Republican Representative Nancy Mace has fired back at Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, saying she lives "rent-free" in the New York representative's head, after she accused the South Carolina congresswoman of "endangering women" with her transgender bathroom ban measure.
A row has erupted on Capitol Hill over a bill proposed by Mace seeking to ban House members and staffers from "using single-sex facilities other than those corresponding to their biological sex."
The measure covers bathrooms in the Capitol and House offices, charging the House sergeant-at-arms with enforcing the prohibition. It comes after the United States elected its first every transgender member of Congress, Sarah McBride, who will represent Delaware's at-large congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from January.
"Sarah McBride doesn't get a say in this. If you're a biological man, you shouldn't be in women's restrooms," Mace told journalist Pablo Manríquez on Monday.
Mace's bill has been supported by several Republicans, including Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and House Speaker Mike Johnson, who 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."
Following the remarks, Ocasio-Cortez hit out at Mace and Johnson, telling reporters: "What Nancy Mace and Speaker Johnson are doing is endangering all women and girls, because if you ask them: 'What is your plan on how to enforce this?' they won't come up with an answer.
"And what it inevitably results in are women and girls who are primed for assault because people are going to want to check their private parts, suspecting who is trans and who is cis[gender], and who is doing what, and so the idea that Nancy Mace wants little girls and women to drop trou in front of who, an investigator? Who would that be? Because she wants to suspect and point fingers at who she thinks is trans, it's disgusting."
She added that all the bill has done "is allowed these Republicans to go around and bully any women who isn't wearing a skirt because they think she might not look women enough."
Mace has not answered questions about how one would check who is qualified to use female or male restrooms. "Here's the deal. Biological men shouldn't be in women's private spaces, period. End of story," she responded when asked by Manríquez on Monday. "It's time to make sure that we protect women and girls everywhere."
The Republican congresswoman later hit back at Ocasio-Cortez, telling Fox News: "I love living rent-free in AOC's tiny little brain." She also denied that she is endangering women and that she wants women and girls to "drop trou."
"I never said anything like that. In fact, the irony here is that she's a radical leftist, insane clown," she said. Mace added that she had been a victim of rape.
"I'm a survivor of sexual abuse, I have PTSD from the abuse I've suffered at the hands of a man, and it's so weird and dangerous and perverted, this idea that it's OK for a naked man to be in a locker room with women, it's insanity to me, and this has got to stop.
"And so in a world of this kind of insane ideology that AOC embraces, I aim to be giant, and I plan to stop anybody—male or female—that's going to put women and girls in harm's way. I'm not going to tolerate it," Mace said.
She also referred to McBride as a man and claimed she had been on the phone to Capitol Police following "threats" she had received from the "radical left."
"I've been on phone with Capitol Police because I've received so many threats from the radical left, from men dressed as women, who think I should be killed because I want women to have private spaces like bathrooms, dressing rooms and locker rooms, so I'm gonna stay in the way of anyone, like Congressman-elect McBride, anyone who wants to harm women, I'm not going to tolerate at all."
Newsweek has contacted Ocasio-Cortez and McBride for comment via email.
Multiple studies and reviews have found no evidence to support claims that transgender individuals pose an increased threat to safety in bathrooms. Transgender people are also more likely to be the victims of violent crimes than those who are not.
Mace's bill has received plenty of criticism. McBride referenced Mace's proposal in a statement to Newsweek on Tuesday. "This is a blatant attempt from far right-wing extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing," she said.
"We should be focused on bringing down the cost of housing, health care, and child care, not manufacturing culture wars. Delawareans sent me here to make the American dream more affordable and accessible and that's what I'm focused on," she added.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday, she said: "I'm not here to fight about bathrooms. I'm here to fight for Delawareans and to bring down costs facing families."
She also wrote that she would comply with the rules set out by Johnson, "even if I disagree with them."
Mace has also received criticism from one of her former aides over the bill. "If you think this bill is about protecting women and not simply a ploy to get on Fox News, you've been fooled," Mace's former communications director, Natalie Johnson, wrote on X.
Several Democrats have weighed in. "The cruelty is the point," Vermont Representative Becca Balint, a co-chair of the Equality Caucus, said, according to Axios.
"Is that what we want the sergeant-at-arms to be doing when we had an attack on the freaking Capitol?"
"What they are talking about there on day one is where one member out of 435... is going to use the bathroom," Representative Katherine Clark of Massachusetts added. "That is their focus."
Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman voiced his support for McBride in a post on X: "There's no job I'm afraid to lose if it requires me to degrade anyone. If that's a defining issue for a voter, there will be a different candidate. We have a bathroom in my office that anybody is welcome to use, including Representative-elect Sarah McBride."
But Mace has also received support from Republicans. Greene said she supported the measure, and referred to McBride as "a man," and "he" multiple times during an interview with Manríquez.
"I support a resolution that keeps all biological men out of women's bathrooms, locker rooms, and private places. Not only here in the Capitol complex, our office buildings, but all taxpayer-funded facilities," she said in a video posted to X.
The following day, she said Mace's proposal "doesn't go far enough."
"A resolution is just a statement by Congress saying that Congress disagrees with something, we need something more binding," Greene said on Tuesday.
Mace is reportedly trying to get the bill included in the rules for the 119th Congress or have it voted on separately. She said that if her bill fails to pass this year, she will "file this again next congressional session."
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