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WASHINGTON — <\/span>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 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