{"id":81867,"date":"2026-05-22T08:36:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T08:36:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/81867\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T08:36:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T08:36:17","slug":"house-rejects-smithsonian-womens-museum-bill-after-gop-bans-biological-men-from-exhibits-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/81867\/","title":{"rendered":"House rejects Smithsonian women’s museum bill after GOP bans ‘biological men’ from exhibits"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2013 What started as a widely backed proposal to locate a new Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum<\/a> on the National Mall devolved into a partisan fight Thursday after Republicans revised the legislation to ensure no transgender people<\/a> are included in the exhibits.<\/p>\n

The House rejected the bill, 204-216, an outcome that leaves the next steps uncertain. The revised bill also would ban a \u201cdiversity\u201d of views and give President Donald Trump<\/a> the final say on where the museum would be located. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a simple bill. You kind of ruined it with your trans obsession and your culture wars,\u201d Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez, a Democrat from New Mexico and chair of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, said earlier in the week.<\/p>\n

But Republicans argued it was Democrats who were overreacting to the changes and now threatening progress toward establishing the long-sought women’s museum<\/a> in the nation’s capital. <\/p>\n

Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York, the bill’s chief sponsor, said \u201cit’s a disgrace\u201d that Democrats would be standing in the way of the bill’s passage.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps the party that is opposing a women\u2019s history museum on the National Mall because they want to have transgender exhibits \u2014 maybe they are the ones who are trans obsessed,\u201d Malliotakis said. <\/p>\n

In the final tally, a handful of Republicans voted against the bill, joining Democrats who led the opposition. The chamber came to a standstill as GOP leaders scrounged for support from their ranks. <\/p>\n

Among the Republican opponents, some conservatives simply disapproved of a museum focused on women at all.<\/p>\n

“We say we need to unite this country, but then we isolate every group,\u201d said Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., who was among several from the conservative Freedom Caucus who voted against it.<\/p>\n

Future of museum is now uncertain<\/p>\n

The turn of events puts at risk the long effort to open a museum in Washington dedicated to women. Legislation authorizing the museum was approved during Trump’s first term, in 2020, and this latest bill would secure its location on the National Mall<\/a>. Trump has taken interest in reshaping the capital’s cultural institutions, from the Kennedy Center<\/a> to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool<\/a>. <\/p>\n

At the start of the year, the bill had secured some 230 sponsors, a rare show of bipartisanship in the split House, where Republicans hold a slim majority. But because of the changes to the bill, the Democratic Women’s Caucus opposed the final version, and Democratic leaders encouraged a no vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cA museum about women, fought for and supported by women, should not be controlled by one man,\u201d the leaders of the women’s caucus said in a statement. \u201cRepublicans traded the representation of women for Trump\u2019s gain and ego. It\u2019s as embarrassing as it is disappointing.\u201d <\/p>\n

House Speaker Mike Johnson<\/a> said the changes shouldn’t be controversial, but his effort to pass the bill with Republicans alone over the objections of Democrats failed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy are they backing out? Simply because the bill reinforces an objective truth that a museum for women, get ready, should showcase only women,\u201d said Johnson, R-La.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Rep. Kat Cammack, R-Fla., said she brought her young daughter, Augusta, to the chamber to see history being made.<\/p>\n

\u201cBiological women deserve to have their stories told,\u201d Cammack said, holding her child during her speech.<\/p>\n

But Rep. Joe Morelle of New York, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, said the Republicans ditched the bipartisan bill for one favored by Trump’s White House. <\/p>\n

Changes to the bill angered Democrats<\/p>\n

Initially presented as a step toward securing the museum’s location, the legislation was revised during a committee vote last month in several ways.<\/p>\n

One change added a mission scope that states, \u201cThe Museum shall be dedicated to preserving, researching, and presenting the history, achievements, and lived experiences of biological women in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

It also adds a prohibition which states, “The Museum may not identify, present, describe, or otherwise depict any biological male as a female.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another change added specific detail about where the museum would be located on the mall \u2014 near 14th Street Southwest and Jefferson Drive, “except that the President may designate an alternative site for the Museum within 180 days of the date of the enactment of this subsection.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats said that the provision change gives Trump the authority to decide where the museum would ultimately go. \u201cAnd we do not agree with that,\u201d said Leger Fernandez.<\/p>\n

But Republicans argued that the provision is simply a fail-safe in the event there’s any problem with the proposed site to ensure the museum can move ahead.<\/p>\n

An additional revision this week removed the word \u201cdiversity,” saying instead the museum’s organizing council should ensure a \u201crange\u201d of political viewpoints and experiences. <\/p>\n

\u201cI just think it\u2019s ridiculous that we are arguing over this,\u201d said Malliotakis. <\/p>\n

She said it’s bothering Democrats that it will be Trump who breaks ground on the museum, \u201cbut that\u2019s the reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press writers Stephen Groves, Joey Cappelletti and Kevin Freking contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2013 What started as a widely backed proposal to locate a new Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[143],"tags":[12,19202,478,11964,16571,681,1194],"class_list":["post-81867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mike-johnson","tag-donald-trump","tag-joe-morelle","tag-mike-johnson","tag-nicole-malliotakis","tag-teresa-leger-fernandez","tag-u-s-news","tag-washington-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116617322688311199","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}