Rep. Nancy Mace’s place on LGBTQ neighborhood seems to have modified

Rep. Nancy Mace has not too long ago made headlines and confronted protests for her rhetoric across the transgender neighborhood, notably for her efforts to ban transgender ladies from utilizing ladies’s restrooms on the U.S. Capitol simply as the primary transgender consultant has been elected to Congress.

This month, Mace, R-S.C., used a slur towards the transgender neighborhood in a video on social media. She used the time period in reference to protesters who demonstrated within the halls of Congress towards the trans rest room ban.

Now Mace is again within the headlines for accusing foster youth advocate James McIntyre of assault. Based on court docket paperwork obtained by ABC Information, McIntyre allegedly approached Mace to shake her hand after she spoke at an occasion to have fun the twenty fifth anniversary of laws benefiting foster youth.

Mace claimed to officers that “the topic started to aggressively and in an exaggerated method shake her arm up and down in a hand shaking movement. The impact of the movement was described as her arm flailing for about 3-5 seconds.”

McIntryre is alleged to have acknowledged “trans youth deserve advocacy” through the interplay. Mace informed police she had ache in her wrists, arm and armpits as a result of incident, however refused help from paramedics. McIntyre was arrested and has pleaded not responsible to costs of assaulting a authorities official.

In a publish on X following the incident, Mace known as McIntyre “a pro-tr*ns man.”

Mace’s latest remarks look like a shift from her feedback in years previous, when she had referred to herself as “pro-transgender” and “pro-LGBTQ.”

ABC Information has reached out to Mace’s workplace for remark.

Previous to the laws to ban transgender ladies from Capitol bogs, Mace supported the “Equity for All Act,” expressed help for socially transitioning youth and confronted backlash for what critics known as her pro-transgender help.

2021: Mace says she helps ‘LGBTQ rights and equality’

In an interview with the Washington Examiner in 2021, Mace informed a reporter: “I strongly help LGBTQ rights and equality … nobody must be discriminated towards.”

Within the interview, she mentioned her opposition to the Equality Act, which might increase federal civil rights legal guidelines to ban discrimination primarily based on sexual orientation and gender id. She as an alternative supported the “Equity for All Act,” which was aimed toward banning discrimination primarily based on sexual orientation and gender id however permitting sure exceptions for non secular organizations.

Based on the outlet, Mace agreed that, for instance, secular firms shouldn’t be capable to discriminate primarily based on sexual orientation or gender id – however that non secular organizations don’t have to “violate their ethical or non secular conscience,” the outlet wrote.

“It isn’t a black-and-white challenge,” Mace mentioned within the interview. “I do consider that non secular liberty, the First Modification, homosexual rights, and transgender equality can all coexist. I’m additionally a constitutionalist, and we now have to make sure anti-discrimination legal guidelines don’t violate First Modification rights or non secular freedom.”

She informed the outlet she has “family and friends that establish as LGBTQ … Understanding how they really feel and the way they’ve been handled is necessary. Having been round homosexual, lesbian, and transgender folks has knowledgeable my opinion over my lifetime.”

On the time, she mentioned youthful conservatives had been turning into extra supportive of LGBTQ rights: “Individuals don’t need the federal government of their bedrooms or their board rooms.”

2022: Mace faces assault adverts for her views

Within the 2022 major race, Mace was the topic of political assault adverts from the conservative American Rules PAC focusing on her for her pro-transgender help.

The advert claimed Mace supported “males in women’ locker rooms, males in ladies’s prisons, and even males in battered ladies’s shelters,” referring to transgender ladies as males.

2023: Mace seems to help social transitioning for minors

In a 2023 interview with CBS Information, Mace mentioned: “I am pro-transgender rights. I am pro-LGBTQ. Simply do not go to the intense with our children.”

She spoke about her help for bans on gender-affirming look after transgender youth, stating that “intercourse change surgical procedure, the hormone blockers that sterilize our youngsters. We should not be doing that.” Medical consultants have mentioned puberty blockers are reversible and don’t completely sterilize sufferers.

Nonetheless, Mace appeared to precise help for youth who’re socially transitioning: “In the event that they wanna tackle a distinct pronoun or a distinct gender id or develop their hair out, or put on a costume or put on pants, or do these issues as a minor—these are all issues that I believe most individuals would help. Be who you need to be, however don’t make everlasting adjustments as a toddler,” Mace mentioned.

2024: Mace introduces rest room ban amid rise in anti-LGBTQ sentiment

In November, Mace launched a measure to ban transgender ladies from utilizing ladies’s restrooms on the U.S. Capitol, focusing on Rep.-elect Sarah McBride, the primary transgender individual elected to Congress.

“Sure, and completely. After which some,” Mace informed reporters on the Capitol when requested about whether or not the laws was in response to McBride’s election.

“I am not going to face for a person, you recognize, somebody with a penis, within the ladies’s locker room,” she mentioned.

Mace invoked her personal experiences as a sufferer of rape as a part of the rationale she launched the measure.

“That is not OK. And I am a sufferer of abuse myself. I am a rape survivor,” Mace mentioned. “I’ve PTSD from the abuse I’ve suffered by the hands of a person, and I understand how weak ladies and women are in personal areas, so I am completely 100% going to face in the best way of any man who desires to be in a ladies’s restroom, in our locker rooms, in our altering rooms. I shall be there preventing you each step of the best way,” she mentioned.

McBride responded to the invoice on X: “It is a blatant try from far right-wing extremists to distract from the very fact they haven’t any actual options to what Individuals are dealing with.”

After Home Speaker Mike Johnson mentioned transgender ladies can not use ladies’s restrooms within the Capitol and Home workplace buildings, McBride responded to imposed guidelines: “I’m not right here to struggle about bogs. I’m right here to struggle for Delawareans and to convey down prices dealing with households. Like all members, I’ll comply with the foundations as outlined by Speaker Johnson, even when I disagree with them.”

Every consultant’s workplace has a non-public restroom and unisex restrooms are additionally accessible all through the Capitol.

Opponents of the ban say that the narrative round “concern” and “private security” regarding transgender use of bogs is rooted in discrimination. They argue transgender folks aren’t inherently harmful and are literally extra more likely to be victims of violence than cisgender folks.

Mace mentioned she wished to increase her efforts and push a measure that will ban transgender ladies from utilizing ladies’s bogs on all federal property: “This should not be occurring any federal property. In the event you’re a faculty or an establishment that will get authorities funding, this sort of factor must be banned,” she mentioned.

Transgender folks — who make up lower than 1% of Individuals over the age of 13, in keeping with UCLA’s analysis group, the Williams Institute — have been the topics of lots of of Republican-backed payments throughout the nation lately.

When protesters entered the Capitol to protest efforts to limit transgender rest room use in early December, Mace responded with a video on X, the place she known as protesters a derogatory slur for transgender folks.