victims of harassment in spaces like bathrooms than the perpetrators of it. Conversely, laws restricting this access often end up making trans people less safe without improving the safety of the people they intend to protect. Which, to be frank, makes sense. Many trans people are not obviously trans, which means keeping them out of a bathroom they appear to belong in has the unintended effect of putting them in spaces where it very much appears they don't belong.

Armand Domalewski summed it up better than I could with this tweet:

On the left is Buck Angel, a trans man (whom I actually interviewed last year for our piece on the dangers of pornography). On the right is newly elected Rep.-elect McBride. I would not feel comfortable with McBride in the locker room with me. And, though I'm not a woman, I suspect many women wouldn't feel comfortable if they saw Buck stride into the women's bathroom.

However, it’s not all so cut and dried: Men commit more crime than women, and some studies have shown that a male pattern of criminality still applies to trans women who were born male even after transitioning genders. That applies to violent crime rates, too — and there are many cases of attacks or harassment in women's spaces by trans women, so it’s not as if there is zero reason to have any concern. Further, even if trans women don’t pose any elevated threat themselves, it isn’t too hard to find clear-eyed and convincing arguments for maintaining biological-female-only spaces regardless.

My own views aren't cut and dried, either. On the one hand, I think the progressive trans movement has moved so far it’s trying to defend an untenable position: that all you have to do to gain access to a protected space is claim a protected identity for yourself. Imagine a situation where someone known to family and friends (and identifiable to the public) as a man declares one day that they are transitioning to female. Nobody could reasonably expect all girls and women to be comfortable with that person showing up in their bathroom or locker room a few days later.

And yet, this isn't how transitioning always (or even often) works. To take the example at hand, Rep.-elect Sarah McBride is 34 years old. She was her student body president at American University in college, and in her final week in that role, she came out as trans in the school newspaper. She described how she wrestled with her gender identity, writing that being trans was her "deepest secret" and something that she "couldn't accept," thinking she had to pick a pursuit of politics over being trans and couldn't possibly do both together. That was over 12 years ago, and now she is an openly trans woman who has been elected to Congress.

Regardless of your views on this issue, we should all be able to empathize with McBride and the intentionality behind her transition. She is not a confused teenager. She is not someone attaching themselves to an identity for personal gain, or to be a predator, or on a whim. She is an adult exercising her freedom to live as she chooses. 

What is so frustrating for me is that both sides seem to be attached to some fantasy world that cannot and will never exist. Many on the right seem to think they can just legislate trans people away — pretending that by excluding them they will somehow cease to exist. They won’t. Whether they exist because of gender dysphoria or ambiguous sex organs or social contagion is, for the purposes of legislation like this, irrelevant. As a pluralistic society, we should strive to create free societies for all.  

At the same time, many on the left seem to think they can use academic theory to set the definitions of common words and reorganize social norms without listening to concerns about comfort level, fairness, basic differences among the sexes, and perceived or actual safety. This, too, is entirely unrealistic.

My first thought on reading about this story was that it all just felt... a little off. In the past, Mace has described herself quite differently than the person she is acting like today. “I strongly support LGBTQ rights and equality. No one should be discriminated against," she said to The Washington Examiner in 2021. “I have friends and family that identify as LGBTQ. Understanding how they feel and how they’ve been treated is important. Having been around gay, lesbian, and transgender people has informed my opinion over my lifetime.”

Going from that to "no balls in our stalls" should raise some eyebrows. While it's true that Mace has opposed pretty much every piece of LGBTQ legislation proposed in Congress over the last four years, you can't ignore the obvious political factors at play. Anti-trans ads were very successful for Trump, and many swing voters turned on Kamala Harris because they thought she cared more about trans issues than their issues. Mace seems to be reading that as a cue to go on offense. 

My read on the room is that Americans just want to hear less about this issue from the extremes on either side of it, not more. To that end, I think Mace might be coming off as more cruel than anything else, and I'm not sure how much broad interest there is for a fight like this. I genuinely think someone like McBride should be able to use the women's bathroom in Congress’s halls, yet I can also hold that this doesn't mean all self-identified trans women are entitled to all women's spaces. I wish more people could hold these things at the same time, too, but alas — that doesn’t appear to be the country we have.

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Under the radar.

A sizable majority of Americans approve of President-elect Donald Trump’s handling of his presidential transition process so far, according to a new CBS News/YouGov poll. 59% of U.S. adults say they approve of the transition, while 55% say they feel happy or satisfied about his electoral victory. Additionally, many of Trump’s cabinet nominations have garnered support among Americans who are familiar with the picks. A net +19% think Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) was a good choice for secretary of state, +13% think Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was a good pick for HHS secretary, +9% think Tulsi Gabbard was a good pick for director of national intelligence, and +5% think Pete Hegseth was a good pick for secretary of defense. While several of Trump’s nominees have prompted criticism from Democrats, the media and even some Republicans, the poll’s findings suggest Americans are broadly supportive of Trump’s initial decisions in his presidential transition. CBS News has the story.

Numbers.

• 3 million. The approximate number of transgender adults living in the United States — roughly 1.14% of the population — according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey.
• 2. The number of U.S. states that require people to use bathrooms and other facilities that correspond to their biological sex in all government-owned buildings and spaces. 
• 8%. The estimated percentage of transgender people in the U.S. who live in one of these two states. 
• 37. The number of states (as well as five territories and Washington, D.C.) with no laws affecting transgender people’s use of bathrooms or facilities in government spaces. 
• 81%. The estimated percentage of transgender people in the U.S. who live in one of these states or territories. 
• 64%. The percentage of U.S. adults who support laws to protect transgender people from discrimination in housing, jobs and public spaces, according to a 2022 Pew Research survey. 
• 41%. The percentage of U.S. adults who support laws requiring transgender individuals to use public bathrooms that correspond to their sex assigned at birth. 
• 31%. The percentage of U.S. adults who oppose laws requiring transgender individuals to use public bathrooms that correspond to their sex assigned at birth.

The extras.

• One year ago today we had just written about the Israel-Hamas hostage deal.
• The most clicked link in Thursday’s newsletter was our plug in the free version for the business and finance newsletter The Daily Upside.
• Nothing to do with politics: How reverse earbuds could help detect Alzheimer’s.
• Thursday’s survey: 2,746 readers responded to our survey asking about the House Ethics Committee not releasing its report on Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) with 53% supporting the decision but hoping for an eventual release. “I am a registered Republican and I don't care which party you are. People have the right to know regardless,” one respondent said.

Have a nice day.

Space Coast High School in Florida had a struggling football team. The Vipers had gone 1-8 in 2023, and this year lacked the funds and equipment to play. But when Baker Mayfield, the quarterback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, learned about their struggles, he stepped in to help. Together, Mayfield and his wife, Emily, donated the $17,900 that the team needed for their season. In the end, the Vipers went 10-3 and won their state championship. Sports Illustrated has the story.

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