The Alliance for Full Acceptance (AFFA), a 501c3 organization based in Charleston, released the following statement on the South Carolina Arts Commission's denial of funding to the Greenville Gay Men’s Chorus and Proud Mary Theatre Company:

"As an organization dedicated to serving LGBTQ+ people in South Carolina, AFFA is extremely disheartened to hear the decision of The South Carolina Arts Commission to deny funding to the Greenville Gay Men’s Chorus and Proud Mary Theatre Company, despite the outpouring of public support for these organizations and their programs.

"When LGBTQ+ organizations are denied funding for projects that have historically received public support, that decision is, on its face, extremely discriminatory and demands serious scrutiny.

"Today, and every day, we join our community members in condemning all forms of discrimination, and demand that LGBTQ+ organizations receive the same fair treatment, consideration, and access to public resources as any other organization.

"Our state entities have a responsibility to serve all South Carolinians regardless of the sexual orientations, gender identities, race, religion, age, disability, or any other characteristic protected by law that an organization represents.

"We stand with the Greenville Gay Men’s Chorus, Proud Mary Theatre Company, and LGBTQ+ organizations across South Carolina. There is no place for discrimination in our state institutions."

Following the recent decision to dismiss Doe v. South Carolina, AFFA and AFFA Action's Executive Director Ashley Peele, and Adele Kimmel, Director of Public Justice’s Students’ Civil Rights Project, put pen to paper regarding the protection of our students in SC schools.

"South Carolina does not become stronger by making some children smaller.

We become stronger when every child can walk through the doors of a school, look around and know: I am safe here. I am valued here. I belong here."

In November 2024, Public Justice and its co-counsel filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of a transgender teen, “John Doe,” his family, and Alliance for Full Acceptance (AFFA), an LGBTQ+ rights organization, to protect transgender students in South Carolina whose civil rights are being violated.

While challenging South Carolina’s bathroom ban, John continued to face transphobic harassment, and South Carolina passed more discriminatory laws that feed baseless stereotypes about, and hostility toward, transgender people. This summer, John and his family decided to relocate to another state so John can attend school in a safe, inclusive learning environment. As a result, they have decided to dismiss their lawsuit.

Ashley Peele is the executive director of AFFA Action – a South Carolina LGBTQ+ policy advocacy organization – but she’s also a South Carolina native, and a queer mom raising three children in North Charleston.

She says the last few years have been tough as lawmakers crackdown on LGBTQ+ protections amid a national backdrop of waning support.

“Some elected leaders– not all of them–are very outspoken about creating a version of this state that does not welcome people like me and my family and my children,” Peele said. “That sort of hostility is hard to balance with how much pride I have for being born and raised in North Charleston and being from the state of South Carolina.”

South Carolina's 192,800 LGBTQ+ adults deserve elected officials who treat them with basic respect—not private slurs and public attacks.

Senator Kimbrell must resign and drop out of the governor’s race.

Closet Corner […] was designed to provide gender-affirming resources for students on campus struggling with body dysphoria. It was made possible through a partnership between the now-defunct Pride Center and We Are Family Charleston, a local nonprofit providing support and resources to LGBTQ+ youth.

The program’s shutdown came without explanation from the college, Mason said. Upon inquiry, administrators said they were not aware of the closure.

Closet Corner was funded by a grant from the Alliance for Full Acceptance, a South Carolina organization advocating for LGBTQ+ rights.

When Ashley Peele considers the future of South Carolina, she imagines a place where all people belong and thrive. As the new executive director of the Alliance for Full Acceptance, she is taking steps to make that vision become a reality.

“I hope my children can be proud of this state at some point for the way that it's including everybody and valuing everybody,” said Peele, who lives in Park Circle with her wife and three young children. “We're not there yet.”

AFFA is an LGBTQ+ nonprofit organization that works across the state to provide education, advocacy and community engagement. AFFA Action is the political advocacy arm that pushes for certain legislative priorities and promotes pro-LGBTQ+ candidates.

The Alliance for Full Acceptance (AFFA) and AFFA Action have appointed longtime board member and Lowcountry native Ashley Peele as their new Executive Director, following a rigorous national search.

Peele brings deep organizational knowledge, lived experience, and a proven record in advocacy and leadership to guide both organizations at a pivotal moment for LGBTQ+ rights in South Carolina.

In a deeply concerning development, the S.C. House and Gov. Henry McMaster have exercised significant influence over the health care decisions made by the Medical University of South Carolina, the state’s premier academic health science center.

This influence has led MUSC Health to interpret H.4624, a law ostensibly meant to protect children,” as prohibiting the gender-affirming care it provides for transgender people of all ages due to the public funding the health system receives.

