Before she became the most prominent transphobe in American politics, Nancy Mace presented herself as a different type of Republican. Taking congressional office in 2021, the South Carolina representative quickly established a reputation as a “pro-baby, pro-gun, pro-pot, pro-gay” maverick who scrapped with far-right Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, broke with Donald Trump after January 6, and implored her colleagues to “stop being assholes to women.” Mace talked openly about being sexually assaulted, about her experience as a single mother, and about her desire to “find a way to balance the right to life but balance women’s rights as well” as a lawmaker. She billed herself as a “caucus of one.” As recently as May 2023, The New York Times depicted her as the future of a kinder, gentler post-Trump Republican Party.
Few would label Mace kind or gentle now, and today, as she engages in a relentless crusade against trans rights, she is more one-trick pony than “caucus of one.” She has used slurs like “tranny” in committee meetings; bullied trans congresswoman Sarah McBride, whom she has labeled a threat; and suggested that people like her are not women but rather “mentally ill.” In November, she pushed a bill that would ban transgender women from using bathrooms on federal property, that aimed to discourage them from public service, and otherwise served to discourage them even from visiting government buildings or national parks. “I am a general’s daughter,” she wrote in her memoir. “I know a battle when I see one.”
If there is a through line connecting the incongruous halves of Mace’s political career, it is an all-consuming desire for attention. During her first few years in Congress, it seemed that Trump’s hold on the Republican Party was loosening, and Mace eagerly played the right notes for reporters in search of the GOP’s next generation. Eventually, it became clear that Trump wasn’t going anywhere—and Mace, whose district had been redrawn and was suddenly significantly redder, was suddenly the wrong type of Republican. She fixed it by becoming the right type, more or less overnight: The formerly “pro-gay” representative was now Congress’s most vociferous anti-trans culture warrior.
Mace is best known for theatrical displays of cruelty that capitalize on anti-trans sentiment and almost always stand out in a chaotic news cycle. For her, every anti-trans stunt she engages in creates a virtuous cycle: She does something bigoted and provocative; trans people and allies respond; she then claims she’s been “bullied” or “silenced”—in a vicious cycle that never ends.
Mace’s anti-trans posturing is often dismissed as a cynical bid for attention, but that’s not the whole story. She isn’t just pushing a culture war, and she isn’t targeting only trans people. She and her Republican colleagues are using transphobia as a wedge issue to justify a larger assault on essential government programs that serve trans and non-trans people alike.
If Mace’s monomaniacal focus on trans issues has made her something of a joke, her bigotry is rarely challenged by her colleagues. Democrats are still licking their wounds from an electoral defeat that many partially blame—with little evidence—on the perception that the party is too pro-trans. More often than not, Mace’s abhorrent statements are left unchallenged by Democratic politicians who are terrified of being labeled “pro-trans.” Their silence only reinforces Mace’s core argument: that providing government resources to trans people is indefensible.
Mace offers a portal into the topsy-turvy world of Trumpian radicalization. She may have backtracked on LGBTQ rights, but she now feels compelled to discuss her belief in extraterrestrials and distrust of vaccines. Selective moderation is out; embracing crank conspiracy theories is in. Her transformation was obviously shameless, but in Trump’s Washington, shamelessness is in, too.
The sincerity of Mace’s politics is largely beside the point; it doesn’t matter if she genuinely holds bigoted views or if she simply pretends to. What is clear is that she is desperate for recognition and not particularly interested in most aspects of governance—and in this way, few people better embody the spirit of Trump’s Republican Party than she does. Ex-staffers report that she does not believe her job in Washington is to pass legislation or even to represent her constituents. She believes her job is to go on television. More often than not, she goes on national news to demean and dehumanize trans people.
Mace presents herself as an arbiter of common sense who is simply acting to protect the public from those she deems a threat to the patriarchal status quo. “Voted for gay marriage twice. Would do it again,” she has said. “Have supported pro LGBTQ legislation. Draw the line at women being forced to undress in front of men or men using our bathrooms or any private spaces.” Depicting herself as the type of person she’s appealing to—an ardent supporter of gay rights who nevertheless sees trans issues as a bridge too far—she pitches her party as a bulwark of sanity and normalcy in a world gone mad, falsely implying that Republicans largely held the same beliefs on LGBTQ rights that Democrats held until Democrats descended into madness over the transgender craze seducing our children.
