Mace faces backlash over efforts to ban new transgender member of Congress from women’s bathrooms

Rep. Nancy Mace, RS.C., clashed with her critics online Tuesday as she faces backlash for her decision to bar men who identify as women from women’s restrooms on Capitol Hill.

Mace filed the resolution on Monday, which Fox News Digital’s Elizabeth Elkind first reported , will prohibit “members, officers and staff of the House from using single-sex facilities other than those corresponding to their biological sex.”

The resolution comes just as the first openly transgender lawmaker, Rep.-elect Sarah McBride, D-Del., is set to join Congress in January. McBride is a biological male who identifies and presents as a woman.

“This is a blatant attempt by far-right extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing,” McBride said in a statement. “We should be focused on reducing the cost of housing, health care and childcare, not creating culture wars.”

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“Delawareans sent me here to make the American Dream more affordable and accessible, and that’s what I’m focused on,” McBride added.

When online critics said Mace’s decision was “clearly aimed” at McBride, the South Carolina congresswoman confirmed that was her intent.

“Yes and then some. Biological males have no rights to women’s private spaces. It’s perverse to think otherwise,” Mace wrote on X in response to another user.

“Sarah McBride doesn’t get a say here either. I will always protect women and girls. Period. Period. End of story.”

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Her uncompromising position provoked McBride’s defenders to call Mace a bigot and a bully.

Leftist journalist Aaron Rupar shared a screenshot of Mace’s response and wrote: “Notice how ‘concerns about fairness in sports’ have already turned into unvarnished transphobic bigotry.”

Mace replied: “Protecting women and girls is not bigotry, it’s common sense. I will stand on the edge to protect women’s rights from the far left radicals who are trying to erase us.”

Harry Sisson, a Democratic content creator on TikTok, also accused Mace of “outright bigotry and bullying.”

Citing his X post, Mace wrote: “All these radical leftists pushing other men into women’s private spaces shows you how sick they really are – The Left will do anything they can to hurt women and girls. As a victim for abuse and as an advocate for other women abused by men, four words to you: Over My Dead Body.”

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Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., called Mace’s efforts to bar McBride from the ladies room “pathetic.”

“What are you afraid of, Nancy?” he asked.

To which Mace quoted his response, writing: “I don’t want people with penises (sic) showing them off in our locker room.”

In a follow-up post, Phillips asked: “Why wouldn’t we ‘allow’ our fellow citizens the right to use the goddamn toilet of whatever gender they live their lives by?

“You might not like it. I understand that. But it’s still common sense and banning it seems un-American,” he continued. “So come on patriots, let’s be cool with each other.”

But Mace refused to back down.

“As a victim of abuse, I know first hand that women are vulnerable and I will stand in the way of anyone who violates our rights or who wants to set us back 100 years,” she wrote.

Semaphore political reporter David Weigel noted that Mace’s position is a “shift” to the right after she supported a Republican alternative to the Democrat-backed Equality Act, which would have added sexual orientation and gender identity language to federal non-discrimination law.

The GOP’s “Fairness for All Act” would have extended civil rights protections to gay and transgender people, but exempted religious institutions, nonprofits and certain individuals.

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“I strongly support LGBTQ rights and equality,” Mace shared Washington Examiner in 2021. “No one should be discriminated against.”

She went on to say that gender issues are not “black and white”.

“I believe that religious freedom, the First Amendment, gay rights, and transgender equality can all coexist. I’m also a constitutional scholar, and we need to make sure that anti-discrimination laws don’t infringe on First Amendment rights or religious freedom.” Mace said then.

“I have friends and family who identify as LGBTQ,” she added. “It’s important to understand how they feel and how they’ve been treated. Being around gay, lesbian and transgender people has given me meaning throughout my life.”

Fox News Digital’s Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report.