All House Democrats Back Bill to Allow Men Who Identify as Women into Women’s Locker Rooms

H ouse Democrats celebrated this “Pride Month” by unanimously throwing their support behind the Equality Act, an LGBT-rights bill with sweeping implications for religious liberty, women’s sports, and women’s-only facilities such as shelters and locker rooms.

Last week, the Equality Act was reintroduced with the co-sponsorship of every Democrat in the House and every Senate Democrat except Joe Manchin of West Virginia. The bill alters the status quo by adding “transgender status” and “sexual orientation” as classes protected under the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s Title II, which prohibits discrimination at public accommodations. It also greatly expands the number of businesses that count as “public accommodations” under the act. For example, it explicitly lists “shelters” — which means that women fleeing domestic violence could be forced to reside in shelters with men — and “salons,” which would clearly cover waxing businesses.

The bill explicitly states that “(with respect to gender identity) an individual shall not be denied access to a shared facility, including a restroom, a locker room, and a dressing room, that is in accordance with the individual’s gender identity.” The Equality Act would affect religious schools as well as public schools because it supersedes the Religious Freedom Restoration Act: “The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 . . . shall not provide a claim concerning, or a defense to a claim under, a covered title, or provide a basis for challenging the application or enforcement of a covered title.” The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a law that restored a balancing test used by the courts in religious-liberty cases, was passed unanimously by the House, where it was sponsored by then-congressman Chuck Schumer.

The Equality Act is proof that congressional Democrats are far more aggressive participants in the culture wars than Republicans. When House Democrats first passed the bill in 2019, University of Virginia law professor Douglas Laycock, a liberal religious-liberty scholar who supports same-sex marriage, told National Review that the Equality Act would “crush” religious dissenters. The Equality Act “goes very far to stamp out religious exemptions,” Laycock said. “It regulates religious non-profits. And then it says that [the Religious Freedom Restoration Act] does not apply to any claim under the Equality Act. This would be the first time Congress has limited the reach of RFRA. This is not a good-faith attempt to reconcile competing interests. It is an attempt by one side to grab all the disputed territory and to crush the other side.”

House Democrats passed the Equality Act in 2021, but they lacked the votes to pass it in the 50–50 Senate due to the filibuster and Joe Manchin’s unwillingness to support it. But Senate Democrats only need to replace Kyrsten Sinema in Arizona and reelect incumbents in Montana, Ohio, and Nevada to have the votes necessary to scrap the filibuster and pass the Equality Act — something they’d certainly do if they retake the House and hold onto the White House.