(Reuters) – Montana legislators on Tuesday rejected an attempt to ban a transgender member of the state House of Representatives from using the women’s restroom at the state Capitol, with some Republicans joining Democrats in opposing the measure.
Democratic Representative Zooey Zephyr, a transgender woman first elected to the statehouse in 2022, praised her colleagues who voted down the proposed ban in a legislative committee.
“I’m happy to see that this proposed ban failed and am grateful for my colleagues – particularly my republican colleagues – who recognized this as a distraction from the work we were elected to do,” Zephyr said on X.
The failed Montana measure came amid a similar effort by Republicans at the U.S. Capitol, in a bill that would ban Representative-elect Sarah McBride, a transgender woman from Delaware, from women’s restrooms at the Capitol. The bill has yet to be voted on, but Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson in a statement declared that bathrooms would be reserved for “individuals of that biological sex.”
The Montana proposal, by Republican Representative Jerry Schillinger, would have reserved two legislative restrooms exclusively for male and female users, respectively, defining them by their chromosomes and reproductive and endocrine systems.
Four Republicans joined all Democrats in voting down the measure during a meeting of the Joint Rules Committee, the Flathead Beacon reported from Helena, the capital.
Montana Republicans in 2023 voted to silence Zephyr from floor debates for breaking decorum after she said lawmakers who backed a ban on gender-affirming healthcare for minors would have “blood on your hands.”
(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Scott Malone and Leslie Adler)
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