South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said Tuesday that he's "guardedly optimistic" the Supreme Court will allow his state to enforce its law barring transgender public-school students from spaces that align with their gender identity.
"This is a very common-sensical bill that the South Carolina General Assembly passed and the governor signed into law several months ago that basically says schools receiving taxpayer-funded dollars here in South Carolina must enforce a rule that only biological males can go into spaces where other biological males are, and the same is true with biological females," Wilson told Newsmax's "National Report." "It doesn't go by based on what you identify with, but what you biologically are. This is about promoting public safety for our students here in South Carolina and also supporting and protecting privacy rights of our students.
"Why are 99.8% of all students bending the knee to the 0.2% of the students who have that affliction of gender dysphoria?" he asked. "This is about promoting and protecting safety in South Carolina schools, and that is why we are going to the U.S. Supreme Court."
A ninth-grade student in South Carolina was suspended in early August for using the boys' bathroom. When the student's parents challenged the suspension, the appeals court ruled in favor of the student. In a statement, the student's lawyer said that "South Carolina wants the Supreme Court to take the extraordinary remedy of intervening in an ongoing lower court appeal" and noted that the case "does not present the sort of emergency that would justify such intervention."
Wilson said that "they're focusing on the one ninth grader; I'm focusing on the hundreds and possibly thousands of South Carolina students and ninth graders who would like to go to a bathroom or restroom or locker room only with people of their biological sex."
"Again, the U.S. Supreme Court has already signaled in another case that we are likely to succeed on the merits of this eventually, and that's also an element that the 4th Circuit should have considered," he said.
In June, the Supreme Court upheld a Tennessee law banning gender-transition care for minors, Wilson said, arguing that "this is no different."
"The Skrmetti decision, which dealt with transgender surgeries and hormone treatments, recognized that the states have a right to pass sensible laws that protect minor children from those extreme measures," he said. "The state has a right to protect its students' privacy and safety when going into public spaces and public schools. And so, this is something the state has a right to do, the Supreme Court has recognized that in other circuits, and it's going to recognize it here. It's just a matter of time. I'm very guardedly optimistic that at the end of the day, South Carolina will ultimately prevail on this law."
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Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
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