Ban on hormone therapy for minors could soon be SC law. Transgender advocates vow to keep fighting.

COLUMBIA — Legislation banning transition-related treatments for transgender youth in South Carolina could be one vote away from becoming law.

Senators approved the bill 28-8 on Thursday, returning it to the House with just three legislative days left in the session. One Democrat voted “yes” with the Republicans. If the House agrees with the Senate’s changes, the legislation will go to Gov. Henry McMaster’s desk.

Advocates for transgender youth are urging the House to vote “no.” But House Republicans, who hold a supermajority in the chamber, have called the bill their top priority of the session.

During hours of debate over two days in the Senate, Republicans argued the ban is necessary to protect children from making harmful decisions they can’t undo later in life, while Democrats countered the government should not interfere in a family’s medical decisions.

One part of the bill seemed to have unanimous support — a ban on gender-transitioning surgeries for anyone under 18.

“Nobody is advocating that children get any kind of surgery,” said Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg.

But, as opponents of the bill have repeatedly testified, that’s not happening anyway in South Carolina. Republicans said a law would ensure that doesn’t change.

“I know there are no procedures being done in South Carolina. I’m very thankful for that,” said Sen. Penry Gustafson, R-Camden. “But we don’t want them to ever come, so I think that part is just a preventive measure.”

The bill would also ban puberty blockers and gender-transitioning hormone therapy for minors. Democrats argued that will throw families in unnecessary upheaval and increase suicide rates among youth already prone to self-harm. Puberty blockers only delay puberty. Once someone stops taking them, puberty will run its course, opponents said.

Exemptions to the ban include the use of puberty blockers for early-onset puberty, which is their approved use from the Food and Drug Administration, and treatment for someone diagnosed with genetically abnormal hormone production.

Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort, tried unsuccessfully to distinguish between reversible and irreversible hormone treatments and ban only the latter.

But his Republican colleagues argued the lifelong effects of what’s believed to be reversible are still unclear. They pointed to studies showing bone density loss, infertility and other side effects.

Gustafon got emotional in telling her colleagues about her cousin Mike, who transitioned as an adult after years of struggling with addiction and unacceptance, then died relatively young, possibly as a result of his hormonal medications.

“I don’t think they affect everyone the same way, but I’m not going to risk it,” she said. “I do not think minors should be exposed to these drugs long-term. Once you’re 18, I don’t care, frankly. You’re an adult.”

Sen. Richard Cash, who led the debate, called the United States “the outlier” on what’s considered the standard of care for gender dysphoria.

Last month, England became the fifth European country to restrict hormone therapy for children, citing a lack of evidence of their benefits and concerns of long-term consequences, the New York Times reported. However, unlike the laws in two dozen GOP-led states, the European countries don’t ban the treatments outright, the newspaper reported.

The few hundred families in South Carolina affected by the bill don’t need the Legislature coming between their children and happiness, Democrats said.

The bill is “an attack on our children. It’s an attack on parents, and it’s an attack on our doctors,” Hutto said. “The standard of care is the standard of care, and that standard of care should not be criminalized.”

“What if that standard of care is wrong?” asked Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield.

Doctors who violate the ban would risk losing their license. A complaint would have to be filed within three years of treatment.

Doctors could go to prison if they perform a gender-transitioning surgery on a minor — something all sides agree isn’t happening here. The bill classifies such surgeries as inflicting great bodily injury to a child, a felony.

A key difference between the chambers is a requirement in the Senate version that school administrators notify a student’s parents when children ask to change their pronoun or say they’re a different gender.

When the floor debate started, the Senate version also required parents to be notified if a child asks to be called a different name. But that was removed after senators of both parties recalled nicknames children often prefer to be called that has nothing to do with gender dysphoria.

“As a teacher, one fourth of my students had other names. Mullet was my favorite,” said Sen. Mike Fanning, D-Great Falls, rattling off a list that included Bubba, Cooter, Drumstick, Princess and Tootsie.

“Teachers have said, ‘Please keep your culture wars out of our classroom. Quit dragging us into your fights,'” he said. “You’re dragging our teachers into a political war that doesn’t need to happen in our classrooms.”

Transgender advocates said the bill forces teachers to out students to potentially unsupportive families, which could endanger their lives.

“This bill is an extreme political attack on the well-being of children and on the right of families to obtain evidence-based care for their children,” said Jace Woodrum, director of the American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina. “Transgender people belong in South Carolina, and we will never stop fighting.”

Two dozen states have passed similar bans, but some are blocked by court challenges.