Roasted! GOP firebrand forgot to delete these pro-transgender tweets

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) is facing social media backlash over her vendetta against the first transgender woman to serve in Congress next year.
Mace called on Congress to require lawmakers and staffers to use the restrooms corresponding with their biological sex, explaining that her action was in response to incoming Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.) being elected to the House. She has painted her stance as ensuring that women are “protected,” and has argued that only biological women should be allowed to use their restroom.
However, social media users have unearthed her previous statements being in support of trans rights.
Semafor’s David Weigel pointed out that Mace posted a 2021 statement saying she hoped “we can all come together to celebrate the challenges our LGBTQ+ has overcome, and the bright future ahead.”
“I’m sorry, the old Nancy can’t come to the phone right now,” Weigel quipped, referencing a popular song by singer Taylor Swift.
And former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a frequent critic of Trump, highlighted how she said in 2021 that “[r]eligious liberty, gay rights, and transgender equality can all coexist.” Natalie Johnson, who once served as a communications aide to Mace, posted the same statement and said the congresswoman is politicizing the issue to get on Fox News.
“If you think this bill is about protecting women and not simply a ploy to get on Fox News, you’ve been fooled,” she wrote on social media platform X.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) wrote in a new memo Wednesday that lawmakers and staffers will need to use the restrooms corresponding with their biological sex while in the lower chamber. His declaration came after Mace made it her personal mission to ban McBride from using the women’s restroom because she is a transgender woman.
McBride said in a statement that the effort a way to “distract from the real issues facing this country.” She said that she will follow Johnson’s rules, even if she disagreed with them.
The focus on the transgender bathroom debate comes after the Trump campaign honed in on releasing ads against transgender rights in the final weeks of his campaign, which some say helped sway voters toward the now president-elect.
Referring to transgender people by the sex they were assigned at birth rather than by the gender they identify as is a tactic often used by opponents of transgender rights. The larger debate over whether transgender people should be allowed to use the bathrooms that align with their gender identity has been prevalent across the U.S. and became a focal point of President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign.
At least 11 states have adopted laws barring transgender girls and women from girls and women’s bathrooms at public schools, and in some cases other government facilities.
Democrats have called the GOP campaign against McBride as bullying. Rep. Eric Sorensen, D-Ill., said Tuesday that Mace’s comments are “absolutely ignorant.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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