Rep. Thomas Beach

After 7+ hours of debate our “Help Not Harm’ bill has passed the House. Our singular goal with this bill was to protect our children. What we didn’t expect was having to defend our teachers and administrators against @SCFreedomCaucus members and @ThomasBeach who would mandate they spend their time monitoring/diagnosing/reporting our children with gender dysphoria. @schousespeaker @MicahCaskey @GilGatch @voteleber

After 7+ hours of debate our “Help Not Harm’ bill has passed the House. Our singular goal with this bill was to protect our children. What we didn’t expect was having to defend our teachers and administrators against @SCFreedomCaucus members and @ThomasBeach who would mandate they spend their time monitoring/diagnosing/reporting our children with gender dysphoria. @schousespeaker @MicahCaskey @GilGatch @voteleber

🚨#BREAKING: A South Carolina mother just shared one of the most disturbing school gender transition stories I've read in a long time. Her 14-year-old son attended Beech Springs Middle School in Spartanburg SC. For OVER A YEAR, he was changing into girls' clothing at school, and changing back before his mom picked him up. It was apparently a daily operation, coordinating with another student to bring the clothes, multiple bathroom trips, and deliberate concealment from his parents every single day. Multiple staff members at school had to have seen this. You don't pull off daily clothing changes in a middle school without teachers noticing. But NOBODY called home to tell his parents. Nobody except one teacher. One teacher the previous year did her job, she noticed, she called the mom, and she followed South Carolina law H.4624, which explicitly requires school staff to notify parents when a student expresses gender identity confusion. That call is the only reason the family found out at all. They got their son into gender-related counseling over the summer of 2025. They were engaged, they were involved, they were actively trying to help their kid navigate something difficult. Then the school went silent again. The pattern continued into the next school year and nobody said a word. Fast forward to February 2026. The mom gets her son's hair cut. He cries in class. His teacher sits with him for 10 minutes while he tells her everything, that he wants long hair like a girl, that his parents won't affirm his gender identity, all of it. Again, South Carolina law H.4624 exists for exactly this moment. When a student expresses gender identity distress to a school employee, the law says the school SHALL notify the parents. But the teacher didn't call the mom. She called DSS. That same day, February 13, 2026, she filed a child protective services report against this family for "medical neglect..." Medical neglect because A) the boy allegedly coughed up blood and wasn't receiving care. B) Mental injury because the parents won't affirm a gender transition. And... I'm not even kidding C) making him do "manly chores." The mom asked her son what that meant. He said "cutting the grass." DSS showed up at their home on Valentine's Day weekend. Two days later, the family took their son and got a chest x-ray. His lungs were completely clear. He never coughed up blood. The allegation was fabricated. On February 19th, five days after the report was filed, DSS closed the case. Unfounded. No evidence of medical neglect. No evidence of mental injury. Nothing. So just to recap... A teacher had a 10-minute conversation with a 14-year-old, decided his parents' refusal to affirm a gender transition constituted child abuse, invented or wildly exaggerated a medical claim to make the report actionable, violated state law by never calling the parents, and weaponized DSS on a family over Valentine's Day weekend. And the school's response? The principal wrote back defending the teacher. Called the DSS report "appropriate based on medical neglect suspicion." The report that was closed completely unfounded in five days. The report based on a medical claim that was disproven with a chest x-ray. That report. Appropriate The principal also mentioned that staff had received "gender identity training" and that the school followed "applicable South Carolina statutes." But the H.4624 violation, the actual law that was actually broken, was never addressed. Not once. The superintendent promised a full investigation by a Chief Administrative Officer. Instead, the principal, the direct supervisor of the teacher in question, provided the only written response, and used it to defend her own employee. This school watched a student secretly change genders during the school day for over a year and chose not to tell his mother. That's not an accident. You don't miss daily clothing changes in a middle school. They saw it. They allowed it. They made a decision, collectively and repeatedly, that the parents didn't need to know. Then when that same family's values came up in a conversation, the response wasn't to pick up the phone and call mom like the law requires. The response was to report them for child abuse. The silence for a year and the DSS report aren't two separate events. They're the same event. They both reflect the same institutional decision: we know better than these parents, and we will act accordingly, whether that means hiding things from them or weaponizing the state against them. This family did everything right. They got their son counseling. They stayed engaged. They were present. They got a chest x-ray to disprove a fabricated allegation. DSS came into their home, looked at how they parent, and walked out five days later with literally nothing. But the school is STILL calling it appropriate. The mom has filed complaints with both the school and the South Carolina Department of Education. The school defended the teacher. The state has been silent for over a month. Her son is now homeschooled, by the way and she says he's thriving. The school literally weaponized the state against a family for cutting their son's hair. Let that sink in.

🎉 3 BIG WINS TODAY IN THE SC HOUSE! 1️⃣ The House passed a responsible State Budget that helps put money back into YOUR pockets. 2️⃣ The House passed a Historic Income Tax Cut, immediately lowering the income tax and putting us on a path to ELIMINATE the income tax for good. 3️⃣ The House passed Tax Conformity, following President Trump’s lead on the One Big Beautiful Bill and applying those pro-taxpayer policies right here in South Carolina. 🎥WATCH : Speaker Murrell Smith explain what these wins mean for South Carolinians and how House Republicans are delivering real results — lowering taxes, supporting families, and building a more affordable South Carolina. #SouthCarolina #statehouse #scpol #StateBudget #incometax #TaxCuts #OneBigBeautifulBill