Lawsuit seeks to block South Carolina law limiting transgender medical care options

Activists gather on the Statehouse steps with signs and transgender flags Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2024. A Senate committee advanced a bill that would ban gender transition surgery, hormone therapy and puberty-blocking drugs for minors Thursday. (Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette)

A group of South Carolina transgender adults, children, and their parents are suing to block a state law meant to restrict transgender medical care for youth.

The lawsuit was filed in federal court Thursday afternoon, according to the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. The lead plaintiff, Sterling Misanin, a 32 year old transgender man, is suing after the Medical University of South Carolina canceled a planned surgery for him due to the new law.

“The actions by MUSC have caused me significant harm, and I am devastated that my state has interfered in my access to life-saving health care,” Misanin was quoted as saying in a press release. “I am an adult, and I know myself better than my state does.”

The law, which Gov. Henry McMaster signed in May, bans doctors from prescribing puberty blockers or gender-transitioning hormone therapy to transgender youth under the age of 18. While the law’s primary focus was banning the treatments for children, it included a sentence that prohibited the use of public funds “directly or indirectly for gender transition procedures.”

Because MUSC gets public funds, it ended all gender transition care this summer.

Besides Misanin, the plaintiffs include two parents and their children who will be unable to receive care when the law takes effect on Jan. 1 of next year, according to the release, and two transgender adults who receive healthcare through the state health insurance plan. The American Civil Liberties Union, along with attorneys from the law firm Selendy Gay, are representing them.

The plaintiffs want the federal court to stop three aspects of the law — the barring of gender transition care for those under 18, a block on the use of state funds for gender transition care and a ban on the use of state-provided Medicaid funds for the same purpose.

The lawsuit argues South Carolina’s law violates constitutional rights to equal protection, along with anti-discrimination measures that are part of several other federal laws. It names state Attorney General Alan Wilson, MUSC, the state health care plan and others as the defendant.

“We don’t comment on pending litigation, but we can say we will vigorously defend the state’s laws,” wrote Robert Kittle, spokesperson for Wilson.

Gov. Henry McMaster also stood by the law he signed.

“I was proud to sign the Help Not Harm Bill into law, and I will continue to support our State’s efforts to fight back against those who wish to force harmful gender transition procedures on our children,” he said in a statement Thursday evening.

South Carolina is one of a number of states that has passed restrictions on transgender care in recent years. The U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld Alabama’s law restricting gender transition care for minors.

But Jace Woodrum, executive director of the state ACLU, said that there is federal court precedent for the ACLU’s argument in South Carolina, which is in the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.

In April, the 4th Circuit upheld a ruling that North Carolina could not block gender transition care for people on the state healthcare plan. It also ruled that West Virginia could not block such care for people on Medicaid.

“The ban on medically necessary healthcare for transgender people in our state is not only mean spirited and harmful, it’s unconstitutional,” Woodrun told the SC Daily Gazette.