The so-called “South Carolina Minor Child Compassion and Protection Act” by 30 representatives, attempts to criminalize lifesaving care for transgender youth in the state with up to 20 years of imprisonment for healthcare professionals providing gender-affirming services.

The bill’s archaic concept of a “vulnerable child” is used to suggest that children need to be ‘protected’ from ‘becoming’ transgender. It simultaneously protects harmful, nonconsensual surgeries on intersex minors, and follows another common theme of erasure and misgendering in these legislative attacks: it doesn’t use the words “transgender” and “intersex” even once.

The bill also prohibits supportive school staff from creating safe and affirming spaces for gender-nonconforming and trans youth who might be at risk of hate or abuse at home.

In other words, if a school employee knows that a child is trans, they’d be required to ‘out’ the child to their parents or legal guardians. School staff would also be prohibited from advising the child to avoid coming out to their parents, if it could put the child at risk of harm.

Trans youth know who they are, and this acts like these are putting lives at risk: More than half of trans children were at risk of suicide this past year, and access to gender-affirming care is linked to being at lower risk of attempting suicide by nearly 40 percent in transgender and nonbinary youth.

Gender-affirming care is also linked to long-term mental health benefits: a study of 2,500 trans folks found that over a 10-year period, the odds of getting mental health treatment decreased by 8 percent for every year since receiving gender-affirming surgery, according to the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Read more stories by trans folks on how gender-affirming care has been lifesaving: https://bit.ly/33K8DK9

SC HB 4047 has been carried over from last year’s legislative sessions. It was introduced in the House on March 9, 2021 and is currently residing in the House Committee on Judiciary.