Take Action Against Anti-LGBTQ+ Bills in SC
Anti-Transgender Healthcare Bills
These bills attempt to block transgender young people’s access to life-saving gender-affirming healthcare. They differ slightly, but all are focused on stripping affirming medical care away from young people in South Carolina and interfering with the medical decisions made between patients, their family members, and their medical providers. Learn More
Anti-LGBTQ+ Youth Policy Bills
This swath of bills, whose proponents call them so-called “Parental Bills of Rights,” attempt to infringe on the safety and privacy of LGBTQ+ young people, deprive all students of a diverse, inclusive education, and take away parents’ rights to protect their own children’s freedom to learn.
The provisions in these bills would censor curriculum, block students’ freedom to learn, force school staff to “out” LGBTQ+ students to parents, interfere with young people’s access to life-saving medical care, and endanger the livelihood of all South Carolina students.
Broad Anti-LGBTQ “License to Discriminate”
H3611 grants a broad “license to discriminate” to state agencies and contractors, including child welfare agencies, who hold anti-LGBTQ+ beliefs, including those against same-sex couples and transgender people.
The bill is an extremely broad attempt to allow many kinds of anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination. It explicitly condones discrimination in housing, places of public accommodation, and employment and could make it easier for LGBTQ+ people to be denied housing, fired, or refused service because of who they are.
Bill to Interfere with the Identity Documents of Transgender People
S276 amounts to a broad anti-transgender erasure bill. It would require South Carolina to recognize a person’s sex at birth as their gender for the purpose of all state laws; implications include not being able to change driver’s license gender markers and having to apply for public programs such as SNAP and Medicaid with a gender marker that does not match who you are.
Curriculum Censorship Bills
S246, H3284, H3304, H3464, H3466, H3728
This batch of legislation is aimed at interfering with students’ freedom to read and learn in South Carolina. The bills target certain educational topics – including issues of racial injustice and anything related to LGBTQ+ identity – and broadly prohibit discussion of those topics. Other attacks seek to ban LGBTQ-related books.
Every student should have the right to receive an accurate and inclusive education. Truthful and inclusive discussion about United States and South Carolina history, as well as current events pertaining to ongoing race and gender inequalities, are essential to quality academic instruction. These bills would stifle or outright ban that discussion.
Bills to Punish LGBTQ+ Supportive Businesses
- H3616 would require any business that holds a drag show to be declared “a sexually oriented business,” as it relates to local ordinances. It would ban entities receiving public funds – such as libraries or local governments – from using funds to host a drag show and would classify anyone who “allows a minor to view a drag show” as committing an offense akin to “disseminating harmful materials to minors.” This bill is a blatant attempt to push LGBTQ+ people out of public life, intimidate allies of LGBTQ+ equality, instigate fears around drag performers more broadly, and harm LGBTQ-supportive small businesses. At a time when safe spaces for the LGBTQ+ community are under attack, this bill would further eliminate safe spaces for LGBTQ+ people and our allies.
- H3564 would ban companies that contract with the state from taking any action to “further social, political, or ideological interests,” which can include advertising, public statements, letters to clients or employees, or instituting affirming policies. Several issue areas are specifically cited as violating the proposed bill – including facilitating access to trans-affirming care or reproductive health, engaging on issues of climate change or gun safety, or implementing policies around board or staff diversity.
- H3565 is a very similar bill banning engagement with companies that engage in political or social issues, but it specifically requires that state retirement funds not be invested in companies that strive for “certain political and social objectives.”
Bills to Interfere with the Freedom to Marry
- S332 stipulates that a “bride and groom” must sign the marriage certificate (rather than “spouse and spouse”). This bill is a brazen efforts to relitigate the freedom to marry for same-sex couples. Thousands of same-sex couples have legally married in South Carolina, and they are entitled to the full dignity and respect that marriage affords to any married couple in SC.
- H3488 includes broad and unnecessary religious refusal language condemning the freedom to marry for same-sex couples.
For more information, visit SC United for Justice & Equality.