Rep. Nancy Mace Shouts Trans Slur Over and Over During House Hearing: 'I Don't Really Care'

Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina interrupted a colleague at a House Oversight Committee meeting this week by repeating a transphobic slur into her microphone after being told the word was offensive.

On Wednesday, Feb. 5, the 47-year-old representative first used an anti-trans slur while describing what she called USAID's funding of "gender-affirming health care in Guatemala." After Mace said the slur once, Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly — the top Democrat on the committee — spoke up about her language.

"[She] has used a phrase that is considered a slur in the LGBTQ community and the transgender community," Connolly said, then asking Mace to allow him to "finish" before she interrupts.

Mace then proceeded to interrupt Connolly, 74, by repeating "t-----" three more times and saying "I don't really care," before making broad claims about "penises in women's bathrooms."

"I don't care, it's disgusting," she said, before Connolly reiterated that "a slur is a slur."

"Here in the committee, a level of decorum requires us to try to consciously avoid slurs," Connolly responded. "You just heard [her] actively, robustly repeat it. And I would just ask the chairman that she be counseled that we ought not to be engaged. We can have debate and policy discussion without offending human beings who are fellow citizens."

After Connolly spoke out, Mace claimed she didn't want to be "counseled by a man."

Chairman James Comer, a Republican representative from Kentucky, then told Connolly that he personally wasn't "up to date on my politically correct LGBTQ terminology" and couldn't speak to whether it was offensive.

According to GLAAD, the slur itself is defined by the Cambridge English dictionary as "an extremely offensive word for a person who is transgender" and has often been used by those who oppose transgender rights in an effort to mock the community and dehumanize trans people.

"Such usages often also imply that the term is somehow humorous and therefore acceptable, when it is not, particularly for the marginalized person and community being targeted," GLAAD notes.

Mace has garnered headlines in recent weeks for taking a sharp turn against the trans community and leading the charge to ban trans people from Capitol Hill bathrooms after the first openly transgender woman was elected to Congress.

In January, she also made headlines for seemingly threatening Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett during a committee meeting while debating an amendment to reinstate the previously disbanded Oversight Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.

At the time, Crockett introduced her amendment after the House of Representatives voted to pass H.R. 28, "The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act," preventing biological males from competing against biological females in women's sports, The New Republic reported.

"I can see that somebody's campaign coffers really are struggling right now, so she's gonna keep saying 'trans, trans, trans' so that people will feel threatened. And child, listen," Crockett said, referring to Mace, who then asserted that she was "no child."

"I am not a child. If you want to take it outside, we can do that," Mace said.

Per The Hill, Comer ruled that Mace was not challenging Crockett to a fight, while Crockett wrote later on X that "Republican colleague threatened to physically fight" her.

Mace has since denied that she was threatening violence, claiming that she "wanted to take the conversation off the floor."

According to NBC News, since taking office on Jan. 20, President Donald Trump has signed four executive orders targeting transgender people. He signed his latest on Wednesday, Feb. 5, in an attempt to prohibit trans women and girls from competing in female sports.