Jace Woodrum, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina, testifies at a Senate subcommittee meeting on Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (Screenshot of SCETV legislative livestream)
If you’re tired of hearing about transgender people in the news, believe me — so am I.
It might come as a surprise hearing that from me, considering I’m a transgender man. I was born female, but for more than 12 years, I have lived my life as the man I’ve always known myself to be.
The reason transgender people like me are constantly in the news isn’t because we want to be. It’s because South Carolina lawmakers won’t leave us alone.
First, they came for our athletics. The president of the NCAA told a U.S. Senate panel in 2024 that he knew of fewer than 10 openly transgender student-athletes out of more than 500,000 total participants in NCAA sports nationwide. That’s less than 0.002 percent.
But in 2022, South Carolina legislators passed a law banning transgender students from playing sports in public schools and colleges.
Then they came for our health care. They said they were protecting kids, but the 2024 law takes health care from transgender adults too. They said it was to stop gender-affirming surgeries, but minors weren’t given surgeries in South Carolina anyway, and the law prohibits hormone therapy and treatment too.
Next, they came for our access to restrooms. Using the restroom is something that every person — transgender or not — must do.
But lawmakers are now pushing a bill that expands to public colleges rules passed in 2024 for K-12 schools, which require people to use the restrooms that align with the gender on their birth certificates.
That means that a bald, bearded transgender man like me is supposed to use the women’s restroom. The next time I go to a parent teacher conference, the next time I watch the Lady Gamecocks play basketball, the next time I take in a performance at the Koger Center — lawmakers want me in the women’s room.
No, they’re still not done. Right now, lawmakers are debating even more bills that harm transgender people.
One legislative proposal prohibits transgender people from updating the gender on their birth certificates, which keeps us from getting accurate drivers’ licenses.
If this bill becomes law, a police officer making a traffic stop, a restaurant server checking ID for a beer order, an employer completing documents for a new hire, or a federal airport security worker trying to keep us all safe when we fly — they’ll all have to figure out how to deal with a driver’s license that doesn’t match what they see.
Look at all these legislative proposals together.
If we can’t get health care to transition, if we can’t go into the community and use the restroom, if we can’t update our drivers’ licenses — it’s as if we’re expected to just disappear. But we won’t disappear, and as we’ve seen time and time again, history does not look kindly upon the majority that uses its power to harm the minority.
So, if you’re tired of hearing about transgender people, blame South Carolina’s legislators. I don’t want to be the center of their attention either.
Like most people, I’m shocked at what I’m paying at the grocery store. I’m worried about how South Carolina might change as people continue moving here. I’m concerned about the teachers who have left my kid’s school for jobs outside of education.
But our lawmakers don’t seem to be doing anything about how expensive everything is or about rapid growth. And they don’t seem to be doing enough about the pressures facing our educators.
Our legislators have only 54 days out of each year to get things done in their regular session. They seem to be spending a lot of time on proposals that harm a small population instead of using that time to help the everyday South Carolinians who sent them there.
If you’re wondering why, so am I.
Courtesy of South Carolina Daily Gazette
