January 24, 2025 11:11 AM UTC

Rep. Lauren Boebert, Congressional Bathroom Monitor

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• by: Colorado Pols

Yesterday, Billy House at Bloomberg News reported via X/Twitter on a bizarre scene outside a ladies’ room at the U.S. Capitol created by Colorado’s carpetbagging composer of controversy Rep. Lauren Boebert, who claimed in her usual high-audibility manner that she had witnessed “a man” using the facilities:

I bear witness: Rep. Lauren Boebert bursting out of the House Women’s restroom during this afternoon’s vote series , complaining to security personnel stationed in the nearby Speakers Lobby of “a guy” inside the bathroom…

Intrigued, I stuck around to see who would emerge from the bathroom…and saw just 4 other people leave, all women. Within minutes, however, Boebert was storming back from the House floor into the restroom, — reinforced by Rep. Nancy Mace in tow.

With the Daily Beast picking up the story, we learn that the “man” Boebert believed she had discovered in the ladies room was none other than Rep. Sarah McBride of Delaware, who happens to be the nation’s first-ever transgender member of Congress:

Boebert was overheard telling other members on the House floor that she found Democratic Rep. Sarah McBride, the first transgender member of Congress, inside the ladies room, a GOP representative told the Beast. (McBride is not allowed to use women’s bathrooms per Speaker Mike Johnson’s renewed ban on transgender people using single-sex bathrooms.)

Boebert, according to the unnamed GOP lawmaker who requested anonymity in order speak freely about the bathroom scene, told other members on the House floor that when she saw McBride walk into the ladies room, she said, “You shouldn’t be here.”

As it turned out, there was just one small problem:

But the scandal-prone Boebert—known for her PDA and vaping at a “Beetlejuice” show—quickly realized it was not McBride, a first-term Democrat from Delaware. “I overheard Boebert say she went to apologize,” the lawmaker added.

Rep. McBride apparently didn’t know about Boebert’s commode kerfuffle until Boebert approached her to apologize for it–which tells us that Boebert knew the incident would go public and needed to get ahead of that embarrassment with her apology. While it’s good that Boebert apologized for her case of mistaken identity, ostentatiously marching out to enlist fellow high-profile transphobe Rep. Nancy Mace in confronting McBride while loudly telling her colleagues about the supposed “man” in the ladies’ room is a clear sign that Boebert wanted a spectacle. Unfortunately for Rep. Boebert and fellow publicity hound Rep. Mace, Sarah McBride has no intention of violating Speaker Mike Johnson’s rules on bathroom usage, having repeatedly said that’s not why she was elected to Congress.

In the end, it’s just another ugly little episode that says more about Lauren Boebert than the targets of her malice.