Conservative brawler Lauren Boebert attempted to get “a guy” kicked out of the women’s restroom in the Capitol off the House floor on Thursday.
Only problem: It wasn’t a man at all. It turned out to be a case of mistaken identity, sources told the Daily Beast.
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 single-sex 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.”
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.
A Bloomberg reporter witnessed Boebert exit the bathroom and seek security to intervene. He posted on X that the Utah Republican acknowledged her mistake, saying, “There was a rumor there was, but it wasn’t true.”
McBride told the Daily Beast she was not confronted by Boebert and said she stands by her commitment at the beginning of Congress to comply with the speaker’s bathroom policy.
“I’m not here to fight about bathrooms. I’m here to fight for Delawareans and to bring down the costs facing families. Like all members, I will follow the rules outlined by Speaker Johnson, even if I disagree with them,” McBride said in a statement in November.
Reps. Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Nancy Mace have made transgender bathroom bans one of their central political culture-war issues.
Mace last November introduced a resolution barring transgender women from using women’s restrooms in the Capitol.
“I made an error regarding a mistaken identity. I apologized, learned a lesson, and it won’t happen again,” Boebert said in a statement.
