A prominent digital rights activist, who is transgender, confronted Rep. Nancy Mace at a public event Thursday, days after the congresswoman from South Carolina introduced a resolution to ban transgender women from using women’s bathrooms in the U.S. Capitol.
Evan Greer, the director of Fight for the Future, stood up during the kickoff panel at “The Summit of the Future of the Internet” at Georgetown University, in Washington, D.C., and displayed an LGBTQ pride flag. Mace was speaking alongside Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna and radio host Charlamagne tha God on the topic “Bipartisan Tech Solutions to Unite a Nation.”
“We have had dozens of trans people die this year because of the hate and lies that you are spreading,” Greer said, to applause from the audience, as she was escorted out of the room. “Are we building an internet with free speech for everyone or just the privileged few?”
Mace responded by misgendering Greer and making a comment about her genitals, which the crowd booed at. A representative for Mace and Project Liberty, the organization that hosted the summit and invited Greer, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Greer’s organization is known for its viral protest efforts against internet censorship and surveillance and in support of net neutrality.
Videos of Greer at the event have been viewed more than 1 million times on X, where conservative influencers and Mace have continued to misgender and insult Greer.
In an interview with NBC News, Greer said that Project Liberty has yet to reach out to her or make any statements about the panel, her protest or Mace’s remarks. While Greer said she had hoped that other people, including cisgender people (who identify with their gender assigned at birth), would have joined her in opposing Mace’s presence in the panel, she said, “In the end, I was there in the room and I just could not sit silently.”
“My goal is to call to the progressive tech policy community and ask ourselves, what is our strategy going into these next four years?” Greer said. “Are we going to try and curry favor with people whose goals are diametrically opposed to human rights, or are we going to draw some lines in the sand and build a meaningful strategy for collective resistance to the role that technology will play in carrying out human rights violations?”
Greer said, “I’m not trying to convince her of anything, but really my goal was to spark a conversation within the tech policy space, to ask ourselves, ‘What are we actually fighting for?’”
After taking office in 2021, Mace initially said she was pro-LGBTQ rights. But in recent days, she has made headlines and racked up engagement on social media by leading an anti-transgender campaign against the only trans member of Congress, Sarah McBride, one that has received the support of House Speaker Mike Johnson.
McBride, whom Mace has repeatedly misgendered, said in a statement that she would follow the new bathroom rules as outlined by Johnson, even if she disagrees with them. In her congressional office, McBride will have a private bathroom, while all other public bathrooms in the Capitol will be banned for transgender people.
