Republican Representative Nancy Mace has posted and sent out replies over 300 times on social media about bathrooms.
Mace, of South Carolina, has filed a bill seeking to ban transgender women from using women's bathrooms at the U.S. Capitol. She has posted, reposted and responded for a total of 326 times as of publication. Mace's posts come ahead of Representative-elect Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender woman elected to Congress, joining the House in January.
"We support gay marriage, and voted for the Respect for Marriage Act twice. However, if you think protecting women is discrimination, you are the problem," Mace posted to X, formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday. "We don't care if you're trans, if you have balls we don't want you in the women's bathroom."
The House sergeant-at-arms would reportedly be responsible for enforcing the ban, as Mace said in a few of her posts. A copy of the bill shared by Axios shows that bathrooms would be divided along the lines of "biological sex."
However, it is unclear what constitutes "biological" or how sex would be verified before people enter the bathrooms.
Since November 18, Mace has posted to her X account @RepNancyMace 96 times. Only three times did they not revolve around transgender use of bathrooms, with a post about Jose Ibarra and two about her upcoming television appearances. Mace reposted seven other people on this account and replied to 21 messages.
One post shows Mace placing a label reading "biological" above a women's bathroom sign at the Capitol.
"I never thought we would need a sign for this, but women's restrooms are for BIOLOGICAL women," Mace posted. "Not men."
On Mace's other X account, @NancyMace, she has posted 115 times over the past three days. There were the same three non-transgender related posts about Ibarra and the television appearance times. This account reposted eight other people and replied to 71. One post shows Mace in an armor-like corset with a sword and shield, standing in front of a bathroom with the sign "women" on it.
Mace also has a TikTok account, @basedmace. Over the past few days, she has made two new videos about the issue. It does not appear that Mace replied to anyone on this account.
"I seemed to have blown up the Radical Left last night," Mace started one video. "I filed a resolution that would ban biological men from women's private spaces on The Hill. I'm just getting started."
On Instagram, @nancyrmace has posted six times. Some of the posts are the same videos from TikTok. Others are more meme-like, and one thanks Speaker of the House Mike Johnson for "doing the right thing."
"McBride, a biological male, does not get a say in women's private spaces," Mace wrote in a post on X.
The House Judiciary GOP account later argued in a post that the bill should not be "controversial" because Mace was merely "introducing a resolution to keep men from using women's restrooms in the U.S. Capitol," conspicuously referring to transgender women as "men."
Mace responded to the post by arguing that her bill was "common sense for women's safety."
Other Republicans, like Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, have spoken in support of the measure, calling it a "resolution that keeps all biological men out of women's bathrooms, locker rooms and private places."
Johnson said in a statement on Wednesday that "all single-sex facilities in the Capitol and House office buildings—such as restrooms, changing rooms and locker rooms—are reserved for individuals of that biological sex."
Mace's former communications director, Natalie Johnson, posted to X on Wednesday that "tweeting 262 times about a bill that applies to like .00000001% of Congress in 36 hours is definitely about protecting women. It's certainly not just a ploy for media attention."
Polling suggests Americans are broadly in favor of protecting transgender people from discrimination but are divided on specific policies.
A Pew Research Center survey of 10,188 U.S. adults in May 2022 found that around eight in ten said there was discrimination against transgender people, and a majority said they should be protected from discrimination in "jobs, housing and public spaces."
Around four in ten said transgender people should be required to use public bathrooms "that match the sex they were assigned at birth."
The available evidence does not support the notion that transgender women pose an increased threat to safety in bathrooms. Transgender people are several times more likely to be victims of violent crimes than those who are not transgender, according to a 2021 study.
