Nancy Mace announces run for South Carolina governor with pledge to ‘ban pronouns in the classroom’
Nancy Mace. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Nancy Mace. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Republican congresswoman Nancy Mace, who has been waging war on trans rights, has announced her bid to be governor of South Carolina.
“God’s not done with South Carolina and neither am I,” Mace wrote in a post on X/Twitter announcing the launch of her run on Monday (4 August). “You and me, our mission begins now.”
Delivering a speech at The Citadel, South Carolina’s military college, from where which she was the first woman to graduate from the Corps of Cadets in 1999, Mace said: “I didn’t come to join the club. They don’t want me and I don’t want them.
“I came to hold the line. They said stay quiet, I spoke up. They said sit down, I stood up. They said play nice and I fought back. This isn’t about playing defence, this is about going on offence for you: for your family, for your freedom and for your future.
“I wasn’t built to kiss the ring. I just wear one. I don’t answer to the establishment. I don’t owe those in the back room a single thing. I answer to the people. And the people, let me tell you, are fed up.”
Mace rattled off a list of hard-line policies on topics including immigration, tax and trans rights, saying she would oppose the so-called gender cult and halt the “the radical gender agenda”, as well as tackle “woke ideology” in schools.
She has called herself Donald Trump in high heels and promised, according to the Associated Press, to be a “super MAGA governor”, who will “ban pronouns in the classroom”, going on to say: “I want kids coming home with A and B [grades], not they/them.
I’m running to be the Governor of South Carolina!
— Nancy Mace (@NancyMace) August 4, 2025
God’s not done with South Carolina and neither am I. You and me. Our mission begins now.
South Carolina First. Nancy Mace for Governor.https://t.co/tkO1oN5G0W pic.twitter.com/odvxAKfz5b
“I hold the line on women and kids… by vetoing funding to any college that pushes gender ideology and refuses to define what a woman is. If a school erases women, it erases its right to your tax dollars.”
Following Trump’s re-election in November, Mace, who used to be a moderate and has been in the US House of Representatives since 2021, became one of the most outspoken opponents of trans rights in the government.
She introduced a resolution to restrict access to single-sex spaces, based on “corresponding biological sex”, in the Capitol building in Washington DC, later admitting it was specifically aimed Democratic colleague Sarah McBride, who became the first trans person in congress after winning the election for Delaware’s at-large district.
McBride branded the ban a “blatant attempt from right-wing extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing”.
Mace has also used slurs when referring to trans people, including about a college student.
Speaking at an event at the University of South Carolina, hosted by the university’s chapter of conservative group Turning Point USA, Mace repeated the slur “tr**ny” after she was asked to apologise by 20-year-old Harley Hicks for using the word the first time.
“Is tr**ny derogatory, really?” the congresswoman asked. “Yeah, tr**ny, tr**ny, tr**ny, tr**ny.”
Share your thoughts! Let us know in the comments below, and remember to keep the conversation respectful.
