TWIBS: Republicans Can’t Resist Poison Pill in Museum Bill
An effort to pass legislation for a museum dedicated to women’s history in America, which has languished in congress for six years, has been dealt another blow by Republicans’ last minute anti-trans additions.
by Aly Gibbs
This Week in Barrel Scraping (TWIBS) is Assigned Media’s longest running column! Every Friday, Aly Gibbs digs deep from the well of transphobia and finds the most obnoxious, goofy thing transphobes have said or obsessed over during the week and tears it to shreds.
Republicans are now holding a celebratory women’s museum hostage to own the transgendereds?! I am so shocked and surprised at this level of evil and pettiness from the party of small government! Give me a moment to collect myself…
Okay! So, a Smithsonian museum that would honor women’s role in American history has been languishing in congress for literal years. Approved in December of 2020 as part of the 2021 Consolidated Appropriations Act, the museum has yet to be assigned a place at the Smithsonian, and the specifics of who can and cannot be featured in the museum are now up for debate, thanks to Republicans on the House Administration Committee.
The bill, which until very recently enjoyed bipartisan support, is set to be constructed at the National Mall’s South Monument site, across from the National Museum of African American History and Culture, in Washington, D.C. However, an amendment made to the bill, H.R. 1329, stipulates that the president can inexplicably choose to relocate the museum to a new site of his choosing within 180 days of the enactment of the bill.
More pernicious—so vile, in fact, that it resulted in Democrats withdrawing support for the bill entirely—is the amended subsection pertaining to transgender women. Listed is a prohibition that says the museum may not “identify, present, describe, or otherwise depict any biological male as female.”
Oh, that old chestnut… biological males. It’s almost as meaningless and facetious as we can always tell; neither concept is at all accurate, and both are insulting to the countless beautiful trans women I pine for on social media daily. Anyway, setting beauty and glamor aside, refusing to include trans women in the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum would be nothing less than a flat out denial of women’s history.
What about the 1966 Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, an act of queer resistance against violent police and one of the first acts of queer rebellion in US history? What about the bravery of Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, who helped kickstart the modern gay rights movement at Stonewall? Or Frances Thompson, a Black civil rights activist whose testimony before congress helped expand the civil liberties of Black Americans?
The list goes on, and on, and on. Transgender women are an inextricable part of the history of American women, as transgender people broadly are a part of American history. Denying this is naked historical revisionism in service of the state’s senseless animus against the transgender community, and it’s disgusting.
Many Democratic representatives share my feelings of disgust.
“Rather than moving forward with a simple, bipartisan bill to authorize a location for the American Women’s History Museum, Republicans on the Committee on House Administration couldn’t resist poisoning the bill with an anti-trans rider and a provision giving Trump unilateral control over the building’s location,” said Chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus,Representative Mark Takano, in a statement. “Let me be clear: the Museum should highlight the experiences of all women, including transgender women. The original bill, however, had nothing to do with the content of the museum until Republicans added this partisan rider. It’s beyond disappointing to see years of hard, bipartisan work be flushed down the toilet by Republicans on this committee in order to stage a show vote. If Republicans truly cared about celebrating women’s history and ensuring a site for this museum, they would have moved forward with the original bipartisan text—which I and more than 100 of my Democratic colleagues cosponsored—rather than this poisoned, partisan pony show.”
Democratic co-leads of the Smithsonian American Women’s History Act, Representatives Judy Chu and Debbie Dingell, and Democratic Women’s Caucus Chair Teresa Leger Fernández, released a statement saying, “From the beginning, the fight for the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum has been bipartisan and rooted in the shared belief that women’s history & women’s stories are integral to who we are as a nation. We, and women leaders before us, worked on a bipartisan basis to make sure that the Museum where these stories will be told is on the National Mall. The bill has 230 cosponsors and had a successful bipartisan hearing in the Natural Resources Committee where Members and panelists overwhelmingly supported the museum. Now, President Trump wants to change the bill to remove its independence, control what may be said about women, and give himself the power to determine where the museum is located. This is a poison pill amendment. A museum about women, fought for and supported by women, should not be controlled by one man. We strongly oppose this partisan, dangerous, and hateful amendment. We urge our colleagues to honor the spirit of the museum by rejecting it.”
The bill has passed out of committee and will move to the House floor next. If it passes there, it will likely face opposition in the Senate. It’s unclear at this time whether or not these heinous stipulations will be approved, but one thing is for certain: A man who has been credibly accused of sexually assaulting a 13 year old girl, like Donald Trump, should not be in charge of a museum devoted to women’s history. In fact, he shouldn’t be president, either.
You know what? Let’s just say he shouldn’t be standing outside of a very small, very dark prison cell, and keep our fingers crossed.
Aly Gibbs (She/They) is a trans writer who reports on news important to the queer community.
