Out trans Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE) scorned anti-trans Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) for implying that merely being trans is as egregious as the president’s threat to wipe out Iranian civilization.

McBride, the first out transgender person elected to Congress, posted on Wednesday, condemning Donald Trump‘s Truth Social post proclaiming “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” if Iran didn’t open the Strait of Hormuz. Iran stopped allowing ships to pass through the narrow waterway after Trump bombed the country last month.

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“I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will,” Trump continued.

Of course, Trump did not obliterate Iran. Instead, the president announced a two-week ceasefire deal as he and Iran negotiate. While Trump continues to claim he’s doing an incredible job, many have said it is extremely clear that the United States has suffered an embarrassing defeat in this unnecessary war.

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“It doesn’t matter if it’s ‘just bluster’ or ‘leverage,'” McBride posted yesterday. “The president doesn’t get to threaten genocide as a negotiating tactic.”

Mace replied, “You don’t get to call yourself a woman but you still do it.”

McBride didn’t take it lying down. She reposted Mace’s words and wrote, “According to this person in my replies, trans people exist so Donald Trump gets to genocide a country.”

While some, like Mace and anti-trans activist Riley Gaines, have stood by Trump throughout this mess, folks on all sides of the aisle have been horrified by the president’s threats and by his overall conduct toward Iran. Even (former) diehard MAGA followers have spoken out against his behavior.

But as McBride pointed out, Mace seems to believe being trans is the moral equivalent of threatening to kill nearly 100 million people.

When McBride was first elected to Congress, Mace mounted a campaign to prevent her from using the women’s room in the Capitol complex despite trans people having visited the Capitol for decades without incident.

She posted several messages a day to social media, attacking McBride and trans people as she tried to get resolutions passed preventing trans people from using the restrooms associated with their gender identities.

Mace has since continued to escalate her anti-trans rhetoric, building her entire brand around transphobia. In one social media post, she bluntly declared herself a “proud transphobe.”

She has referred to McBride as “it” and claimed, “She’s not a woman! It’s a man!” Mace has repeatedly misgendered and deadnamed McBride; claimed that McBride, trans people, and their allies are a threat to the safety of women and girls; repeatedly discussed McBride’s genitals on national television; and called her “mentally ill.”

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