President Donald Trump has sought to remake Smithsonian institutions in his image during his term in office.
Now, House Republicans are setting their sights on another museum Trump has targeted — and it’s one that is still years away from being built.
This week, a group of House Republicans used a committee vote on a bill intended to establish a location for the forthcoming Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum to pass an amendment stipulating that the museum must not include transgender women in its exhibitions or content.
“The Museum shall be dedicated to preserving, researching, and presenting the history, achievements, and lived experiences of biological women in the United States,” the new amendment states, in a section called “scope of mission.”
“The Museum may not identify, present, describe, or otherwise depict any biological male as a female,” it continues.
Sponsored by Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill., — who Trump has endorsed for re-election — the amendment furthers an executive order the president signed last March, in which he demanded the forthcoming museum “not recognize men as women in any respect.”
“The accomplishments of real women should never be overshadowed by biological men pretending to be women,” Miller said Wednesday at the committee markup of the bill.
The proposal comes as the latest effort from Trump and his allies to erase trans people from public life. It’s also their latest attempt to exert greater control over the Smithsonian, an independent, public-private partnership established by Congress and overseen by a Board of Regents that includes the chief justice of the Supreme Court and the vice president.
If passed, Miller’s amendment would also give Trump the final say on the museum’s location if he doesn’t approve of the one proposed by the Smithsonian and Congress, which is the lot across from the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
The top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, Rep. Joe Morelle, D-N.Y., said he was “extremely disappointed” that Miller and Republicans had “needlessly politicized” what has otherwise been a bipartisan process to kowtow to Trump, whom the Democrat said is trying to “regulate” and “whitewash” history.
The amendment ultimately passed the committee 7 to 4 along party lines.
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., a sponsor of the bill amended by Miller, said she was “pleased” to see it pass out of committee but disappointed that Democrats opposed it.
It will now head to a floor vote, where it is likely to pass under the Republican majority. Spokespeople for Miller; House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.; and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., did not respond to MS NOW’s questions, including when it could come up for a floor vote.
Congress authorized the building of both the women’s history museum and another museum dedicated to American Latinos in 2020. Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., introduced a separate bill last year allocating a location for the Latino museum, which has yet to make it out of committee. In an interview with NBC News earlier this year, Malliotakis blamed Johnson for the holdup on the passage of the bill, which she introduced in February of last year.
She also said she hoped to pass the bill — which has more than 230 bipartisan cosponsors — during Women’s History Month in March.
While the Smithsonian originally offered a decade-long timeline for the museums openings, the process has been slower-moving over the past six years. A spokesperson for the Smithsonian told MS NOW there is currently no planned opening date and the institution does not comment on pending legislation in Congress.
Democrats may have little power to stop the amendment, but they are not staying quiet about it.
Members of the Democratic Women’s Caucus called the amendment a “poison pill” that would give the president undue power over site.
“A museum about women, fought for and supported by women, should not be controlled by one man,” the group’s leaders said.
Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, pointed out that the original bill that authorized the museum’s creation in 2020 did not address the specific content of its programming, other than requiring it to portray “the diverse range of experiences and viewpoints of all women” in the U.S. However, Takano also noted, “the Museum should highlight the experiences of all women, including transgender women.”
The Smithsonian spokesperson said it’s “too early for us to discuss exhibitions in a museum that hasn’t been built yet.”
If the bill passes with the anti-trans amendment, the Smithsonian would likely have leeway on how to interpret it, or whether to follow it, given that the institution has insisted on its independence even in the face of Trump’s threats. However, Congress controls the majority of its funding and could threaten to withhold money if officials wanted to force the museum to comply.
A source with knowledge of the planning process for the museum also told MS NOW that they believe Smithsonian leadership is “concerned about blowback and escalation” given recent events.
In last year’s executive order, Trump alleged the Smithsonian had “come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology” and demanded Vice President JD Vance take a greater role in overseeing funding for the institute’s programming. As part of a subsequent content review, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History removed references to Trump’s two impeachments from an exhibit before restoring them days later following a public outcry. In December, the White House also issued a letter to Smithsonian leadership demanding extensive documentation on planned programming and threatening to withhold federal funds if those demands were not fulfilled.
“I think the museum leadership sees our historical moment as one of existential crisis for the Smithsonian,” the source familiar with the planning told MS NOW. “And their deepest commitment is to the survival of the institution.”
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