This interpretation is problematic not only because of its impact on patients, but also because it is a dangerous example to other providers across the state.

The Medical University of South Carolina’s health system will stop providing gender transition procedures and hormones for adults due to a new law signed in May, the hospital confirmed to the SC Daily Gazette on Wednesday.

Chase Glenn, director of LGBTQ nonprofit Alliance For Full Acceptance Action and a transgender man, goes to an endocrinologist at MUSC for his hormone replacement therapy.

As of next month, the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) will no longer provide gender-affirming care to any current or new patients. The decision follows a new state law that prohibits transition procedures for all minors and prevents adult patients from using public funds for procedures.

“When they take the position that this care is something they're no longer able to provide, there are other providers across the state who are going to look to MUSC and say, ‘Well, if they are making that call, then maybe we need to make that call also,’” Chase Glenn, AFFA’s executive director, said.

“From the very beginning, this bill was positioned as helping children and protecting children, which is so frustrating because we know, as advocates for the LGBTQ community, that this law is going to harm kids,” Chase Glenn, executive director of the Charleston-based nonprofit Alliance for Full Acceptance, said. “Not only is it going to harm kids, it's going to take health care decisions out of the hands of parents who are really just doing the best they can to support their kids.”

Over 20 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been filed at the statehouse last session.

AFFA's Executive Director, Chase Glenn, says these bills are the wrong thing to focus on.

"This bill is really about taking away the rights of everyday people—young people, their parents, and even some trans adults— their ability to make their own healthcare decisions. South Carolinians in general should be concerned if the government wants to intervene in our healthcare decisions. That's a slippery slope and we all should be concerned about that."

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R) signed a bill banning gender-affirming care treatments and procedures for those under 18 in his state Tuesday.

“Across the state, from the Lowcountry to the Upstate, South Carolinians are mourning the passage of H.4624, which will make it immeasurably harder for transgender youth and many adults to access the life-saving healthcare that they need and deserve,” Chase Glenn, a leader in the LGBTQ advocacy group SC United for Justice & Equality, said in a statement in a Tuesday press release.

LGBTQ+ advocacy group Alliance For Full Acceptance (AFFA) recently launched a new publicity campaign in support of the transgender community within South Carolina regarding anti-transgender legislation passed by the S.C. legislature in early May. 

“As an organization dedicated to advocating for the rights and acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community, we refuse to stand idly by while our trans community faces discrimination and attacks on their fundamental rights,” AFFA Executive Director Chase Glenn said in the release. “Our campaign sends a clear message: We stand with our trans community, and we will continue to fight alongside them until every South Carolinian can live free from discrimination and fear” 

Religious and community leaders gathered at Emanuel AME Church urging state senators to pass a hate crime bill before the legislative session ends this week.

House Bill 3014 strengthens penalties for certain violent crimes in which a victim was targeted due to their race, color, religion, sex, gender, national origin, sexual orientation or physical or mental disability.

Chase Glenn, executive director of Charleston LGBTQ+ advocacy organization Alliance for Full Acceptance, criticized legislators for taking hours to debate what he called “bad bills that harm individuals” while remaining silent on a piece of legislation meant to protect marginalized groups.

Glenn was referencing last week’s hourslong discussion over a bill that would ban doctors from providing gender transition care for minors, which ultimately passed in the Senate.

South Carolina's $15.8 billion budget was approved in the state Senate Wednesday night after a new provision was added.

It would require students to use the bathroom of their assigned sex at birth and sleep in rooms based on their birth sex during overnight field trips.

“A lot of times the lawmakers who push these types of provisos do it saying they're protecting kids, but they're not,” said Chase Glenn, executive director of Alliance for Full Acceptance.

LGBTQ-plus advocates say restricting students’ bathroom access is dangerous and takes away from schools being a safe place.

Last Friday, the Biden administration released its final Title IX rules, which include protections for LGBTQ students by clarifying that Title IX forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. In South Carolina, Schools Supt. Ellen Weaver directed schools to ignore the new directive while waiting for court challenges.

Responding to the letter, Chase Glenn of Alliance For Full Acceptance stated, “While Supt. Weaver may not personally support the rights of LGBTQ+ students, she has the responsibility as the top school leader in our state to ensure that all students have equal rights and protections, and a safe place to learn and be themselves. The flagrant disregard shown for the Title IX rule tells me that our superintendent unfortunately does not have the best interests of all students in mind.”

South Carolina's $15.8 billion budget was approved in the state Senate Wednesday night after a new provision was added.

It would require students to use the bathroom of their assigned sex at birth and sleep in rooms based on their birth sex during overnight field trips.

“A lot of times the lawmakers who push these types of provisos do it saying they're protecting kids, but they're not,” said Chase Glenn, executive director of Alliance for Full Acceptance.

