Chelsea Manning arrested for entering women’s restroom on Capitol Hill

Chelsea Manning has been arrested along with more than a dozen others for storming the women’s restroom on Capitol Hill in protest of Republicans’ congressional transgender bathroom ban. 

Activists led by the Gender Liberation Movement held gathered outside of Speaker Mike Johnson’s office in the Cannon House Office Building on Thursday. 

The group held banners that read ‘Flush Bathroom Bigotry and Congress Stop P**sing on Our Rights’ and chanting ‘Speaker Johnson, Nancy Mace, our genders are not a debate!’

Among the protesters were Manning, a 36-year-old former Army intelligence analyst, who was taken into custody and charged with crowding, obstructing or incommoding, a Capitol Police spokesman told the New York Post. 

‘I’m here today because every person deserves dignity and respect, both in daily life and in more symbolic places like the US Capitol,’ Manning told CNN in the moment.  

‘As someone who has fought against similar rules, I know what it’s like to feel pushed aside and erased,’ she continued. ‘But I also know the incredible powers and resilience our community has.

‘I’m not here as a leader or a spokesperson but simply as another member of my community who shows up unconditionally to support my siblings in this fight. I will stand beside them no matter what. We didn’t start this fight, but we are together now.’ 

It was not Manning’s first arrest, however, after being sentenced to 35 years in prison in 2013 for leaking 750,000 pages of classified documents and videos about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to WikiLeaks.

She was released in 2017 after receiving a commutation from then-President Obama.

Manning was born a biological male and went by the name Bradley Manning during court proceedings, but underwent gender-affirming care in prison and now identifies as a woman.

Rep. Nancy Mace, a Republican from South Carolina, referenced Manning’s past as she spoke out against the protests on Thursday.

‘From leaking state secrets to taking leaks in the women’s restroom, [she] just can’t seem to get it right,’ the 47-year-old congresswoman wrote on X.

She had previously sparked a debate within the House of Representatives when she introduced a bill last month banning transgender women from using women’s restrooms on Capitol Hill ahead of transgender Democrat Representative-elect Sarah McBride’s swearing-in in January.

Speaker of the House Johnson later announced McBride, of Delaware, would have to use the restroom of her biological sex.

‘All single-sex facilities in the Capitol and House Office Buildings — such as restrooms, changing rooms, and locker rooms — are reserved for individuals of that biological sex,’ Johnson said in his statement.

‘It is important to note that each Member office has its own private restroom, and unisex restrooms are available throughout the Capitol,’ he went on. ‘Women deserve women’s only spaces.’

The Gender Liberation Movement on Thursday criticized Democrats for not doing more to push back against these efforts, Roll Call reports.

‘In the 2024 election, trans folks were left to fend for ourselves and nearly $200million of attack ads were disseminated across the United States,’ cofounder Raquel Willis said in a statement.

‘Now, as Republican politicians try to remove us from public life, Democratic leaders are silent as hell.

‘But we can’t transform bigotry and hate with inaction,’ she said. ‘We must confront it head on.’ 

The protesters were even heard chanting, ‘Democrats, grow a spine, trans lives are on the line’ before they were apprehended.

Gabrielle Lipsky, a spokeswoman for Mace, told the Post that she thought the protesters ‘definitely should have been apprehended’ under the new rules.

‘Progressive politics is the most regressive threat to women,’ she said. ‘They just keep proving our point.

‘They come here and make a public spectacle out of putting men in our bathrooms intentionally to intimidate women.’

Mace had framed the bathroom debate as a matter of safety for female congressmembers.

‘If being a feminist makes me an extremist I’m totally here for it,’ the South Carolina Republican sharply told a reporter.

‘I’m a victim of abuse myself. I’m a rape survivor. I have PTSD from the abuse I’ve suffered at the hands of a man, and I know how vulnerable women and girls are in private spaces.

‘So I’m absolutely, 100 percent going to stand in the way of any man who wants to be in a women’s restroom, in our locker rooms, [or] in our changing rooms.’