South Carolina Bans Gender-Affirming Care

metroweekly.com:

Writing on X, McMaster noted that he would be holding a ceremonial bill signing event next week to tout the bill’s benefits.“I signed the Help Not Harm bill into law, which protects our state’s children from irreversible gender transition procedures and bans public funds from being used for them,” he wrote.I signed the Help Not Harm bill into law, which protects our state’s children from irreversible gender transition procedures and bans public funds from being used for them.

I look forward to joining legislators and supporters at a ceremonial bill signing in the Upstate next week. pic.twitter.com/7RTDYGGGDU— Gov.

Henry McMaster (@henrymcmaster) May 21, 2024Critics argued that the bill infringes on the right of parents to decide on what health treatments their children receive.It tramples the rights of transgender adults who are state employees, dependents of state employees, or Medicaid recipients to decide which health care they receive by denying them coverage for treatments that their doctors have deemed medically necessary.Additionally, critics slammed the bill for misrepresenting transition-related treatments as experimental, haphazard, or too readily prescribed, arguing that people under the age of 18 do not undergo gender confirmation surgery in South Carolina, and that hormone treatments only begin after extensive consultations with medical providers.The Campaign for Southern Equality noted that some of the bill’s provisions, particularly those dealing with Medicaid and state employee insurance coverage, may be unconstitutional, citing recent decisions by the 4th U.S.