The following is an unedited statement from Chase Glenn, Executive Director of the Alliance For Full Acceptance (AFFA), in response to the press conference announcing S.1087:
South Carolina Senate Bill 1087 is nothing but a hateful bill filled with misinformation that is using vulnerable transgender youth as pawns for a political agenda during an election year.
The facts are that there is a small percentage of people who identify as transgender in our state and an even smaller percentage are interested in playing sports. This is a manufactured problem.
Advocates for women and girls in sports such as the National Women's Law Center, the Women's Sports Foundation, Women Leaders in College Sports, and others support trans-inclusive policies and oppose efforts to exclude transgender students from participating in sports.
We have seen in the not-so-distant past that when SC has promoted discriminatory policies and hateful rhetoric, it has negatively impacted all South Carolinians. When SC refused to remove the Confederate flag from the Statehouse grounds, our state lost millions of dollars in economic revenue when organizations like the NCAA refused to hold events in our state. Simply put, inequality and discrimination are bad for business.
You can read the text of the bill here.