SC’s conservative groups, lawmakers include anti-LGBTQ issues in 2022 priorities
As the South Carolina Family Caucus and other conservative groups have laid out their priorities for 2022, they’re hoping to advance several pieces of legislation that critics have called anti-LGBTQ.
Two top priorities for the group of Christian-oriented lawmakers are banning transgender women and girls from participating in women’s sports at all levels and passing a bill that would allow doctors to refuse care, including gender-affirming care, based on their religious or moral beliefs. But with the new legislative session barely underway, the conservative groups already have hit their first roadblock in advancing their agenda on LGBTQ issues.
“These are issues that matter to South Carolinians,” said Dave Wilson, president of the conservative Palmetto Family Council, which was a major force in pushing conservative and anti-LGBTQ legislation last year.
The Family Caucus has gained power and notoriety over the last year after Republicans widened their majority in both the state House and Senate in 2020. Both the trans athletes and refusal of care issues are on the docket for lawmakers to consider this year.
A panel of South Carolina lawmakers debated a bill Wednesday morning that seeks to allow doctors to refuse medical service to patients based on the doctors’ religious and moral beliefs.
The bill, which some have said could be used to discriminate against the LGBTQ community, was discussed for more than an hour before lawmakers decided to set it aside and come back for a vote on it at a later date.
“The intent is to protect people with deeply held beliefs, whether I agree with them or not or if you agree with them or not,” said the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Josh Kimbrell, R-Spartanburg.
Under the proposal, doctors, surgeons and mental health practitioners would be able to refuse to participate in a procedure or give medication that violates their sincerely held beliefs or conscious. For example, if a doctor was anti-abortion for religious reasons, their employer and patients could not force them to perform an abortion. As another example, a psychologist who believes there are only two genders would be able to refuse service to someone who is nonbinary, Kimbrell said.
The bill also would allow doctors to refuse to give gender-affirming treatment to transgender and nonbinary individuals, such as hormone replacement therapy, on a moral or religious basis, Kimbrell said.
Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto, R-Orangeburg, argued that no doctors are currently being forced to give hormone treatment against their will. Kimbrell heatedly disagreed with him.
Doctors also would be shielded from lawsuits for not providing care they disagree with.
Kimbrell said the bill was aimed at keeping doctors from having to decide between their convictions and losing their careers.
Under the bill, doctors would not be able to refuse treatment based on moral convictions or religious beliefs in an emergency medical situation.
Beyond its effects on transgender and nonbinary people, some lawmakers said they worried about the more wide-reaching implications the bill could have, such as how it could be used in regards to COVID-19.
Hutto questioned whether the bill could be used to discriminate against patients based on their COVID-19 vaccination status. On Monday, Pope Francis suggested that getting the vaccine is a “moral obligation,” and Hutto asked whether a Catholic doctor could use this bill to refuse to give care to anyone who has not received the COVID-19 vaccine.
Sen. Shane Martin, R-Spartanburg, said he worried that the bill could also be used to stop patients from getting access to alternative COVID-19 treatments such as anti-parisitic medication Ivermectin, which has not received Food and Drug Administration approval to treat the virus.
“This bill, it all sounds good, but what I’m worried about is we’ve got our state right now threatening to punish doctors who are treating COVID outside of the Big Pharma protocols,” Martin said.
Treatment refusal bill sees first delay
Senators did not take a vote to advance the bill to the full Medical Affairs Committee Wednesday. Lawmakers did not open the meeting to public testimony about the bill. Several LGBTQ advocates were gathered in the committee room.
Ahead of the meeting, though, LGBTQ advocacy group SC Equality issued a statement condemning the bill:
“This bill is another brazen attempt to make it easier to discriminate against people and deny LGBTQ South Carolinians the health care services they need,” the statement read. “Religious liberty is a fundamental right, but it is not an excuse to discriminate against people or deny them health care.”
After the meeting, Kimbrell urged Family Caucus members and supporters to push for the bill’s passage.
“We are going to need your help though making sure that my colleague and Spartanburg Sen. Shane Martin, who’s the subcommittee chairman, realizes we don’t let this thing sit and gather dust and wait til we run out the clock, because right now across this state there are thousands of doctors and medical practitioners who are forced to choose between their principles and a paycheck,” Kimbrell said.
Wednesday’s discussion of the bill came as one of the largest studies showcasing the benefits of receiving gender-affirming health care was released Wednesday by the Stanford University School of Medicine. The study drew upon data from the largest-ever survey of transgender adults — more than 27,000 people.
The study showed that for transgender people who wanted to receive hormone treatments, receiving those treatments during adolescence reduced risk of suicide by up to 22% and reduced suicidal ideation by up to 135%. Stanford’s research also showed that those who received care before becoming an adult also were less likely to engaging in binge drinking or illicit drug use.
“For some transgender youth, their negative reactions to living in bodies that develop during puberty in ways that don’t match who they know themselves to be can be very damaging,” the study’s lead author, Jack Turban, a postdoctoral scholar in pediatric and adolescent psychiatry at Stanford Medicine, said in a press release announcing the study. “These results won’t be surprising to providers, but unfortunately a lot of legislators have never met any transgender youth. It’s important for legislators to see the numbers that back up the experiences of transgender youth, their families and the people who work in this field.”
Many gender-affirming health treatments, including hormone replacement therapy, are widely considered by the medical community to be safe and effective ways to help transgender people live better, happier lives.
Lawmakers revive 2021’s anti-queer legislation
Wednesday’s debate over the refusal of care bill wasn’t the first time South Carolina lawmakers have tackled LGBTQ issues in their recent work.
Last year, House Judiciary Committee members shot down two bills that would have banned transgender women and girls from participating in high school and middle school sports. Despite previous failures, the bills’ sponsor, S.C. Rep. Ashley Trantham, R-Greenville, refiled a similar bill to be considered this year, which will go through a different committee. A similar bill is also still on the table in the Senate.
“This is a very important issue,” Family Caucus chair Rep. John McCravy, R-Greenwood, said. “Women deserve the right to compete and girls deserve the right to compete without having to compete with men.”
McCravy said, despite previous failures, the Family Caucus would not give up on the sports bill.
“You tell us ‘no,’ that means we’re going to work much harder,” said bill sponsor Rep. Melissa Oremus, R-Aiken.
Last year, there were also efforts to remove protections from the LGBTQ community from the hate crimes bill, which passed the full House and Senate Judiciary Committee last year. The bill is currently awaiting a debate in the Senate and does include protections for the queer community.
Another bill filed last year would have banned doctors from providing gender-affirming care to transgender youth, a more focused version of the bill that’s being debated now. That earlier proposal did not gain any traction.
In South Carolina, advocates said the bills made the LGBTQ community stronger, pushing a group to form a coalition and hire a lobbyist.
With only five months for lawmakers to complete their work this year, conservative lawmakers behind the the two LGBTQ bills said they still feel confident there is a will to pass them.
“The overwhelming support of the South Carolina people is behind this bill. If it gets to the floor, it’s going to pass. I can tell you that,” McCravy said.
Senior editor Maayan Schechter contributed reporting.
This story was originally published January 12, 2022 at 2:00 PM.
