The Citadel, established in 1842, is the third oldest senior military college in the United States, founded to train and educate young men as well as protect the state arsenals of South Carolina. The first woman admitted to the South Carolina Corps of Cadets program at The Citadel was Shannon Faulkner, who fought for two-and-a-half years in court to force her way into the all-male institution. The first woman to graduate from the program—in 1999—was Nancy Mace, who wrote a memoir about her experience titled In the Company of Men: A Woman at The Citadel in 2001. She is now a Republican congresswoman from South Carolina.
In a twist of historic irony, Rep. Mace is now leading a crusade to keep men out of female-only spaces. Rep. Tim “Sarah” McBride, D-Del., is being celebrated by LGBTQ activists as the first “transgender woman” elected to Congress, and last Monday, Mace introduced a resolution restricting female spaces to women only and explicitly excluding “biological males.” Despite being accused of “targeting” McBride, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., enacted the new rule on Wednesday. “I am not going to stand for a man … in the women’s locker room—that’s not OK,” Mace stated.
She has since put forward a bill that would expand the policy to all federal buildings nationwide. It is called the Protecting Women’s Private Spaces Act, and it reminded me of Mace’s Oct. 30 post on X: “As the first woman to graduate from The Citadel, I refuse to let a man in a mini skirt undermine the hard-won accomplishments of women and girls.” Women’s spaces are sacred. Men’s spaces? Not so much—not even in the military. Sex-segregated spaces for me, but not for thee, and all that.
Mace is right on the issue of sex-segregated spaces. But her entire career highlights the fact that she has been a staunch ally of the sexual revolution right up until the moment it went too far for her. “We support gay marriage, and voted for the Respect for Marriage Act twice,” she stated on Wednesday. “However, if you think protecting women is discrimination, you are the problem. We don’t care if you’re trans, if you [are a man] we don’t want you in the women’s bathroom.” Mace apparently doesn’t see how one led to the other. If gender doesn’t matter in marriage, it doesn’t matter anywhere.
