S.811

South Carolina Senate bill 811 would grant medical providers a broad “license to discriminate” based on their personal or religious beliefs, which could negatively impact LGBTQ people, women, people of color, and people of diverse faith backgrounds. This religious refusal bill would allow those involved in medical care – so broadly defined so as to include doctors, nurses, receptionists and other employees – to refuse to admit or offer services to patients in need of care in any non-emergency situation. 

H.3477/S.B531

In the 2021 legislative session, a group of South Carolina lawmakers are pushing legislation that unfairly targets transgender girls for exclusion from school athletics. House Bill 3477 and Senate Bill 531, referred to as the so-called “Save Women’s Sports Act,” would make it so that sport participation in both public and private middle and high schools is determined by biological sex. The Act would impact all transgender and gender non-conforming athletes, but the rhetoric around the legislation has specifically targeted transgender girls. The Senate bill, for example, reads, “Teams or Sports Designated for Females Must Be Restricted to Students of the Female Sex.”