Almost No One Wants This

Confederate Memorial Day, Anti-Trans Bill and Abortion Bans in SC

Government offices across the state are closed today, and not because our Freedom Caucus successfully dismantled the government they hate so much (seriously: yesterday they jettisoned a bill to streamline our state health agencies because they were worried enough government workers wouldn’t be fired). No, offices are closed in observance of Confederate Memorial Day. In 2024. Despite efforts in 2022 and an overwhelming vote in the SC Senate to remove state observance of the holiday, the bill remains in the House Judiciary committee. So another year passes, another Confederate Memorial day on the books.

I do like the shade the Greenville News is throwing with these scare quotes.

The SC House also passed the amended anti-trans bill on the last day of the legislative session. It goes to the governor for his signature, so you can urge him to veto, but I doubt it will be effective because Republicans love to punish kids for political points. Please lend your support to organizations helping our queer youth and trans communities in the state. Upstate Pride SC has a good list up on Instagram today:

upstatepridesc

A post shared by @upstatepridesc

I know it feels Sisyphean to try to enact real political change in this state, with the supermajority control and all the gerrymandering and other tricks to make sure the state is only marginally a democracy, but the real efforts have to be in chipping away at the state legislature, where so much power is concentrated. We have no recourse to ballot measures (direct democracy) to undo the abortion bans or anti-trans law, like they do in places like Florida and Missouri (all fingers and toes crossed the measures pass in November).

But we do know that South Carolina citizens who support reproductive health care rights are the majority. One way to register your discontent is by signing a petition, organized by Planned Parenthood, the ACLU and other groups, which you can do here.

We can also make change by volunteering or donating to state and local political campaigns. I was sad to see one of our sister senators, Mia McLeod, won’t be running for reelection. I hope we can elect another woman for her seat.

I’m looking forward to Mother’s Day this weekend (and a childfree brunch with my mom friends at one of our queer-owned restaurants in Greenville, Sum Bar) and my favorite festival, Artisphere. I really loved this piece from last year, “Problems in Pink” by Jena Daniels. Hope you have some fun things planned, in between fighting the power.