“Eight years ago, there was a bathroom bill that was filed, and it didn't get passed,” Glenn said. “Yet here we are in 2024 and our lawmakers are wasting time and slipping these types of things into budgets when these are issues that don't impact South Carolinians.”

In a landmark case, a federal jury in Columbia, South Carolina on Friday found Daqua Lameek Ritter guilty of killing a transgender woman, Dime Doe. It is the first time that a federal jury has convicted someone of murder with the motive being the victim’s real or perceived gender identity.

“We know that hate crimes don’t just impact individuals that are the victims of those crimes, because when a person is targeted because of their very identity, it impacts entire communities,” said Chase Glenn, executive director of Alliance for Full Acceptance, a South Carolina-based LGBTQ advocacy group. To be the only state other than Wyoming that has failed to pass a hate crime law sends a message that “our state doesn’t take seriously that they would be targeted for who they are,” Glenn said.

Thousands of people in one of South Carolina’s most conservative counties roared when Donald Trump promised to cut federal funding on “Day 1” for schools pushing what he called “transgender insanity” onto children.

“And I can’t even believe I have to say it, but I do have to say it,” Trump told the crowd this month. “I will keep men out of women’s sports.”

The Alliance for Full Acceptance’s executive director, Chase Glenn, a transgender man, called it “dehumanizing” to have his existence politicized. “It’s really disgusting that these politicians think they can use trans people, and more specifically trans youth, as a political tool to win points,” he said.

"Anytime a bill like this is filed, whether it is targeting access to healthcare for trans folks, access to restrooms, anything like this, it has a real emotional toll on the community," said Chase Glenn, the executive director of Alliance for Full Acceptance. "At this point, our community sees that these bills are filed. There's a negative impact knowing that there are people out there who are targeting them…. Precedent has already been set in the courts on cases like this. The courts have said students have the right to use a restroom that they need to use. So, putting a bill like this into play is a waste of time. This is just a political issue and a way to win political points. The courts have been clear– trans students have the right to use the restroom they need to use."

“The bill wasn’t even penned by South Carolina legislators, but rather written by a special interest hate group (Alliance Defending Freedom) that has made it their business to peddle this bill and other types of anti-LGBTQ legislation to receptive state lawmakers across the country,” said Chase Glenn, executive director of the Alliance for Full Acceptance in Charleston. “Why? Because they are using the trans kids as pawns in their political games.

“If they truly cared for children, they would not waste time and resources on fabricated issues, when there are many more pressing priorities that could directly impact the over one-million children in South Carolina.”

As the Legislature reconvened this week, a cruel bill that would ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth is apparently what some legislators view as their top priority — enough so that the House’s Medical and Health Affairs Subcommittee heard House Bill 4624 on the very first day of the session. The prioritization of this bill raises questions about the Legislature’s commitment to addressing genuine concerns that affect the lives of all South Carolinians.

Transgender issues could prove to be a major topic in the South Carolina State House in 2024, judging by a slew of Republican-led bills filed ahead of the upcoming legislative session…. LGBTQ+ advocates, however, say the nine bills are cruel and bully transgender youth. “At a time when there are many other priorities that I wish our legislators were focused on, singling out transgender youth and young people is a political game, I’m afraid,” said Chase Glenn, Executive Director of AFFA Action.

"South Carolina, we need to wake up." Those were the words spoken by Elder James Johnson of the Racial Justice Network Friday as community leaders joined State Representative Wendell Gilliard for a gathering in downtown Charleston to call for the passage of a bill enhancing penalties for hate crimes. Members of the Jewish and LGBTQ community expressed support for the passage of the bill.

Advocates for the gay and queer community in Charleston say they are excited for big plans and events this pride month, despite what they say felt like an attack on the community by the state lawmakers this session.

Chase Glenn is the Director at Alliance For Full Acceptance. The advocacy group located in North Charleston does a lot of lobbying at the state house for and against certain bills that deal with gay, queer and transgender people.

“Just this year, 19 anti-LGBTQ bills were filed at our state house here in South Carolina,” Glenn says.

A few members of the uber-right S.C. Freedom Caucus want to take away the freedom of businesses to provide entertainment.

Chase Glenn, executive director of the Alliance for Full Acceptance, said Beach’s bill is a direct attack. “Sponsors of this bill are attempting to push LGBTQ+ people out of public life, fan the flames of fear around drag performers and LGBTQ+ culture, and intimidate allies of our community,” he said. “This is yet another bill crafted by national outsiders, then copied and pasted by South Carolina politicians who for some reason seem to be obsessed with LGBTQ+ people, instead of focusing on issues of actual consequence to South Carolinians.”