A DOGE Committee hearing turned heated when Nancy Mace gave a woke witness a simple task: defining what a woman is, which the witness could not do, leading Rep. Mace to tear into leftist ideology and destroy the witness’s backwards arguments against the banning of transgender students from women’s sports teams.
For context, during a House DOGE Committee hearing on the inclusion of transgender athletes in women’s sports on May 7, 2025, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) demolished a Democratic witness by simply asking, “What is a female?” That witness was Fatima Goss Graves, CEO of the National Women’s Law Center and a so-called “leader in the fight for gender justice,” who had an incoherent and incomplete response to Rep. Mace’s question.
In the hearing, Rep. Mace pulled no punches from the start, telling Goss Graves, “In your opening statement today, you said, trans women are women. Ms. Goss Graves, what is a woman?” In response, Goss Graves said, “So, a woman is an adult female, a woman identifies as a woman.” Rep. Mace pushed back, “What do you consider a female? What is a female? You’re here to defend women, you say you’re here to defend women, but shouldn’t you be able to define one? Shouldn’t you be able to define one of your women’s rights?” She added, “Do women have penises?”
Continuing, Rep. Mace kept ripping into Goss Graves and her ilk, saying, “Democrats have gone so crazy, women can have penises. That’s not a thing. That’s not biology. It’s not science, and you sound like a lunatic.” She added, “Should young girls just get used to penises in their locker rooms and showers?” She continued, “My next question, yes or no, should little girls get used to penises in their locker rooms and showers? Yes or no.” Goss Graves replied, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Next, Rep. Mace had even more to say about the holes in woke gender ideology, refusing to believe Goss Graves as she pleaded ignorance. Rep. Mace said, “Oh, you absolutely do. We’ve heard testimony today about trans women. Those are women with penises. When President Trump issued an executive order to keep men out of women’s sports…thank God he did…you said it was sexist.”
In response, Goss Graves argued that President Trump’s executive order was “bullying that harms all students,” and Rep. Mace shot back, “Is it sexist? Men and women are built differently.” She continued, “Do you support drugging and chopping off kids’ genitals in the name of inclusion? Is that a thing for you?”
As tensions continued to rise, Rep. Mace told Goss Graves, “If a man can be a woman, just identify as a woman, as you say, what is the point of having women’s sports? What is the point of women’s spaces? What is the point of women’s scholarships? If you’re just going to allow men to take them away, why even bother, why bother?” After Goss Graves interrupted, Rep. Mace said, “I’m not asking you a question, I’m speaking,” and continued.
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Near the conclusion of her statement, Rep. Mace argued that the left was hypocritical in “claiming to fight for women’s rights,” saying that people like Goss Graves “are the first to take them away, steal them, and tear these women down. You’re the first to erase them. You are all shameful. I didn’t come here to play with an ideology hellbent on erasing women and grooming children.”
Watch the tense exchange:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video