COLUMBIA — Republicans in the S.C. House of Representatives used their first major vote of the 2024 session to advance legislation banning gender transition treatments for minors.
The move came despite pushback from Democrats and from some Republicans who favored a more aggressive version of the bill.
The measure, which passed a House committee earlier this month in the face of strong opposition from the medical community, seeks to bar anyone under the age of 18 from receiving medical treatments to transition to a gender other than that assigned to them at birth.
It would also ban taxpayer dollars from being used to fund those procedures, and allow the state Board of Medical Licensing to discipline any doctors who run afoul of the law.
Most Republicans — and even some Democrats — spoke in favor of the bill on the floor ahead of its passage, with many saying they did not believe minors had the maturity to make a decision about their gender identity before they’d reached adulthood.
Though many acknowledged the bill’s passage as a forgone conclusion prior to the 82-23 vote, several Democrats criticized the legislation on the floor during the nearly six hours of debate on the ban.
Some said it would only seek to ostracize LGBTQ+ youth at their most vulnerable stages and potentially lead them to suicide. Others said the ban on public funding could result in some transgender adults being denied care.
According to a fiscal note on the bill, the South Carolina Public Benefits Authority has disbursed "fewer than 11 claims" for gender transition surgery under the state health plan since 2016, totaling approximately $84,000, with an average annual spending of $12,000.
And for every case denied, critics said, another transgender person goes another day in denial of who they really are.
“Just know that when you press that green (electric voting tabulation) button,” Rep. Jermaine Johnson, D-Columbia, said ahead of the vote, “you’ll be sending people to their grave.”
Some of the most enthusiastic opposition during the debate came from within the Republican Caucus.
Throughout the Jan. 17 debate, members of the insurgent House Freedom Caucus repeatedly took to the well of the House Chamber to slam the GOP leadership’s version of the bill, arguing it did not go nearly as far as it should.
Some decried the lack of criminal penalties for health care providers who performed gender transition procedures or hormone therapy regimens, citing states like Florida and Alabama that have felony-level penalties for doctors.
Others criticized Republican members of leadership for opposing proposed language that would have required school administrators to inform parents if their child asked to be referred to by a different name or different pronouns than those they were assigned at birth.
Some Republicans pointed out flaws in some of the Freedom Caucus amendments. West Columbia Republican Rep. Micah Caskey, an attorney, shouted down one amendment to impose a Class A misdemeanor and $10,000 fine for guilty practitioners, accusing its sponsor — Rep. Josiah Magnuson, R-Campobello — of “not knowing what you’re talking about.”
Others criticized Freedom Caucus members of engaging in political theater, with Rep. Russell Ott, D-St. Matthews, asking Freedom Caucus Chairman Adam Morgan during the contentious debate where the hidden cameras were filming footage for his congressional campaign.
At one point, Morgan took his 10-minute privilege at the well to attack members of party leadership as feckless and unwilling to enact truly conservative legislation.
“It’s the Republicans, some of those who are in the room, who have truly confounded me in my 10 years here,” Morgan said during the debate. “I came in here believing those of us who had similar worldviews, similar passions, similar desires, that we would work together for the best of the kids and the people of South Carolina.”
Freedom Caucus members used the rest of the membership’s votes against them. As amendment after amendment was defeated for myriad causes — including redundancies in state law and questionable legal wording — Freedom Caucus members posted pictures of the voting board on social media, attracting attention from popular right-wing figures like anti-transgender activist Riley Gaines and State Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Roth.
“No, this isn’t in California…it’s in South Carolina which has a Republican supermajority,” Gaines wrote on social media after a defeated amendment to charge doctors with criminal penalties for providing any form of gender-affirming care. “Primary them all.”
Republicans defended their votes online. Some pointed out they could not dictate criminal penalties to a licensing board. Other House lawmakers later pointed to an amendment they adopted subjecting doctors who perform genital gender reassignment surgery on minors to as much as 20 years in prison under the state's child abuse statutes.
Ultimately, the bill will only impact a small share of the health care sector, opponents pointed out.
Just six endocrinologists across the state provide gender-affirming care for minors, said Rep. Spencer Wetmore, D-Folly Beach. To receive that care as a minor, the doctor needs the parent’s permission. And while criminal penalties were inserted into the bill penalizing doctors who perform surgeries on children, no doctor in the state, according to advocates, has ever performed a surgical procedure on a minor looking to transition.
“The word 'political theater' has been batted around a lot this evening, but this bill is nothing but political theater,” said Rep. Seth Rose, D-Columbia, prior to the bill’s passage. “Shame on those who seek to score political points on the backs of our trans youth.”
The bill faces a perfunctory third vote in the House, after which it will advance to the Senate.
