"Democratic congresswomen should support Nancy Mace’s women’s rights bills"

January 7, 2025

The title of this post is the title of a piece that originally ran in the Washington Examiner. You can find the original here.

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Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) has been on a mission lately, authoring numerous bills to protect women and girls. In November 2024, she introduced a resolution to maintain single-sex bathrooms at the U.S. Capitol. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) later made that the official policy of the House, and Mace later introduced legislation to maintain single-sex bathrooms and locker rooms on all federal property.

She didn’t stop there. She has also introduced legislation to maintain single-sex prisons.

This is all welcome news to the women at Women’s Declaration International USA, which works to advance the Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights through law, policy, and practice. WDI USA is a nonpartisan organization, but its supporters generally consider themselves to be liberal, very liberal, or progressive. Of the roughly 6,500 U.S. signatories to the declaration, around 30% are Democrats and 34% are independents. Seven percent are Republicans, and the rest are either unaffiliated or prefer not to say.

As shown by polling conducted by WDI USA in late 2023, Mace’s positions are also extremely popular with the American electorate.

So Democratic women in Congress are supporting Mace, right? Actually, no. Not a single female Democratic member of Congress has expressed any support for Mace’s straightforward and extremely popular efforts to protect the nation’s women and girls from invasions by men and boys who call themselves “transgender.”

The women of WDI USA are not surprised. The refusal by Democrats in Congress, including the women, even to acknowledge the threats posed by gender ideology has been near total. After Vice President Kamala Harris lost the presidential election, in large part because of this issue, Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) mildly suggested that Democrats need to have conversations about the important topic of male athletes in women’s sports, and he was ignored by the rest of the party. His campaign manager had a temper tantrum and resigned.

It gets worse. As explained by author Glenna Goldis on X, powerful women, including many lesbians, have been championing the “rights” of men and boys who call themselves “transgender” for years. Goldis provides examples and receipts.

Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN) has denounced women’s sports advocates: “As a lesbian woman, I am no stranger to prejudice and intolerance — but this legislation is beyond the pale. Plain and simple, the Protect Women’s Sports Act is transphobic — and this type of discrimination has no place in the halls of Congress.”

Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT) has argued that people who express concern about puberty blockers and opposite-sex hormones are doing so in bad faith. She asked, “Do you really believe that garbage?” Balint continued, “There’s only a handful of us in Congress who are in those rooms who feel it on a personal level. Often I’m the only queer woman in the room. … Why are we continuing to demonize young people? That’s what’s going on here, this whole argument about whether we can let your 13-year-old trans girl play on a hockey team.”

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) once earmarked $400,000 to a nonprofit organization that affirms “queer” 13-year-old runaways. In praising a politician who backs puberty blockers and opposite-sex hormones for minors, Baldwin said, “Trans kids … deserve the freedom to just be kids, play sports, and get the healthcare they need.” According to Goldis, when Baldwin’s 2024 opponent aired these points, Baldwin lost her large lead in the polls. She just barely won reelection.

In 2023, the House voted to pass the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act. Not a single Democrat voted yes, even though there were solid, progressive, reasons to do so.

In early 2024, WDI USA reached out to the House Democratic Women’s Caucus and asked for a private, confidential meeting to discuss this topic. We were completely ignored.

It is time for the female members of Congress to take a stand on behalf of women and girls. They should start by supporting their Republican colleague, Mace, who is actually doing that important work.

Kara Dansky is a lawyer and feminist, author of The Reckoning: How the Democrats and the Left Betrayed Women and Girls, and former president of Women’s Declaration International USA.