None of this is true, of course. The dystopia she describes, where women are forced to strip naked in front of gawking men, is a fantasy, while Republican state legislatures across the country are currently working to erode gay rights. It’s a narrative that inverts reality, cloaking the GOP in moral seriousness and expunging the party’s long, appalling record on LGBTQ rights and women’s issues. In Mace’s telling, Democrats have not only abandoned women and jettisoned gay rights; they have transformed into a party of immoral psychopaths encouraging groomers. Perfect culture-war fodder for an unscrupulous politician. Perfect for getting on television.
In order to spread her message, Mace capitalized on bit-size social media transphobia. Her widespread online presence is not something Democrats have been able to mirror. She was clocked for making a joke about denying her husband sex at a prayer breakfast. Her audacious posts on X and Instagram are regularly parsed in the news, often giving her exactly what she wants: headlines. “I wasn’t used to seeing my name in print,” Mace wrote in her 2001 memoir, “but I kind of liked it.”
Outlets like Washingtonian and Slate claim that some congressional offices, like Mace’s, “have become PR firms for attention-hungry members who see their job … as building a personal brand.” Like Trump, Mace is fashioning an identity built on short-term populism. Meanwhile, staffers spoke with Washingtonian about Mace’s mistreatment and the fact she used her office as a means to get on TV. Her goal was to provoke in order to get coverage, not lead with a legislative agenda. She wanted to look like a “hot mama” or “MILF.” Mostly, though she wants attention and has discovered an ideal front in the culture wars to get it: People—Democrats and Republicans alike—tune in when she’s tough on Big Trans.
But Mace’s culture war isn’t just about revving up her base and demonizing her opponents. It also stealthily launders the Republican Party’s larger austerity agenda by suggesting that certain people are fundamentally unworthy of government assistance, and that some spending cuts are moral necessities rather than choices. Back in 2013, she opposed the Affordable Care Act, calling it “the undoing of our American way of life.” In 2020, she said she would support an attempt to make a full repeal. Now, as Republicans try to ram through a spending bill that would strip millions of their health care in order to enshrine tax cuts for the ultrarich, the Trump administration is touting a ban on federally funded health care for trans people of all ages.
Stripping health care from trans people is, of course, a goal in and of itself for Republican lawmakers. GOP members have made it clear that they believe trans people are unwelcome in public spaces and even that they should not exist at all. But the denial of government funding for trans health care betrays a deeper, more insidious goal as well—it justifies austerity politics for everyone. By making the case that some people are fundamentally undeserving of material support, Republicans are undermining the idea that any government program could be universal. Health care, they argue, is a privilege, not a right.
Health care has always been a political lightning rod for the culture wars. Those whom the state considers surplus populations—immigrants, trans people, the sick, the poor—are often left to be exploited when it’s convenient for austerity-minded politicians who insist that reform is necessary because the “wrong people” are currently receiving government assistance. The resulting spending cuts nearly always disproportionately affect these populations, but they are rarely limited to them.
Like most of her Republican colleagues, Mace typically votes to slash health care spending and opposes programs like the ACA that expand access. She has recently begun dabbling in vaccine skepticism. But she does not seem to have any particular interest in the nitty-gritty of health care policy or legislation, having long since determined that her purpose in Washington is to spend as much time on television as possible.
Mace’s attention-seeking and general unseriousness in most matters make it tempting to dismiss her as a distraction from more pressing issues. But she is not a distraction; she is the means.
Mace is the Republican caucus’s most vocal transphobe, but her views are hardly unique. Those views are, moreover, common across right-wing media and have emerged as a core part of several new outlets, such as former New York Times opinion editor Bari Weiss’s The Free Press, that appeal to political centrists who have soured on the mainstream press for allegedly being too social justice–oriented. Instead, landing a viral TikTok may be even more effective than actually drafting and passing legislation, or drafting an op-ed. The radicalization of alternative platforms like Substack and social media outlets like X has led to a new brand of Republican superstar. Trans rights are almost always on the docket. Being tough on the so-called trans agenda sells and polls well with the GOP base. Those conflicted on whether or not trans people are human need content. Mace is happy to fill the void—a brutally effective clown armed with fact-free nonsense while the Democrats remain divided on how to approach the country’s far-right drift. Even Sarah McBride seems content to step aside, ignoring Republicans’ vitriol-filled invectives in favor of trying to actually do her job—which is to say, passing legislation, servicing her constituents, and attending hearings. Perhaps a stronger counterattack is necessary.
After all, Mace’s crusade won’t stop at health care, bathrooms, or sports. Safety is a moving target, after all. In the name of protection, Mace is ready to deal a lot of damage.
