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LGBTQ+ groups say the Republican lawmaker's videos violate the social media company's community standards.
Meta hasn't taken down an Instagram video in which South Carolina U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace uses a transphobic slur as she goads protesters. Despite apparently violating the social media platform’s terms of service and after LGBTQ+ groups reported the video, the video remains up days after being published.
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The Republican Congresswoman, who sparked outraged after filing legislation to segregate Congress restrooms based on gender assigned at birth, filmed the video after the arrest of 15 protesters.
Outside the Longworth House Office Building, looked directly into the camera as a video was shot and described the activists with the t-slur. She said protesters showed up to protest her bathroom bill, “but they got arrested, poor things.”
She then holds up a megaphone and shouts in the direction of the protesters and reads off Miranda rights. She broke from the standards reading in one key spot: “If you cannot afford an attorney — I doubt many of you can — one will be provided to you at the government’s expense.”
The offensive content remains visible on Instagram three days after its initial publication. The Advocate has sought comment from Meta about the videos and will update this article if a response is returned.
The video was among several transphobic messages posted across Mace’s social media accounts. The megaphone video appears on her campaign account, but she also uses the slur in posts from her official business Instagram.
Those messages include a Monday post lamenting a thumb-sized sticker protesting her policies on her office nameplate. The tiny sticker prompted Mace to write “good morning” and then the t-slur. In the written caption, the letter ‘a’ is censored in posts.
But in videos, she uses the term repeatedly and clearly. In a video on her official account, she uses the slur while reading a curse word protesters wrote in her office sign-in book. “The party of joy and inclusivity tells me to fuck off and I’m a bigot,” she says, while repeatedly using the bigoted terminology to describe transgender people.
Raquel Willis, co-founder of Gender Liberation Movement and one of the protesters arrested, said the stream of Mace’s social media activity verifies the lawmaker’s willingness to engage in anti-trans politics.
“Nancy Mace clearly reached into the bottom of the hate barrel to call trans people a slur on video,” Willis said. “The truth is she is on a quest for power and popularity, but none of her shenanigans are stronger than people power. We believe that everyone deserves dignity and respect, including when it comes to using the restroom. Republican leaders like Mace are betraying constituents by going after the trans community and we need Democratic leaders to act up, filibuster, and block all anti-trans bills.”
LGBTQ+ leaders say it’s upsetting Meta has left the posts up, despite the fact they appear to directly violate prohibitions on hate speech. Meta’s community standards state: “We define hate speech as direct attacks against people — rather than concepts or institutions— on the basis of what we call protected characteristics (PCs): race, ethnicity, national origin, disability, religious affiliation, caste, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity, and serious disease.”
GLAAD said the platform should hold Mace to those standards.
“When used in a derogatory way, the t-word is one of the most extreme slurs for a trans person. Mace’s repeated use of this slur violates Meta’s hate speech policy — which, as the company itself acknowledges, exists to protect everyone from dehumanizing attacks on the basis of who they are,” a spokesperson for GLAAD said.
Mace has cross-post many of her messages on X, including saying if use of the t-word is a slur, then “cis” should also be viewed as one as well. Of note, X owner Elon Musk has said the same. The post remains visible, but GLAAD officials say the reach of the post appears throttled.
“It is notable that X swiftly applied a limited visibility label to the posts, while the corollary posts on Instagram currently remain unmitigated. Major social media platforms like Instagram have a responsibility to their users — and society as a whole — to enforce their own policies,” a GLAAD spokesperson said.
It also breaks with past precedence. Meta did take down videos by Republican politician Valentina Gomez as she ran for Missouri Secretary of State because she repeatedly used an anti-gay slur. Meta eventually disabled Gomez’s Instagram account over the habitual use of slurs. But the action came after months of reporting by groups like GLAAD.
Mace’s megaphone video has remained up for four days.
Correction: An earlier version of this article states that Valentina Gomez's Instagram account was suspended after 3 days of reporting from groups like GLAAD. It was actually two months. The article also said it was reactivated. It was not. We regret the errors.
