COLUMBIA, S.C. — A group of South Carolina Republican lawmakers are looking to join a handful of other states that have passed restrictions on certain medical care for transgender children.
A Republican-led Senate panel on Thursday held the first of what is slated to be a much longer two-part public hearing next Wednesday, gathering testimony from South Carolina doctors and transgender adults, some of whom testified that the legislation negatively and unfairly targets transgender and nonbinary people.
One Senate proposal — S.623 — filed by Senate Medical Affairs Committee Chairman Danny Verdin, R-Laurens, would restrict a person’s ability to change their gender on their birth certificate from only male to female or vice versa. Another bill — S. 627, also filed by Verdin with more than 20 co-sponsors — would prohibit children from receiving any type of gender reassignment procedure, including puberty-blocking drugs.
