You don’t see many displays of class in Washington anymore, but freshman U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride showed how it’s done in response to a catty attack by fellow Rep. Nancy Mace, backed by House Speaker Mike Johnson.

McBride, a Delaware Democrat, is the first openly transgender member of Congress. She was greeted with a resolution by Mace, a Republican from South Carolina, banning transgender women from using women’s bathrooms at the Capitol.

Johnson, the GOP leader, enacted a rule restricting bathroom use to “individuals of that biological sex,” declaring it’s “what Scripture teaches.”

McBride had every right to fire back political invective; in any normal American workplace, the boss and HR office would be all up Mace’s business for attempting to bully a new co-worker like that.

But instead of returning the insult, McBride brushed it off, saying, “I’m not here to fight about bathrooms. I’m here to fight for Delawareans and to bring down costs facing families. Like all members, I will follow the rules as outlined by Speaker Johnson, even if I disagree with them.”

THAT BROUGHT her flak from some trans activists, who confused her refusal to allow the noise of others to spoil her induction to Congress with abandoning the cause.

She doggedly stayed on the high road, posting on social media, “I am simply awe-inspired to have the privilege of serving in the House — a body Abraham Lincoln once served in and a chamber where they passed the 13th and 14th Amendments, where women got the right to vote, and where the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act became law.”

The intense political hatred being directed at transgender people — a tiny and mostly powerless minority of about 0.5% of U.S. adults — cheapens our nation, and McBride answered it eloquently with her composure.

Transgender people are inherently neither deleterious nor threatening. Like everyone else, they’re mostly just trying to occupy lives that fit them the most comfortably. In the vast majority of instances, their decisions about their own lives harm nobody else.

FOR McBRIDE, who like other incoming members of Congress wants to accomplish good works on many fronts, living a life that feels right includes not allowing herself to be defined by just one thing. That deserves to be respected.

Transgender issues have come to the forefront relatively recently, and there are legitimate concerns that need to be worked out, such as participation in sports and transitioning by minors.

But these discussions take time and are best led civilly by sports federations, specialists in adolescent medicine and psychology, and fair-minded courts — not pandering politicians and Bible verses.

I asked Siri what Scripture says about bathrooms, and she gave me something from Deuteronomy about how to dig a hole.

McBride will no doubt be there for the bigger fights to come over transgender rights, but she showed wisdom about picking the right fights.

If we’re ever to get back to a national priority of helping Americans rather than hurting those deemed “others,” Mace and Johnson would have done well to have shown the same good judgment and properly welcomed the delegate duly elected by Delawareans to represent them.

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Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.