Current Legislation: 2023-2024
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 healthcare 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. A new bill proposed in 2023 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 new 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-Transgender Healthcare Bills
SPOTLIGHT BILL: H.4624 (Hearing scheduled for January 9)
Similar Bills: S627, H3551, S243, S274, H3730, H4619
These bills attempt to block transgender young people’s access to transgender-related 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.
H. 4624 has been scheduled for a subcommittee hearing on Tuesday, January 9. Please click here to learn how to testify against the bill. It would ban healthcare providers from helping trans youth – including mental health providers.
Another bill (S.274) would ban transgender-related healthcare for people under the age of 21. It would also place new, burdensome restrictions on transgender-related healthcare for people 21 and older, and it would ban state funding from being used to support transgender residents. The bill would also require staff at schools in SC to share with students’ parents if they learn that a student may be transgender, dangerously forcing staff to “out” transgender students. The other two bills would ban transgender-related healthcare for people under the age of 18.
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.
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, 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.
Anti-Transgender Bathroom Bans
These bills would restrict transgender South Carolinians’ ability to use the restroom with dignity. H4535 would prohibit transgender people from using multi-stall restrooms in many public spaces, including buildings owned and operated by the state, places of higher education, and correctional institutions. H.4538 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 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.
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.
S623 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.
S624 and S276 amount to broad anti-transgender erasure bills. They 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.
Bill 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.
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.”