Washington – An Illinois man who was charged with misdemeanor assault after allegedly shaking U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace’s hand in an “exaggerated, aggressive” manner has entered a not-guilty plea. 

James McIntyre, 33, of Chicago, was charged following an encounter at Rayburn House Office Building on Tuesday evening. Mace, a South Carolina Republican, said in a social media post earlier this week that the encounter left her needing a brace for her wrist, and icing her arm. 

Mace told police that McIntyre said, “Trans youth serve advocacy,” while shaking her hand. The Rayburn building was open at the time of the incident and Capitol police reported that McIntyre had been through a security screening. 

She added at the time that she would be “fine just as soon as the pain and soreness subside,” but on Wednesday issued a series of posts on X that accused the media of “using the assault on me to prop up misogyny on the Left,” adding, “Maybe when the Left said ‘believe all women,’ they really meant men who claim to be women.” 

She said President-elect Donald Trump called to check in on her after the incident. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat, told reporters Wednesday that “no member of Congress should be accosted or assaulted or attacked based on their political beliefs,” calling the incident “very troubling.”

Last month, Mace stepped into the center of controversy over transgender rights when she introduced legislation to change House rules to prohibit transgender women from using women’s bathrooms and other facilities on Capitol Hill. 

Mace’s two-page resolution would bar House members, officers and employees from using single-sex facilities in the Capitol or House office buildings that do not correspond with their “biological sex,” but that proposal came just before the House prepared to swear-in the first openly transgender member of Congress, Rep.-elect Sarah McBride of Delaware. 

After the encounter earlier this week, Mace declined to be treated by a paramedic. She has since posted multiple photos of herself in an arm brace on social media. 

A magistrate judge ordered McIntyre’s release after an arraignment in Superior Court of the District of Columbia. 

Efforts to reach an attorney for McIntyre weren’t immediately successful. 

contributed to this report.