Transgender woman charged with threatening to kill U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace

A transgender woman has been arrested on a charge of threatening the life of a public official, that official being Republican U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, an outspoken opponent of trans equality.

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Roxie Wolfe, 19, of Greenville County in South Carolina, was arrested Thursday by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, according to local media reports. Wolfe, who was deadnamed and misgendered by police and media, is accused of making an April 26 post on X, formerly Twitter, in which she said she would shoot and kill a given official, not named in the post but later identified as Mace. Wolfe admitted to writing the post, the police report said. Her X account has now been deleted.

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Mace denounced what she called the “radicalized” trans rights movement during a bond hearing Friday at the Greenville County Detention Center, The Post and Courier of Charleston reports. “I believe the trans movement is radicalized; it’s a cult,” she said. She spoke from behind a glass wall and read from a prepared statement on her phone.

Wolfe was denied bond. If she is convicted, she can be sentenced to up to five years in prison.

In a Thursday statement to The Post and Courier, Mace wrote, “Capitol Police and SLED moved fast on this death threat, and they should. No one should face murder threats for calling out radical gender ideology. This isn’t just about me. It’s an attack on free speech, rule of law, and anyone brave enough to speak the truth about biology.”

“We won’t back down. We won’t stop fighting to protect women and kids,” she continued, using the false claim that trans people on the whole are a threat to cisgender women and children. “I am deeply grateful for the U.S. Capitol Police and SLED for keeping me, my family and my employees safe.”

Mace is in her third term in the U.S. House of Representatives, where she has earned low scores on the Human Rights Campaign’s Congressional Scorecard. She once supported LGBTQ+ equality, including trans rights, but then a conservative PAC donated to her campaign. She has become especially anti-trans recently.

In November, she introduced a resolution that would bar trans women from using women’s restrooms and other single-sex facilities in the House of Representatives. This was aimed at U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride, the first out trans member of Congress. The resolution did not pass, but House Speaker Mike Johnson achieved the same goal by issuing a rule restricting the use of single-sex facilities “in all areas of the Capitol subject to the Speaker’s general control.” In January, Mace and another far-right Republican congresswoman, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, confronted a cis woman they mistook for McBride going into a women’s restroom.

Mace accused a trans rights activist of assaulting her in December. Witnesses said the alleged assault by James McIntyre was nothing more than a firm handshake. In April, federal prosecutors dropped all charges against McIntyre. Mace has also used transphobic slurs several times, and a trans woman named Sabre said she received death threats after Mace posted anti-trans comments on Sabre’s X account.

Targeting other members of the LGBTQ+ community, Mace used an obscenity against a man she took to be gay when he asked her a question in an Ulta store in South Carolina in April.