Sarah McBride calls for bipartisanship after experiencing a ‘crash course in the dysfunction of Congress’

Delaware state Sen. Sarah McBride described her first week on Capitol Hill after being elected as the first openly transgender member of Congress as a “crash course in the dysfunction” and “performance art” of the federal legislature.

McBride, 34, recently returned home from new member orientation for the House of Representatives, where the Democrat was welcomed with attacks from Republican colleagues who successfully pushed for her to be banned from the women’s bathrooms.

Republican lawmakers’ response to McBride’s history-making election morphed the antagonism toward transgender people that played out in GOP campaigns into a personal attack on the incoming House member. But McBride, who did not campaign on her identity, largely avoided entertaining the hostility. She declined media interviews about the subject and instead issued statements describing the attacks as a manufactured culture war and distraction from issues like the cost of living, saying she’s “not here to fight about bathrooms.”

“I will tell you, over the last week I’ve had a crash course in the dysfunction of Congress, and, in some cases, the performance art of Congress,” she said at an awards ceremony during the orientation hosted by Future Coalition, a bipartisan organization for Gen Z and millennial state and federal lawmakers.

“And so it is good for my soul to be in a room full of Democrats and Republicans who understand that our job is to roll up our sleeves, dive into the detail, bring people together to make government work better. That is our job,” McBride said.

In social media posts Monday, McBride shared highlights from her second and final week of orientation, including the awards ceremony last Wednesday.

In the keynote speech, McBride said she believes people across the country “of every ideological background” are facing what she called “their own crisis of hope” that’s rooted in a fear of no longer being able to “meet the scope and the scale of the challenges that we face” both individually and collectively.

She said this fear is based on a “fierce competition for pain” between political parties and the toxicity of viewing others as enemies rather than neighbors. She told the young lawmakers that they have a “heightened responsibility” to prove they can work together effectively and practice “radical grace and compassion” to help find solutions for constituents.

“And that’s a tall order in Congress right now, and so it particularly falls on your shoulders in state legislatures to live that truth,” McBride said.

Other highlights shared Monday included the relationships she made with Congress members on both sides of the aisle at orientation and getting lost in the pedestrian tunnels underneath the vast Capitol complex.

McBride also managed to secure her first-choice office after picking “lucky number 13″ in the Congressional office lottery, she said on social media. McBride shouted out “fellow Swifties” in the post, since Taylor Swift considers 13 her lucky number and it holds significance for her fan base.

She said that she spoke to media about her campaign priorities of guaranteeing affordable health care, housing, and child care, and that she met with entrepreneurs about bringing jobs to Delaware and expanding opportunities for home ownership.

On a more personal note, McBride shared a photo on Instagram with former Delaware Gov. Jack Markell, who is now U.S. ambassador to Italy, and former Delaware first lady Carla Markell back in her home state on Sunday. McBride said that the couple has mentored and supported her throughout her life and that “next to my family, no two people have done more for me.”