Current Legislation: 2025
In South Carolina, a broad slate of anti-LGBTQ legislation has been proposed targeting LGBTQ+ people for discrimination and exclusion in a wide range of areas, from education to marriage to public spaces. Here are the bills that we are tracking.
Urge Lawmakers to Pass Inclusive Nondiscrimination!
LGBTQ-Inclusive Nondiscrimination Bill
In most of South Carolina, people remain vulnerable to discrimination in key areas of life – and it’s time for that to change. This bill would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and natural hairstyle in employment, housing, and places of public accommodation. No one should face discrimination because of who they are, who they love, or how they express themselves.
This inclusive nondiscrimination bill would move South Carolina forward, closer to a state where LGBTQ+ people are respected and protected no matter where they live. This bill takes a particular look at the experiences of LGBTQ people with intersecting identities and will be especially impactful for BIPOC communities and transgender people, who disproportionately experience discrimination and violence in South Carolina.
Taking Action Against Anti-LGBTQ+ Bills
Anti-LGBTQ+ Youth Policy Bills
H. 3118, H. 3011, H. 3638, S. 242, S. 243
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.
They differ slightly but all really amount to an anti-LGBTQ “wish list” of limits on LGBTQ+ young people and their families, prioritizing the rights of some parents over others. The provisions in these bills would censor curriculum, block students’ freedom to learn, interfere with young people’s access to life-saving medical care, and endanger the livelihood of all South Carolina students.
Bills to Interfere with the Identity Documents of Transgender People
Another set of bills attacks the dignity and humanity of transgender South Carolinians, inserting the legislature into administrative processes that are already working effectively for LGBTQ+ people in the state. S.162 and H.3095 would essentially prohibit people from changing the gender marker on their birth certificate, which can be critical for trans people to ensure that they have the correct identity documentation.
Curriculum Censorship Bills
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.
Anti-Transgender Bathroom Bans
These bills would restrict transgender South Carolinians’ ability to use the restroom with dignity, including prohibiting transgender people from using multi-stall restrooms in many public spaces, such as buildings owned and operated by the state, places of higher education, and correctional institutions. One bill would apply to public school restrooms. Both are egregious attempts to erase transgender people and ensure that transgender people cannot live with dignity or move around in public spaces.
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 a 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.