COLUMBIA — Following a contentious exchange with a college campus audience, U.S. Rep Nancy Mace doubled down on offensive language toward a transgender student and then posted a video of the interaction on social media.
After approaching the stage, University of South Carolina student Harley Hicks, who uses she/they pronouns, asked Mace to apologize for using the word “tranny.”
Is that “derogatory to you?” Mace asked after a speaking event hosted by USC’s chapter of Turning Point USA, a nonprofit that advocates for conservative viewpoints on high school and college campuses across the country.
“Well, yeah. Of course it f—ing is,” Hicks responded.
Mace, who’s considering a run for governor in 2026, then repeated the word three times, as seen in the video she posted on X.
After the interaction, Hicks grabbed a potted plant, which Mace said her security team thought Hicks was going to throw at her. Mace repeated the claim on a Fox News appearance after the event.
Talking to a pair of reporters, the 20-year-old student denied that claim.
“I’m like a shark, more afraid of her than she is of me,” said Hicks, who added that being at the event as a trans person was one of the bravest actions she’d ever taken.
“If I were attacking her, you’d have seen a very different video,” Hicks said.
About 60 people attended the roughly 35-minute event at USC’s student life center.
It quickly devolved into a question-and-answer session as people in the audience interrupted Mace’s speech by shouting questions about immigration, abortion, student loans, and her repeated use of the phrase “lunatic left” to describe Democrats.
Monday’s interaction comes after multiple controversies between Mace and trans people.
In February, the 1st District congresswoman was criticized for using the same offensive language she used with Hicks during a House Oversight Committee hearing on spending by the United States Agency for International Development, known as USAID, which the Trump administration has halted.
Mace accused USAID of “funding some of the dumbest, I mean stupidest, just dumbest initiatives imaginable, all supported by the left,” citing a list of diversity and transgender advocacy initiatives funded around the world.
Following the election of Delaware Rep. Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender member of Congress in November, Mace led the charge to ban transgender women from using women’s restrooms in the U.S. Capitol and House office buildings. House Speaker Mike Johnson then issued a rule 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.”
Mace then introduced legislation to expand the rule to all federal buildings, as well as a separate bill applying the rule to restrooms nationwide.
The 47-year-old congresswoman didn’t mention McBride by name but alluded to her at Monday’s event.
“I was the first woman last year in Congress when we had somebody who was elected, who was a biological male dressed as a woman, who decided this isn’t going to happen in the United States,” Mace said.
“It’s not going to happen in South Carolina. It’s not going to happen anywhere, if I decide to put a stop to it,” she added.
Over the weekend, an interaction between the congresswoman and Ely Murray-Quick at an Ulta Beauty store went viral after both the constituent and Mace posted video from their perspective.
Murray-Quick questioned Mace about not holding any in-person town halls, something she has been consistently criticized for in recent weeks. By the end of the video, both Mace and Murray-Quick had traded curse words.
The congresswoman has pointed to threats against her and staffers as the reason there has yet to be an in-person town hall in 2025. On April 8, she held a telephone town hall without advance notice or promotion.
Mace was the first to curse in the video she posted on X. When asked by a pair of female reporters ahead of Monday’s event why she started cursing and if that behavior was appropriate for a member of Congress, Mace criticized them.
“To shame a woman for standing up for herself is completely ridiculous. That’s what you’re doing. You’re shaming a woman for standing up for herself,” she said. “Either of you, how do you think that makes other women feel?”
Minutes later, Mace took the stage and told the crowd that she had to “call out the insanity” with reporters who “were offended that an adult female used a curse word.”
“I’m like, have you seen my interviews?” she said.
It only took four minutes before Mace’s speech was interrupted by people in the audience.
When asked about mass deportations of immigrants without proper authorization, Mace said, “We did it under Obama, we did it under Biden, we did it under Bush and beyond. If it was good enough for all of those presidents then, it’s good enough for Trump today.”
When asked if it was necessary for immigrants to receive due process with judicial proceedings, Mace said “they didn’t have due process on the way in, they shouldn’t get it on the way out.”
Her take received a mix of cheers and yells from an outraged crowd.
While the event was held by a conservative group, the most vocal members of the audience disagreed with Mace. One even asked if her faith in God is genuine.
“Yes, I went to church yesterday,” Mace said.
Mace has publicly said she’s mulling a run for governor.
Others publicly considering a bid include Attorney General Alan Wilson, Lt. Gov. Pam Evette and U.S. Rep Ralph Norman, as well as state Senators Josh Kimbrell and Sean Bennett.
Holly Sox, a 58-year-old Gilbert resident, was among the attendees Monday.
Though a lifelong Republican, she said she started voting for Democrats last year due to the rhetoric of Mace and the Make America Great Again movement.
“This MAGA crowd has corrupted and co-opted what I grew up believing,” said Sox, who was wearing a shirt with the face of U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, who Mace has sparred with.
The final question of the event came from a self-identified Democrat, who asked how Democrats can trust that Mace will have a real conversation with people she’s labeled part of the “lunatic left.” When the congresswoman said she’ll have a conversation with anyone, the person followed by asking if that extends to the trans community.
“It applies to everybody,” she said. “But I’m not going to allow some guy in a skirt to be in my bathroom or in my locker room undressed.”
Last updated 11:45 a.m., Apr. 22, 2025
