Demonstrators launch sit-in protesting Capitol bathroom protections

Officers with U.S. Capitol Police arrested about 15 demonstrators on Thursday for illegally protesting in the Cannon House Office Building, U.S. Capitol Police spokeswoman Brianna Burch told WORLD. The group occupied a women’s bathroom to protest a new rule barring men from using women’s bathrooms in the Capitol. Disgraced U.S. military analyst Chelsea Manning marched and chanted alongside protesters, saying in a statement to CNN he aimed to prevent others from feeling what he described as the same pain of social erasure that he experienced. Every person should receive dignity and respect, especially in symbolic places like the U.S. Capitol, Manning said. Manning publicly leaked sensitive military information to WikiLeaks in 2010 and spent nearly seven years in prison until former President Barack Obama commuted his sentence in 2017.

The Gender Liberation Movement mounted the protest, describing it as an example of righteous defiance and solidarity that will be essential under the next Trump administration. Everyone, including transgender people, deserves to use the bathroom without fear of violence or discrimination, Gender Liberation Movement co-founder Raquel Willis said in the group’s statement. Republican politicians are trying to remove transgender people from public view and Democrats are letting it happen, Willis continued. Footage showed demonstrators chanting. “Democrats grow a spine, trans lives are on the line,” inside a women’s restroom located near Rep. Nancy Mace’s office.

Why Mace’s office? The South Carolina congresswoman recently sparked outrage among people who identify as LGBTQ by proposing a bill to protect single-sex bathrooms in the Capitol. House Speaker Mike Johnson backed Mace’s measure by vowing to protect all women-only spaces in House of Representatives office buildings. Women deserve to feel safe in single-sex spaces, he said. Johnson further noted that unisex bathrooms are available across Capitol Hill and that each representative has a private bathroom in his or her office.

Protests over sex and gender wracked Washington throughout the week. Mass protests took place outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday as justices heard oral arguments on whether teenagers have a constitutional right to obtain and use puberty blockers and other hormone therapies. Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth praised U.S. Capitol Police for their service throughout the tumultuous week. People may not have made it down the halls without officers, he wrote.

Dig deeper: Listen to Leo Briceno and Carolina Lumetta’s report on The WORLD and Everything in It for on-the-ground coverage of protesters outside the Supreme Court.