AOC: Trump’s GOP wants all women and girls to ‘drop trou’

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is ripping Republicans for banning transgender women from using the women’s restroom in the House.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) wrote in a new memo Wednesday that lawmakers and staffers will need to use the restrooms corresponding with their biological sex while in the lower chamber. His declaration came after Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) made it her personal mission to ban incoming Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.) from using the women’s restroom because she is a transgender woman.
Ocasio-Cortez tore into the House GOP on Wednesday, saying that the ban will only endanger women because people will want to check their genitals before they can use the restroom.
“What Nancy Mace and what Speaker Johnson are doing are endangering all women and girls, because if you ask them,’ ‘What is your plan on how to enforce this?’, they will come up with an answer, and what it inevitably results in are women and girls who are primed for assault because they want, because people are going to want to check their private parts in suspecting who is trans and who assists and who’s doing what,” she told reporters on Wednesday in a clip shared by Spectrum News.
“And so the idea that Nancy Mace wants little girls and women to drop trou in front of, who, an investigator? Who would that be? Because she wants to suspect and point fingers at who she thinks is trans is disgusting. It is disgusting. And frankly, all it does is allow these Republicans to go around and bully any woman who isn’t wearing a skirt because they think she might not look woman enough,” Ocasio-Cortez continued.
This, of course, comes on the heels of Donald Trump’s ant-transgender commercial that ran roughly 30,000 times in the final weeks of the presidential campaign — targeted for football games and other sports events. Many analysts believe it was effective with convincing male voters to vote for Trump.
She went on to argue that women should be able to dress how they want without having Republicans inspecting their body. She said that Mace — who spearheaded the ban — only wants to fundraise off the policy and not protect women.
“People have a right to express themselves, to dress how they want, and to be who they are. And if a woman doesn’t look woman enough to a Republican they want to be able to inspect her genitals to use a bathroom. It’s disgusting,” she said. “And everybody, no matter how you feel on this issue, should reject it completely.”
“Why are they doing this? They’re doing this so that Nancy Mace can make a buck and send a text and fundraise off an email. They’re not doing this to protect people. They’re endangering women. They’re endangering girls of all kinds and everybody should reject it, it’s gross,” she added.
In a separate tweet, Ocasio-Cortez explained that men are not dressing up as women to assault them in the bathrooms. She said that men do not have a problem assaulting women in “broad daylight,” as she alluded to sexual misconduct allegations facing former President Donald Trump and incoming Attorney General nominee Matt Gaetz. Both have denied the separate allegations.
Referring to transgender people by the sex they were assigned at birth rather than by the gender they identify as is a tactic often used by opponents of transgender rights. The larger debate over whether transgender people should be allowed to use the bathrooms that align with their gender identity has been prevalent across the U.S. and became a focal point of President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign.
At least 11 states have adopted laws barring transgender girls and women from girls and women’s bathrooms at public schools, and in some cases other government facilities.
Democrats have called the GOP campaign against McBride as bullying. Rep. Eric Sorensen, D-Ill., said Tuesday that Mace’s comments are “absolutely ignorant.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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